Nick and I were happy to finally be leaving our hostel in Tapolca early in the morning. Our train to Budapest was short and easy, only a few hours and direct. We arrived to our next hostel in the late morning and were able to check in right away since the room was ready, which was great. We love it when that happens. The hostel was a significant improvement compared to our previous stay, but the bar was low. It had many ‘secret’ doors leading to different sections. We could tell it used to be several apartments that they opened up and combined to make the hostel. Giant paintings or mirrors were the most common doors or secret entrances to get to the back where we were staying. It made me feel like I lived in a spy’s house.

Our hostel was on the Pest side of Budapest in a nice area near a big park. Funnily enough we never really ended up exploring the park we were beside. For lunch we had smashburgers from Hacky’s Burger. As it turns out, Budapest is obsessed with smashburgers. Every other restaurant was a smashburger place which was hilarious, random, and delicious. I was so on board. That afternoon we walked around some of Pest’s central districts. Our activity budget was pretty accounted for in Budapest, so we didn’t enter any of the buildings, but from the outside we took a walk around Dohány Street Synagogue, St. Stephen’s Basilica, and the Hungarian State Opera. We took the scenic Andrássy Avenue to the Hero’s Square.

After a rest at the hostel, for dinner we had langos from Retro Langos Budapest. We opted for the Hungarian ones with red onion, sour cream, cheese, and bacon. They were pretty good. We have langos in Sweden so they weren’t a new thing for me, but I am used to having them with little shrimps on top instead.

The only activity we had booked for the day was a prosecco boat. The pier was mayhem with people getting off a dozen boats and others lining up to board them. Once on our boat we were served prosecco immediately, and Nick got lemonade. There were several options of beverages: about 3 types of spritzes, beer, lemonade, lemon water, and prosecco. It was all you could drink so I had about 6 glasses of wine. The photos were hilarious. I don’t drink much to begin with, but especially not on this trip so to say I’m a lightweight in an under statement. The boat went up and down the river past iconic Budapest buildings such as the Buda Castle and the Parliament building. Our boat time covered both sunset and when it was dark, a great combination to see everything with both lightings. I particularly loved passing under all of the many bridges.

The next morning was a bit of a rough one. We got home somewhat late after our boat ride and had to wake up early for our spa day. We had figured after 9.5 months of backpacking we would appreciate it, and we were right. A short walk from our hostel was the famous Széchenyi thermal bath. Once we arrived we got two small bottles of Hungarian sparkling rose, and two small bottles of apple juice. That meant 4 glasses of wine for me and 4 of juice for Nick. My wine consumption after two days in Budapest was more than the two years before that. The spa was beautiful. The entrance hall was long and lined with couches to wait for massages.

The spa had many indoor and outdoor areas. There were two big relaxing pools outside and a lap pool in the middle. One of the relaxing pools had water that fell from a small height with great pressure that was nice on the shoulders. It also had a mini whirlpool/current in the center which spun you around surprisingly fast. I could not stop laughing when I was in there. In the morning it was not too crowded but it slowly got packed before lunch. Outside also had several types of saunas, including a more traditional naked one.

Inside, the building was long with dozens of pools of various temperatures and sizes. There were also an incredible amount of speciality rooms. My favorite was the salt inhalation chamber where salt was sprayed in the air. There were also saunas of various temperatures, steam rooms, and beer therapy. We opted not to participate in the beer therapy. Nick and I got a couple’s massage, which was amazing after all of our hiking the past few weeks. We both really enjoyed ourselves. The spa experience was 4 hours long. For some people that may have been too long, but there was so much to do that it could’ve been longer to be honest. Nick and I didn’t even have time to explore one of the lounge areas upstairs.

After the spa we got freshened up back at the hostel before heading out to lunch. As it turns out, we probably waited too long to eat because one of us was hangrier than usual. We won’t say who, though. We ate at Bors Gastro Bar, which served delicious soups and grilled baguette sandwiches. Nick had goulache, and I had the ‘Barack Obama’, which was pork, grilled apricots, and cheese on a baguette. After lunch we had planned on stopping in at the beautiful Párisi Udvar Hotel for a drink, but quickly realized that we were underdressed. Nick had to awkwardly hang out in the lobby while I used their toilet before we left under the unapproving gaze of the hotel staff.

We felt much more at home walking around the small, but pleasant, Károlyi Garden, before making our way to the Central Market. The market was the most Kajsa friendly one we have been to. No one was yelling at us to buy stuff, we had room to walk, there were touristy sections and sections more for locals, and it was well organized. We enjoyed a few pastries in there before continuing our walk by heading to the waterfront. The Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial for Jewish lives lost during WWII was moving. The metal shoes memorialized the men and women who had to remove their shoes before being shot at the river. Before dinner we walked around the Parliament building to admire it from closer than a boat. Dinner was at Ket Szerecsen, which was phenomenal; the highlight was meat with Hungarian style ratatouille.

