The title of this entry is a phrase probably not commonly heard in Hungary twenty years ago, but today, that’s the one we used to purchase what we wanted from the sales kiosk at Szoborpark, Budapest’s Statue Park on the outskirts of the city.
After the fall of communism, the communist statues erected by the old order were removed and transported to this park, where they now form a strange iconic graveyard, a reminder of times (not so long) gone by. It’s a strange place to visit, and the statues are even uglier than I had expected, but it was a worthwhile trip and something unlikely to be found anywhere else. A bus goes there directly from Deák tér and returns you to the same spot, giving you about an hour in the park.
Sarah’s lunch idea brought us to the restaurant of the New York Palace Hotel, whose opulent interior looked like Donald Trump had teamed up with Liberace to design it. Actually, that suggests ghastly taste, but the interior was actually very beautiful; it’s just that it was unbelievably exquisite in style and execution. Most of the guidebooks are missing this place, by the way, as it reopened its doors only one month ago after several years of refurbishment.
After lunch, we heeded Bas‘s advice and headed back over to the city park for a dip in the Széchenyi Baths. We weren’t disappointed. The experience was much less confusing than at the Gellért and the baths themselves were superb, especially the outdoor ones.
The main non-swimming pool has a circular area, where the current drives you around and around. It’s a lot of fun. In the very centre of the circle, there’s a rink, where jets bubble air upwards, giving one the feel of a therapeutic massage. Wonderful!
Eloïse had the time of her life in the water, splashing around and trying to float. She’s a little overconfident at present and kept trying to wrest herself free of our grip, as if she were simply descending from a bed (another trick she both started and mastered during this trip). We had to keep a tight hold on her to avoid letting her dunk herself.
The thermal pools would have been a little too warm for her, starting at 36°C and rising from there, so we pretty much stuck to the basic pool, which was a lovely temperature. Sarah and I each spent a few minutes in the thermal pools, with the other one of us looking after Eloïse. Juggling a baby definitely makes it harder to enjoy certain pastimes.
And so our five day stay in the Hungarian capital draws to a close.
What Budapest concedes to Prague in small-town friendly atmosphere and instant appeal, it makes up for with its fantastic thermal pools and divine cuisine. Nevertheless, for me, Prague still has the edge as the city I would choose to live in, if I were looking for a new home.
And what is home, anyway? It’s become rather an abstract concept to us. Whilst Amsterdam is our administrative base, we have as much reason to be wherever we happen to be on any given day of this trip as back in the Dutch capital.
The feeling is a liberating one. There are no material possessions that we miss and no obligations to tether us. Speaking personally, I have my computer, my personal jukebox, my girlfriend, my daughter and our car here. What else might I need? With each passing day that we are still away from home and travelling, the desire to just keep on travelling grows stronger.
Eloïse, too, is a natural traveller. She is stimulated and invigorated by each day’s new sights, sounds, smells and tastes. For example, she has shown herself to have quite an eclectic palate, enjoying slices of lemon (including the rind), green olive spread and cold strawberry soup. She’s had so many new things to try during this trip; it’s a joy to see her face light up when she discovers a new taste that she likes.
She’s also been a fantastic icebreaker for us, a real social lubricant. Everywhere we go, people of varying backgrounds, languages and cultures want to touch her and enjoy her company. We’re so privileged that Mother Nature brought her our way. I look at her sometimes and wonder how I could possibly have had a hand in something so beautiful.
Anyway, tomorrow we check out of the wonderful Kempinski and head north a very short distance to the Baroque town of Szentendre.
I’ll be very sorry to leave Budapest. There’s enough to do here that you could easily fill a couple of weeks without really thinking about it. Just taking the waters in the city’s many baths is something to be enjoyed time and time again.
If we didn’t leave now, however, we’d take root here; we like it a lot. Buda, with its many historic buildings and old town, is at the touristic heart of the city. No visit would be complete without visits to the Mátyás Church, Halászbástya (Fishermen’s Bastion) and Budavári palota (Buda Palace). We saw those yesterday, when we took a #16 bus from Erzsebét tér to Várhegy (a.k.a. The Vár or Castle Hill). For breathtaking panoramas of the city, also, one has to ascend Gellért-hegy to the Citadella and Liberation Monument.
Then there’s Pest, with its cafés, coffee houses, restaurants and shopping; but not to forget St. Stephen’s Basilica, the city park, Parliament, the zoo and innumerable other sights and attractions, not to mention the amazing architecture that abounds all over the city.
Anyway, as stated, tomorrow night we’ll be in Szentendre, as we slowly start to head north-east, back towards the Slovakian border.