After exploring Austria, we moved further east in Europe to Hungary. Hungary, called Magyarország in Hungarian, is a member of the EU and part of the Schengen zone – which means it is easy to travel there with a Schengen visa. It is a landlocked country which has borders with Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. Historically, it was part of the Austrian empire and then the combined state of Austria-Hungary which ultimately collapsed after World War 1. And sorry to break your hearts Harry Potter fans, there are no Horntails here!
This blog contains:
The Hungarian Forint
Two things which really stood out for me were the currency and the language. The Hungarian Forint is the official currency and is the weakest one in Europe. After having used Euros in our Austria leg of the trip, we felt weird holding notes of 10000 Forint. In fact, we ended up running out of cash in a restaurant towards the end of our day – read on to know more about this!
The Hungarian language is also very peculiar with very long words and odd combinations of vowels and consonants than what you’d generally find – the result being that it can get quite confusing when you try to pronounce names. But we got along just fine as we were in the capital of Budapest. So, let’s begin our day!
Arriving at the Budapest station
We reached the Budapest Keleti station in the morning, having taken an OBB Railjet train from Vienna (had a breakfast of super awesome and flaky croissants and coffee at a cafe in Vienna station). We had read on a blog that we had to take prints of our train tickets to Croatia from the station itself. Since it was also an international train journey and this time outside the Schengen area (Croatia was outside the Schengen at the time of our travel), we needed physical copies of the ticket printed from the machines available there. We found one machine and printed out our tickets – we had no idea how helpful this was going to be!
Feeling rich moving from Euro to Forint
Our Airbnb was very close to the station – as was the theme for most of our stays during this trip. We walked over to our host, Roberto’s home – a nice old Italian man. We kept our luggage, had a bath and left. We found a currency exchange where we changed 70 euros to 21110 HUF – we got notes with denominations of 10000 and coins of 100! We were planning to walk the city and weren’t sure of how much public transport we would use. So, we picked up a block of 10 tickets from the metro station. This was not a great idea as we would soon realize – always go for the 24 hour card!
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City tour begins
Our first stop was Heroes Square – we took a bus to reach here. The bus routes are well captured on all the bus stops and it is easy to find your way. After exploring the square, we walked to the old castle behind it. There was also a huge bath complex nearby – something that Budapest was famous for. Sadly, we didn’t have time to check out a bath on this trip. We then visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a structure with huge pillars, a giant dome with golden embellishments and overall a beautiful place.
The city of Budapest is divided into two parts – the old part which houses the castle is called Buda and the new one (where we were staying) is called Pest. The river Danube flows in between Buda and Pest. We crossed the chain bridge, with lions engraved on it, that connected the two sides.
The Castle district
We saw a funicular that led straight up to the castle. However, we decided to walk. We walked right into a tunnel and ended up overshooting the place where we had to climb up. So, we had to take steep stairs to reach the castle district up above. It was a long climb and one that completely drained us out – the morning croissant was not enough to fuel the climb. Next time, we’re taking the funicular or a bus!
Super hungry, we went straight to Ruszwurm cafe where we had milkshake, strawberry yogurt cake, coffee and some more delicious bakery items! Now, we were ready to explore the castle district.
We got tickets to the Matthias church and Fisherman’s Bastion – both situated next to each other. The church was beautiful like most European churches with stained glass windows. It also commemorates the coronation of Franz Joseph I and his wife Elisabeth. We saw an interesting Braille and 3D model of the church that was placed there for the blind – it was a great way to include them and help them visualize the church and its structure. We watched the changing of guards at the Buda castle and got some great views of the city – the Parliament, Chain bridge over the Danube and the cathedral we had visited.
After walking along the Fisherman’s Bastion, we took a bus back to the city. On the bus, we met two Indian ladies – well into their 50’s. They were sisters, one living in the US and the other in the UK. They were doing a Eurotrip together and exploring different cities. They walked along with us to the Parliament house. It was a very unique building for a parliament – a gothic structure with spires and gargoyles placed all around it!
Along the Danube, we saw a bunch of metal shoes – a reminder of atrocities committed against the Jews and how they were drowned in the Danube. We said bye to the ladies and continued on our exploration.
A different cruise on the Danube
We wanted to take a boat ride on the river. People generally go for the dinner cruises which is the fancy way to do the ride. We found out that there was a public ferry – the next one would leave at 7:20 pm – it was the cheapest boat ride across the Danube and free for the 24-hour pass holders (we had to pay as we only had the 10-block tickets). We saw the entire Budapest city while cruising along the river and it was a beautiful ride! We got down at the south end of the city. On the boat we met an old man who also came with us on the tram that we got on next. He said he was traveling all over Europe and since public transport was mostly free for senior citizens, he could just hop on and hop off wherever he wanted!
We took the old yellow tram – no.2 and got down at the Danube Promenade.
Dinner with a view along the river
We walked along the line of cafes and picked one which we liked. We ordered pizza and wine and sat there watching the lights go on. It was very beautiful and almost like a dream – sitting in a cafe in Budapest, sipping wine, a nice breeze blowing, the river flowing by, the castle and bridge lit up, live music playing. It was a moment to savor.
The moment came to a rude halt when we got our bill. I opened my wallet and realised that we had run out of cash! And the bill was a few hundred higher than what we had planned. We had calculated the bill amount before we placed the order – how did this happen! Luckily, they accepted my credit card and we were soon on our way. After calming down, we calculated how much money we overspent and figured out that the few hundred forint was less than 200 INR! In my mind, I was still converting currency as per the Euro and hence, started panicking. It happened because we miscalculated the price of the wine – they gave us a top-up during the meal and we didn’t realize the charges!
We took a bus back to our room and called it a day.
Rushing for our train to Croatia
Next morning, we woke up at 5 am for our 5:45 am train! We were lucky that our stay was at a walkable distance from the Budapest Keleti train station. We had less luggage – so, we could just run across the road and get into the train. Remember how we had taken ticket prints the previous day? That came in handy as there was a line of people waiting to get their tickets in the station. We could skip all of that and directly enter.
And like that, we started on our journey to Croatia. You can read all the Croatia blogs here:
- The Croatia Itinerary – Planning your perfect Croatian Chronicles
- A Day in Plitviče National Park – One of the most beautiful places on Earth
- The Dalmatian Coast – Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik – island hopping in the Adriatic Sea
- Getting around Croatia – Travel and Where to Stay
- Croatian food guide – exploring the amazing food of Croatia
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