Before making our way to Buda we stopped to have lunch at 3AT Burger, a Kansas City Chief’s themed smashburger restaurant. We did not know it was Chief’s themed until we arrived and we thought that was both funny and random. It seems to be trendy to have American sports team themed establishments in Europe. The food was great, but my stomach was not feeling that great. Nick might say it was from having copious amounts of gelato, but I know it must have been something else. We then continued making our way to the river where we’d cross over to Buda.

Our favorite bridge in Budapest was the Chain Bridge, which had impressive lion statues on each side of the bridge on both sides. There were also pedestrian walkways on both sides and at night time it was all lit up. From the bridge we got a nice preview of Fisherman’s Bastion, a gorgeous white washed fortress on the Buda side of the river. Originally we had thought to head over there early in the morning to avoid the crowds, but in the end decided to have a relaxed start since we wanted to be on the Buda side for sunset, too.

Fisherman’s Bastion was definitely one of the busiest places we visited in Europe, although sometimes we got lucky with timing and could get photos without a massive crowd in the background. The fortress was small and easily walkable. For a fee, we went up to the upper balcony level which had great views of the Pest side of the river, including the Parliament building. The area also had a large church in the middle and some statues. This was photoshoot mayhem for many people (myself included) and reminded me of some of the attractions in China we had been to where everywhere you looked people were posing for photos.

After the Fisherman’s Bastion our ticket for the balcony had also included a view from the tower of a different church, the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene. It was a short walk away from the main area and we got to see more colorful neighborhoods on the way. The view from the tower was nice; our favorite part was a building that’s roof had the same pattern as an Icelandic sweater. The tower was strict on when people could go up or down as there was only room for one direction at a time in the tight spiral staircase. It meant once we were done taking in the view we had to wait a pretty long time until they told us we could go back down.

It was still pretty early so we had time to head back over to Pest for an early dinner before sunset. When we looked online it didn’t seem like Buda had many good restaurant options at all which was surprising to us since it had so many of the main tourist attractions. On the way we found a great viewpoint of the Chain bridge and Buda side. For dinner we ate the best pizza from Manu+. For dessert Nick tried a delicious traditional Hungarian chimney cake from Pichler Chimney Cake & Gelato. I got gelato instead, but the smell from the bakery was mouth watering.

After our short pop over to Buda we made our way back over to Pest to walk up the Gellért Hill for sunset. During our meandering we accidentally found the lovely Castle Garden. It had a balcony overlooking the city, a fountain, nice landscaping, and a lawn many couples were enjoying together. On our walk we also saw a few statues before finally making it to a spot we deemed good enough for sunset. The hillside has so many trees blocking the best areas for sunset we wondered why it was recommended as a thing to do. Maybe we just went to the wrong spots, though.

After our sunset views, Nick and I made our way back down through the forested path to walk along the river pathway. The area was insanely busy with pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters. There were some tense altercations between pedestrians and cyclists as pedestrians were so many in number that they often overflowed into the bike lane. Our favorite was a man on a scooter who had to essentially jump off in order to not hit a person who had suddenly moved into the bike lane. He yelled at him, and aggressively pointed to the symbol for the bike that just so happened to be right in front of them. It was great people watching. Our walk ended in front of the lit up Parliament building, which was our intention. We sat on a wall and reflected on how much we loved Budapest before making our long walk home.

For our final day in Budapest we got tickets to the Budapest Wine Festival. Our biggest reason was because we wanted to see Buda Castle, but due to the festival it was closed to the public unless you had tickets. Nick and I did a quick stop back at Fisherman’s Bastion first to see it while it was less busy. It was a rainy day so less people were out and about. That made a world of difference. Then we made our way to the wine festival to see Buda Castle.

The festival gave us each these wine holding bags that went around our necks. In addition to being hilarious, they worked really well so we could have our hands free to try samples and take photos. We saved the bags for Nick’s mom, a wine lover. I got to enjoy Nick’s free glass of wine and my own, trying a Spanish one and a Hungarian one. To be honest, the Hungarian one was not to my taste at all and I had a hard time drinking it. I got a Hugo Spritz to help wash it down. I am not a big wine person to begin with, but dry/not sweet wines are not for me. The festival had the same carts on repeat. Overpriced food and various wine stalls. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gloomy rainy weather impacted the vibe, too. For us it was just fun to see it since we don’t do stuff like that often. A highlight was meeting an older Hungarian couple in line at a stall and chatting. They ended up giving us their olive oil and focaccia samples, which was amazing. Any person who gives me food is a winner in my books.