(This is the 22nd and final post of our Croatia-Budapest trip, June-July 2014)
Tuesday, July 1
We continued walking down the main boulevard, and seeing this one we both instantly thought of all the Communist propaganda that must have spilled from this building, the Hungarian State Television building. It’s now been converted into luxury offices and apartments, or so says our guidebook.
While I loved the stylized sculpture found on the side of a building under reconstruction, it was only after we got home that I was able to look it up and see what it was (from a Hungarian website, translated into English):
“Saint Kozma (Koszmasz) and Saint Damján (Damianosz) (3rd. century) Christian doctors [and apparently twins]. Damján came from Arabia and engaged in medical practice with Kozma in Minor Asia, Cilicia Aegea. Both were very zealous Christians and suffered martyrdom in 303 because of the the Roman emperor Diocletian’s ordered christian persecution. They were later canonized and honored by the Justinian church pilgrimage by thousands of patients in search of healing. When in 1260 formed the first college of surgeons in Paris, they opted for the patron, and since that time respect them as the patron of the doctors and surgeons. The sculpture is located in the V.th. district on the wall of a polyclinics.”
They are often depicted holding a box, to dispense medicine.
This was our destination: St. Istvan’s Basilica, only about 100 years old, built in Hungary’s millenial celebrations in 1896.
So, no. I don’t know why there is an 1851 on the arch outside.Hi, Dave!
This church’s claim to fame is the “holy right hand” of St. Istvan, kept in this jeweled reliquiary. I like how Dave caught the stained glass windows in this photograph.
We decided to walk across the Chain Bridge–a Budapest landmark, and sauntered dragged ourselves that direction, when Dave found a National Hungarian Souvenir Shop. We found our last chance for some souvenirs! A necklace for me, and two carved birds for him were what we purchased, but there were many lovely things to choose from. Satisfied, we walked on.
According to the guidebook, this bridge was commissioned by Count Istvan Szechenyl, after he was stranded on one side of the Danube for week during the winter, as there were no permanent bridges then, missing his father’s funeral. Built by Adam Clark by 1849, it became a symbol of the joining of the two cities: Buda and Pest into Budapest. The original was destroyed by the Nazis (like so much) but it was rebuilt after World War II.
Yes, even here we find those hideous locks of love. Done! we say, and find our way back home, as we’ve planned all along to go to our favorite restaurant.The Matryoshka Bistro, across from our hotel in the little square.
I can envision them in the kitchen with some tweezers, placing the leaves just so in the dollops of sour cream. This was blini with lamb and homemade sour cream.
I couldn’t leave without having the amazing cold pumpkin cream soup once more. I love their “ham crumbs” and dill jelly garnishes.
The reason why we travel: at the end of a trip, sitting at our last meal, enjoying the culmination of the experience.
Dave had the rolled lamb ribs, mashed potatoes with butter, spinach and roasted tomatoes.
I had the daily fish filet with roasted vegetables and hollandaise sauce. Their plating is as gorgeous as their food is delicious.We shared the desert, which I think is their version of “szirnykiki” or cheese pancakes (they are really more cake-like), floating in vanilla sauce, garnished with sliced pear. We found out that this restaurant also supplied the ice cream to the little ice cream shop next door, so yes, after this we shared an ice cream cone, while sitting in the Loreinc pap ter (square).
We watched the shadows deepen, the small children cross the square on the scooters, the office workers meet each other at the pub next door, and heard the church bells ring, calling the faithful to evening mass. We drank it all in, knowing we will probably never come back, even though we say we will. We lingered long, then finally made our way up the stairs to our room.
Sculpture in the ceiling of the hotel entry way.Good-bye Hungary.
