Day 237: Exploring Budapest

Woke up early, feeling excited and ready to tackle this great city! It's such a huge place, and the world heritage listed area is quite large so we knew we were up against it, but figured we'd give it out best shot. First stop though was a cafe nearby where we had some breakfast (omelet or toasted cheese) - proper Budapest prices too. It's more local over this side of the river, fewer tourists around.

So off we went on our long day. First stop was the nearby Fisherman's Bastion, with its excellent views of the Danube and back across to the Pest side. Filmed a few things here, though lots of people were around and it was difficult. Got stopped quite a few times by American tourists wanting to pat Schnitzel as well! Filmed outside Matthias Church but decided against going inside this time, we'd been in last time and neither of us felt like revisiting.

Wandering around the upper parts of the castle and did a little more filming, before heading down the ramparts and across the Chain Bridge to the Pest side. Filmed a bit on the bridge as well, since it's such an important step in the city's history (it was the first permanent link between Buda and Pest, and the city was unified about 20 years later).

Checked out the Parliament district, then headed down to the old town where we had lunch at a local salad place - tasty, healthy and relatively cheap. More wandering around the old town, looking at a few different squares and streets we hadn't explored before, then eventually walked up to Andrassy Avenue, the main street running north-east out of central Pest.

This is actually a specific part of the WH site, as well as the underground railway that runs straight below it - the oldest in continental Europe! It's got these awesome belle epoque style stations that haven't been updated in 100 years and it just looks amazing.

We caught the train up to Heroes Square, where we hoped to wrap up in the shadow of famous Hungarians (and the location of revolutions in 1956 and again in 1989). But unfortunately for us, the entire plaza was blocked off and occupied by lined-up police cars! It looked like there had been a commemoration or memorial day or something, as there was a dais set up for VIP speeches and so on. Disappointed, we wandered around a bit then filmed as best we could away from the humourless police.

By now night was approaching, so rather than head home we headed to one of Budapest's more unique features - a ruin pub! These are pubs that started up illegally in abandoned buildings back in the 1990s, and since then they've gradually been legalised and are now probably the most important part of the city's nightlife scene. We'd been to one last time, but this time we headed to the most famous one - Szimpla Kert. Had a few drinks downstairs next to the Trabant that's sitting there for some reason, then later headed upstairs to their burger bar where we had some fantastic burgers.

Satisfied, we decided to head home around 8pm after an exhausting long day! Thankfully we could catch the metro most of the way, the only thing required from us was to purchase a chimney cake for dessert!Read more