Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Bathing in Coffee and Goulash (not literally)

Second in Budapest, not so warm waking up but our 40 minute walk to the city park soon warmed us up. We did debate taking transport to the baths, but to me it seemed complicated so, we walked. I was still knackered from the excess amount of walking the day before, so not only did the 40 minutes walk wake me up, it tired me out too.



We passed some more impressive statues, I actually wish I had some sort of guide to all the statues in the city, some of them were so beautiful, sounds cliches but they looked liked they had a story behind them. Or I'm going to make them up.



The Szechenyi Baths were magnificent. Look it up on the web, look at those photographs, that is what it actually looked like, except the main pool in the middle outside wasn't open, but otherwise, it was it was still really fun. It took a lot of convincing from my sister to buy a swimming costume and actually get into the pool. I love swimming but I have my own reasons for going for so long. Swimming pool changing rooms are disgusting, sorry, but they are. I despise them. That hideous experience aside, I loved the baths and did sit a while in the thermal pool too, although not too long, it got crowded. The outdoor pools were heated and I didn't want to leave but were were both getting sleepy and hungry.


After we had decided to get the metro back and we had washed our hair and things, we wondered down the main street that felt so familiar to us, we both felt like we had been in the city longer than a day and half. We had been recommended a particular cafe by someone and as it turned it was the same cafe that I myself was really keen to visit. The Book Cafe - Lotz Terem is located in a 19th Century building that used to be a department store, now a modern book shop, similar to Waterstones (to me anyway). The cafe is up an escalator and has a magnificent mirrored ballroom with a beautifully painted ceiling by Karoly Lotz.



We enjoyed some more delicious cake and oh my the Irish coffees we had were amazing. I finally had the coffee in Budapest. At first I was afraid that I wouldn't get any cake, I had to ask about nuts/peanuts in the cakes and the waitress said they can't guarantee no nuts, but I chose a blueberry mousse to be safe, it was so good we shared one the next day, but thats another post.




Later on in the evening we went back towards the Great Market Hall to sample some traditional goulash at For Sale, a bar/pub/restaurant. First impression was, wow, look at all that paper pinned to the wall, second was fear. On every table there was a gigantic bowl of monkey nuts. There nuts on the floor too, nuts falling from the tables upstairs, just everywhere. Avoiding them, my sister and I sat in the window and enjoyed some more Hungarian beer and of course we had the goulash. It was super nice.

The notes that covered the walls of the bar were all written by people who had visited, so many from around the globe. We also left a note. I hope it's still there.

After a few more drinks, we made our way back to our part of town, but we instead of packing for the next day, we went to an amazing bar/club. For the life of me, I can't remember what it was called. It wasn't far from the first bar we went to on the first night. It was like walking into a bazaar. There were several places to go. There was a bar just for cocktails, people were smoking shisha in one part, smoking outside in the terrance area while watching a movie on a projector that was on the second floor. We had one drink there then ate some really good pizza, mine was ham and apple, sounds weird but tasted so good.

A day of baths, coffee, cake, beer and goulash.


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