(This is the 21st post of our Croatia-Budapest trip, June-July 2014)
Tuesday, July 1
Yep. Today is the day to get into the Parliament Building–the building that dominates much of the skyline on the Pest side of the river. We worked through the concierge in our hotel, and they were able to get us in, for a small donation of 4,000 florints (approximately 18 US dollars). But our time was later on, so we walked along this side of the Danube.First monument is Attila Jozsef, a statue of a “brooding young poet,” whose most famous poem is about seeing a watermelon float by in the Danube, from probably that very spot.This monument of empty shoes is one of the more poignant of our trip. “While many Jews were sent to concentration camps, the Arrow Cross [the Nazi puppet government at the time] massacred some of them right here, shooting them and letting their bodies fall into the Danube” (Rick Steves).This one is filled with pebbles, a sign of remembrance. While we’ve seen many war dead memorials and many also dedicated to the slain Jews in the Holocaust, the personal nature of these shoes brought home the idea that it was father, mother, sisters, friends who were slain in that most atrocious of regimes. It also made me think of continuing slaughter going on around the world–and how the cycle of evil and horror now continues in places I’ll never visit, and who will never have memorials like this one.
We amble back toward the Parliament.This show of five soldiers is going on. We have video of them moving in precision, but couldn’t quite figure out why people were laughing–was it a parody? But they seemed so serious.Finally we are in, herded through their new visitor center which apparently just opened. It was evident they were still getting the kinks out. It took 10 minutes to get the crowd through security.Up some stairs, down some halls. We snap photos on the run, for we were always moving. Finally we stopped at one spot for five minutes, where the guide — in English, for we had specified an English-speaking tour — spoke to us. Then she flipped into Hungarian and repeated herself. We had a double tour, a double crush of tourists.We finally stop in this hall: the Reception Hall, where many wooden statues surround the columns, apparently the way that the “common man” was represented in these lofty halls of grandeur. I snap photos of the different figurines, but it’s difficult to get a good shot.This is the Assembly Hall of the House of Representatives. Gorgeous. That was another quick stop. Then we went past the Hungarian Crown, where no photos were allowed. This explains why everyone was snapping photos of the replica over in the church in Buda.
This is one I grabbed from the web. Those chains radiating out from the crown are most interesting, as is the tilted cross: “The cross was knocked crooked in the 17th century when the crown was damaged, possibly by the top of the iron chest housing the insignia being hastily closed without the crown having been placed in it properly. The cross has since been left in this slanted position, and is now always depicted as such” (Wikipedia).We were ushered to the top of these steps–where heads of state enter to meet Hungary’s officials, most notably a President and/or the Prime Minister. Then it was over. Thirty minutes of “seeing” and we were ushered out. Quickly now. Right now. Come on now, you tourists need to leave, because I’m a big guy holding a gun. So we did, feeling a bit like we had been had, Hungarian Tourist Office-style. My advice if you ever go there: put your camera on quick shoot mode and take a million photos wherever you are, for you don’t get to linger or compose your shots.Back out, we go past a building that has metal spheres where the bullets riddled the facade in 1956–a year of uprising against the Communist Regime in power.Imre Nagy, the bronze statue on this bridge, was a pre-eminant politician during a difficult time, thought to be on the wrong side of history and was executed by the Soviets. His reputation has since been revised, rehabilitated and his statue now keeps watch on the Parliament across the way. I like the handsome man next to him.
A few minutes earlier, we’d been recruited by four young medical school graduate students to take photos of them together on this bridge. In talking to them, two of them were American, who’d come to Hungary to medical school. I’m sure there was more to this interesting story, but they were off to celebrate as they had just graduated and were all departing for different places.Just up the street is this statue of Ronald Reagan. While it’s interesting to have this here, it was erected in 2011 “to deflect attention from a brewing scandal” (Steves). Dave refused to hold his hand:We walked around the streets in the Leopold Area, noticing this small market–lunch, anyone?–but not much was there.This beautiful building is the Postal Savings Bank, designed in the late 19th century, with beehives along the roofline. Art Nouveau buildings are all around, but the finest was this example (above), the Bedo-Haz building.Don’t mind if we do.This ginger-ale with a slice of orange was a welcome revelation. How come I’ve never thought to put ORANGE in my ginger-ale? I’m so trying this when I get home. It was delicious.We shared a lunch under this umbrella-ed sidewalk restaurant, enjoying the break from the tourist action, recovering from our too-brief tour of the Parliament building. I moaned to Dave that I still had NO souvenirs, none. Zip, unless you count the Croatian T-shirt in the red/white check. Which I didn’t. This was our last day, our last afternoon, and we still have a couple of more things to see. So after paying the bill, we walk on towards St. Istvan’s Basilica.
