Budapest is the lovely capital of Hungary and we expected it to rival the beauty of Prague in every way. Budapest is a combination of the twin cities of Buda (West of Danube) and the Pest (East of Danube). The Buda side is the hilly and scenic side whereas the Pest side hosts the museums and other historic monuments and the Andrássy út.We stayed at the Hotel Buda. An old hotel with really friendly staff, nice views of the buda hills
and great connections into the city by bus and tram. Having gotten off at the airport, we got a bit of a shock. It was as if we had stepped out of Europe and into a developing economy (which it is). The ghosts of the communist era are still very visible in Budapest. Old delapidated buildings, an ageing subway system that looks right out of an old 1950s war movie and busses with seats ripped out and grafitti all over them greet the visitors coming in to visit what is touted as one of the prettiest cities in Europe. I wasn't as surprised by this state of Budapest as I was by the fact that we didn't see any of this in Prague.Don't get me wrong, as you would see from the pictures attached to this post, central Budapest is a very very beautiful city. Everything from the Buda castle perched up on a hill to the chain bridge and to the neo-gothic parliment building is simply breathtaking, even more so at night than during the day.
Central Budapest is much larger than central Prague. We spent the first evening walking around the Pest side of the river. We took the number 4 tram, the most used tram in the world, to get to the Octogon and walked into the city from there. We passed by the St Stephens Bassilica, the chain bridge and the famous New York Hotel facing the chain bridge and the castle and walked over the bridge to look at the magnificent neo-gothic parliament.
The second day was spent walking around the Andrássy út. Andrássy út is the most posh street in Budapest with amazingly large and beautiful houses flanking either side of this street. It runs on either side of the Octogon. One side leading to the river and the other leading the the Hősök tere (heroes square). It being a Sunday, the road was closed to Traffic and there was a very festive atmosphere around. Street art (accidental art), little shops, hungarian stage plays and dancers, musicians and the odd eccentric with his two huskies on a grass patch in the middle of the street:). Couldn't not take a picture of him now.
The rest of the day was spent pretty much taking the local trams and buses around town and spending some time just getting to know the city.
I also snapped up a couple of interesting pictures of the castle and Budapest historical skyline.