Next post: Will she get a souvenir? and other sundry events
(This is the 19th post of our Croatia-Budapest trip, June-July 2014)
Monday, June 30
Revived by a break in the action, we head back out, up the graffiti-ed escalator, getting out at the Opera Stop, for I’d heard you could just walk into that building and look around.
I think we need this for our front porch.
What’s this? There are a couple people in line at this freestanding kiosk, and we’re always up for something new.
The woman inside (there is a man helping her in that tiny space) keeps moving the dough rolled on the handled sticks up on the rack. I’m assuming that is the rising rack. When they are ready, she moves all the sticks up a slot in the baker/oven which is really like a radiating grill of heat, blasting the rotating sticks.
When it’s done, she slides off the cooked treat into a pan of toppings: we chose cinnamon-sugar.
What a find! We remarked on how the only treat we knew like this was when the Scouts wrap poppin’ fresh dough around a stick and half-cook/half-burn it over a campfire. We much prefer this one.
We arrive at the Opera House five minutes before they are shutting the whole thing up for a performance, and did we want to attend? Since we were about to begin the Hunt For Dinner, we passed. And after five minutes, they ushered us outside, but we did get a couple of shots.
Portico. There were two vans parked under this elaborate ceiling, and we could see they were broadcasting trucks as the opera was being televised.
This dining establishment was shut down. I”ll bet I know why: some of those 30,000 students who graduated from law school grew up and work now for corporate America, shutting down knock-offs. But it is clever.
Dave had the pepper stew (above) and I had the “Home pasta.” I was the winner, but Dave’s was pretty good, too. Not too many restaurants were open; the waiter explained they’ll all be open later, after dark. I’m thinking “after the soccer match.”
We cap it off with this lovely cake. I often feel like I’m off-sync with the nightlife in the cities we go to. After walking for 8+ hours some days, we are tired and ready to call it quits, so are usually at those eating establishments way before they are ready for us. We probably wear overly-padded athletic shoes, too, and have grey hair. Well, a few strands.
We wanted to eat early tonight for one reason: to get pictures of the Parliament Building. We take the Metro under the Danube, getting off at the first stop, and find a place along the promenade. We are slightly off-center, so Dave walks down to see if he can get a better shot. As I wrote in my journal:
“We stood on the walkway on the Danube River, across from the unlit Budapest Parliament Building. We were nearing the end of our Croatia-Budapest trip and the long day of sightseeing was coming to close. We watched the boats move up and down the river, turning and retracing their steps to pass by again past the stately building, waiting as we were. And then we saw it—the faint glow of lights on the building, the sky deepening into blue, the rain clouds of that day a backdrop to the lit edifice. Dave went a bit further down the promenade to see if he could get past those “irritating cruise boats” that were blocking his perfect photograph.
“The next thing I know he is standing on the waist-high wall that prevents tourists like ourselves from falling thirty feet below to the concrete dockside, and I know what he is thinking—trying to get above the cruise boats and the docks. But when I saw him flailing his arms backward trying to regain his balance, my heart skips a beat and I’ve rushed forward to that place in time where I’m trying to figure out how to get a dead tourist home on the airplane, and I start muttering, “Get. Off. The. Wall” over and over, and thankfully he does. He comes walking back to me with a smile on his face, most likely very aware of the near heart attack I must have been suffering.
“We attempt a selfie photograph here, but we are too old for these things, so a young couple rescues us, laughing when I tell them I want them to shoot it in square format for my Instagram feed. We are certainly not what they expect Instagrammers to look like, but whatever, we are what we are: middle-aged tourists in sneakers with some wrinkles, both in clothing and faces.”
I loved the kissing couple behind us in this version.
And now our attention turns back to the deepening night, and the rising of the lights on the building:We stayed until it was dark, cold and a bit windy, and headed home. One more day.
Next post: Parliament, and Ronald Reagan holds hands with Elizabeth
(This is the 19th post of our Croatia-Budapest trip, June-July 2014)
Monday, June 30
We begin Day 2 in the rain, but still have to stop to see the beautiful manhole covers. I know there are plain-jane ones in these countries we travel in, and perhaps this is just putting on the dog for the tourists, but I love the detail and the signifier that You are not in America.
Always on the lookout for interesting pattern-whether it be on a rainy sidewalk or a window or a manhole cover.
We switched trains somewhere underground, finding our way to the beginning of the walk.
No, I don’t know why I took picture of all the trains we rode on that day, but there you are.We made our way to the beginning of our Rick Steves’ Pest Town Center Walk, so we get off at Vorosmarty Ter metro stop and arrive in a large square with a giant soccer ball on a pedestal. The shops are just beginning to open, but we’re headed for the Danube Promenade. I read off Steves’ bon mots as we scurry by famous shops, shopping streets and buildings.
We pass by the Bard on our way to other sights.
The view across the Danube to Buda, and above that, the bas relief map that tells us what we are seeing.
We found the Little Princess, wearing a jester hat. I made Dave pose for the photo for about 3 minutes, trying to get the exposure right. I came home and Photoshopped it alive, so you can see how everyone touches the statue’s knee, a common occurence with statues around the world: a body part rubbed shiny by the visitors.
I’m shaking the hand of this statue, although in reality, she’s reaching for the dog’s ball. I even have one more late one night, of Dave shaking some other statue’s hand. We always get a kick out of English, as translated by the locals. Thanks God, it’ Happy Hours. Our favorite one was in Italy, when the owner of the hotel was trying to describe the newest building addition to the old restaurant, and called it their “outhouse.” We didn’t know whether to tell them that they’d used a term for an outdoor latrine to describe the wing of the hotel where our rooms were, or not. I think we mentioned it briefly, knowing that nothing would change.
A big concert hall: the Pesti Vigado. We watched tons of videos about how to get tickets to concerts and to the all-famous baths, but ended up doing nothing but the usual. I think those are things that require a lot of foresight, or a local to show you around.
The famous McDonald’s–the first McDonald’s behind the Iron Curtain, during Communist times. Apparently when it opened, lines stretched around the block to get a taste of the West.
Still soccer madness going on.
First and only traditional dress seen in Budapest.
The facade of the “Parisian Courtyard,” a “grand, hidden gallery with delicate woodwork, fine mosaics and a stained glass dome,” which we didn’t see because it was all locked up.We amble to the next stopping place, admiring even this touch of beauty in a cement windowbox.
The walk takes up this way, and I do a double take–it’s the sweet little plaza with the book fountain from yesterday evening. I love it when our paths cross again. As a tourist (and probably readers of travel blogs) eyes can glaze over at all the new! fabulous! historical! sites, so when you re-visit something, there’s a lovely frisson of happiness: “I know this place. I am not lost. I am “getting” Budapest!”
We find out it is called Egyetem Ter, or University Square. One building on this street houses the law school for ELTE, and at 30,000 students, it’s one of the biggest universities in this city. (ELTE stands for Eotvos Lorand Technical University, named for an influential physicist. I love Rick Steves’ books.)
We peek inside one of the university buildings bordering this street and find this lovely courtyard. Dave reaches for my camera and the screen goes dark. “WHAT??” Now two cameras are out of whack?!? I take it back from him, and try a few buttons, and end up pressing the “Display” button at the bottom of the camera. The screen comes to light.
Dave looks at me. “That’s all?” he says. He pulls out his supposedly broken camera, turns it on, and presses the Display button. Well, la-dee-da! Camera fixed.
I start laughing, asking “You mean you didn’t try that before?” He shakes his head no, and I giggle some more. “Glad to help you out,” I say, feeling dumb that I hadn’t thought to try it. But I just took his word for How Things Were. Glad we are back in business with two cameras.Interesting door and window in a round iron facade. We wonder if it’s not some sort of night club.Finally! We’ve arrived at Market Hall. It’s still sort of gray and rainy, but the roof is full of those little tiles like the church on the hill and I’m sure in the sunlight, it would be grand. I’d said all along I wanted to buy a matryoshka when we got to Market Hall, one of those nesting dolls. We walked in–and started gawking and staring. It’s just such a huge scale with so many shops, most selling paprika, like the ones below:Rick Steves said to head upstairs for lunch, so we do.We wandered and wiggled our way through the crush, finally stopping at the last stall on the upper hall. I ordered roast chicken and a version of pickled cabbage, which I call rotkohl, but it goes by other names as well. It was amazing. I had no idea what any of the Hungarian words said, so I just pointed at the array of food, and they served it up (although it took some time to get to the front of the line.)
Dave got some goulash, and while it looks just like any other regular soup–the flavor was also incredibly delicious. We ended up talking to four British tourists who shared our wobbly benches and table, and got their traveling stories. They said they’d been there before and knew to come to this stand. So if you are going there, face the hall on the upper level at the back, head down the right-hand side and eat at the last stall.
Snacks to have on the way out in order to console me, because there wasn’t one matryoshka that didn’t look like it had been made in China. . . or looked like Dolly Parton, with huge eyelashes and tons of paint/make-up; they all were over-produced, mass-produced. I was so sad, for that’s what I’d been hoping to get here on our trip for my souvenir. Now. . . nothing.
Back outside we admire the buildings surrounding the square.We found our way to a tram stop, found the right tram and headed home to Palazzo Zichy Hotel for a break.
(This is the 18th post of our Croatia-Budapest trip, June-July 2014)
Sunday, June 29
We start this day with breakfast, which is the lower level, but open to the main floor. This is looking down into the eating area. What follows are all the different stations and possibilities for breakfast.
Breakfast Salad
Orange juicing station
Fruits with Nuts/Seeds/Raisins for topping
Paprika, Salt and Pepper
Usually the breakfast area was popping, but this shot is from the last morning, when we left to the airport early.
Our breakfast. We learned to use a roll basket to bring our choices to the table. Of course, we normally have this kind of spread at home. Right.
Fruit detail. We thought the addition of cherries was unique.
Detail, front door of our hotel
Budapest is basically two cities: Buda and Pest, but were joined ages and ages ago. The basic rule is Buda is on the hill, and Pest is on the flats. We decided to explore St. Matthias Church on Castle Hill, since it was Sunday, and also because the sun was still out. We were always cognizant of the weather reports.
We walked up to the Metro stop closest to our hotel (we learned a short cut on the last day–of course) and purchase our 72-hours transit pass, good for buses and Metro and whatever.
Tile in the Fraz Josef Metro Stop.
Outside the Metro station: a blind zebra-ed elephant (above) and a tribute to Raoul Wallenberg (below).We found our way to Bus #16, which took us to the top of the hill, along with HORDES of other tourists. The tourist industry is alive and well here.
Looking down towards Pest, situated across the Danube River. I have a fond attachment to that river, as it rolls through Austria as well, the very first place where Dave and I traveled (on our honeymoon). I still remember walking down to the river one night from our little bed and breakfast, slipping off my sandals and dipping my feet into the chilly water. As the famous saying goes, you never step foot in the same river twice, and there’s been a lot of rivers since that moment years ago.
This area is known as the Fisherman’s Bastion, as fishermen used to guard this area above the fish market just below during the Middle Ages, however all these current structures date from the 1896 reconstruction efforts.The church still wasn’t open so we explored the small plaza next to St. Matthias’ church, with these bas reliefs at the base of the equestrian statue. The ornately tiled roof reminded me of the one on St. Mark’s Church in Zagreb, but I couldn’t find any information linking the two. Here’s a closeup from the internet:
The shot from below, those stairs leading up to the Fisherman’s Bastion.
We walk around the area of the church, noticing this beautiful gate with a hideous Lock of Love attached (maybe it’s a new form of graffiti?).
We decide to walk around the upper Buda area while waiting for the church, and noticed this building also had a tiled roof.
This is the Turul Bird, a mythical bird of Magyar folktales, which supposedly led the Hungarian migrations “from the steppes of Central Asia in the ninth century. He dropped his sword. . . indicating that this was to be the permanent home of the Magyar people. . . and remains a symobl of Hungarian pride.” This is at the entrance into the Royal Palace plaza on the Danube side, near this gate:A mildly hot day, we walked to the very end of the upper area near the Royal Palace (below, home to several museums which we didn’t see) to a long promontory which gives a great views of Pest, the flatland city. Apparently, this hill is “considered one of the last foothills of the Alps” so everything before is a part of the “Great Hungarian Plain.” (quotes from our Rick Steves’ guidebook) That bridge to the left is the Chain Bridge, which we’ll walk on on our last day.
We walked back up to the church on the other side, with views into those foothills. Along the way, we looked in all the stalls for souvenirs, for we are Departure-Day-minus-3 and we have almost no souvenirs from this trip, which causes me great stress, and Dave, none at all. But all of the little stalls seemed to be stocked with stuff we’d never want to take home, like kerchiefs from China, straw hats and overly made-up dolls (think: Dolly Parton) in cheap native costuming. So we settled for sharing a soda, while letting the breeze float around us, cooling us off.
In we go. But first, a little story about how we became compatible tourists. It all started in a hilltown in Italy when we shared one camera. I’d stop to take a picture of every detail, doorknob, post box then hand it over to Dave, who was muttering about how long I took and then would stand at the edge of whatever view sight there was and take landscape photo after landscape photo, the camera held out at arms length, then would swing the camera around on the strap when he was walking somewhere, which gave me hysteria, as I imagined the camera going flying across some cobblestone street and crushed by a car. We were a good team, if you consider the subject of the photos, but in reality, sharing one camera became like sharing one toothbrush. Not advisible for marital harmony. So we bought two and touristed happily ever after.
Until this morning when somehow, some way, we discovered that Dave’s camera doesn’t work. It can take photos through the view finder, but we have come to depend on the use of our articulating screens to capture what we see. I decide to swap him, seeing if I can go old-school and use the view finder, but I can tell, like so much else of our modern life, that I am completely acclimated to the swing out screen and this will be a challenge, esp. for close-ups and detail shots, which are my favorite thing to take. He also is swinging my camera around by the strap, which as mentioned before, completely freaks me out.
So as a result, nearly all of the excellent photos below are taken by Dave, except for when he’d come and find me and I’d use it for a while. I’m also still recovering from Traveling with the Relatives, so I can’t say I was a great contributor to a harmonious day. So it was good to be in a church with lots of gorgeous space and rich, decorative surfaces to distract and mellow out. This was a beautiful place. Enjoy the photos:
Notice the small church she holds.
I love this off-center round window.
Time heals all wounds and so does lunch, even if it is just a crisp, oh-so-deliciously-chilled salad with hearty bread. The camera is still not working and Dave figures it’s something like a loose wire, so he keeps gripping it and flipping it open with force, further causing some alarm. It just won’t be fixed, so we move forward into the rest of the day, with a subway ride over to the Jewish Synagogue.
I was fascinated that I could look all the way down the train, with no doors in between cars.Also known as the Dohany Street Synagogue, this Jewish Synagogue is the biggest in Europe and the second biggest after the synagogue in New York City. It was loosely patterned after the descriptions of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, which explains the two tall towers. Many think this synagogue feels very Catholic-like.
Like many other reconstructions of Budapest, these massive chandeliers are recasts of the originals, the World War II having destroyed what hung here before. The pews are original, as are the nameplates:
After touring the interior, we went outside to the garden behind the synagogue, to see this elegant sculptured Tree of Life by Imre Varga, honoring Holocaust victims. The “willow makes an upside-down menorah, and each of the 4,000 metal leaves is etched with a name….New leaves are added all the time, donated by families of the victims.”The Hebrew inscription reads, “Is there a bigger pain than mine?”
The tour guide passes us off to someone else, who walks us through the Jewish Quarter, where we saw this beautiful facade of a building. We make our way back, then sit on the low stone wall, our energy flagging.
Near us is a red bus with Viking Cruises emblazoned on the side. We watch a lot of PBS television, so waited to see the fabulous-looking people that they depict in their advertisements. We are so tired that sitting on a hard stone wall is a good thing, while waiting to see who shows up. Suddenly the young man bounces out of the bus, holds up a Viking Cruises paddle and waggles it back and forth. A stream of older folks, older than us perhaps, in highly cushioned athletic shoes, baggy pants and wilted expressions slowly makes their way past their guide and onto the bus. We realize that Viking Cruises, while fabulous and helpful, are still in the tour business and they still have to deal with folks like us. We collect ourselves and jump on a tram, two equally wilted tourists riding away from yet another noted tourist attraction.
Dave nudges me after a while. “Let’s get off here.” Here? Why not.
We are in a small square of some anonymity, anchored by this enormous statue at the edge of a building, the soldier caught in motion as he falls, his countrymen and Liberty (?) herself reaching out to catch him–a memorial to those who died in World War I.
And then this fabulous fountain–a book of turning pages.
We’d been discussing the redoing of our front yard at home, and adding a fountain. “This one!” I say. “Let’s add a book fountain!” Tempting.
We find out later that we are in University Square, with terrific little bits of urban art, sculptured lightpoles and a few restaurants, all surrounded by the university buildings.
While we do end up eating at the cafe shown above, we first start on the opposite side of the square, for we always have to check every restaurant in the area before deciding where to eat. But after the friendly English-speaking woman who greeted us sat us down, took off the pristine table cloth to reveal a tattered table, brought us a menu in Hungarian, I bailed and went to the little place above, which promised free Wifi, but we never could get it to work. Never mind.
We share the salad, then the chicken (yes, it’s a bit underdone, but the presentation is lovely).
The stuffed squash’s stuffing was pretty good, but the squash needed a few more minutes in the oven. We were the first ones, typical of English-speaking tourists of a certain age with thick athletic shoes on their feet, so we think we probably surprised the kitchen.
The dessert was great.
We found our way home at the end of that day, climbed the steps to our hotel and crashed.
We continued walking down the main boulevard, and seeing this one we both instantly thought of all the Communist propaganda that must have spilled from this building, the Hungarian State Television building. It’s now been converted into luxury offices and apartments, or so says our guidebook.
So, no. I don’t know why there is an 1851 on the arch outside.
Hi, Dave!
The Matryoshka Bistro, across from our hotel in the little square.
We shared the desert, which I think is their version of “szirnykiki” or cheese pancakes (they are really more cake-like), floating in vanilla sauce, garnished with sliced pear. We found out that this restaurant also supplied the ice cream to the little ice cream shop next door, so yes, after this we shared an ice cream cone, while sitting in the Loreinc pap ter (square).
Good-bye Hungary.
