Budapest!

To start off, we LOVED Budapest. It's gorgeous, and full of history and almost shamefully inexpensive. There is also a surprisingly good selection of gluten free places, and menus tend to be well labeled. Since it's so inexpensive, we actually ended up eating out quite a few times. 


Our apartment was lovely and big and right on a very busy square with lots of bars and restaurants. We could have lived without that last part, but it was nice to have so much space to spread out. Our hostess was also very sweet. The poor woman had just fractured her L1 vertebrae a few days earlier and was strapped in to a brace. Contrary to what would have been entirely acceptable, she did not cancel our reservation and met us at the apartment to give us the keys. She was very nice and made some great recommendations, and I'm only sorry that her injury meant that we couldn't spend a little more time with her. I hope her recovery is fast and without complication. 
We were away from the very touristy part of town, which meant we had about a 15 minute walk to get to anything really interesting, but that's no big deal to us, by now. Jay's knee is mostly doing okay. We got into Budapest quite late on Sunday and after a very fast and quite thrilling cab ride, we found ourselves at our apartment. We crashed almost immediately. The next morning I went to the grocery store and had fun smiling blankly as the woman asked me questions in rapid hungarian when I checked out. It all worked out, and we had eggs for breakfast. Once Jay was done working for the day we wandered around the neighborhood a bit and then went to an entirely gluten-free place called Koles (there is probably supposed to be an accent on one of those letters, or something).

There is something uniquely terrifying about your first meal out in a foreign country, but she spoke enough english that we made it work. I had this pea dish with some pork that was delicious and she gave me WAY too much and I was STUFFED. Jay had a yummy turkey thing with rice. They had some gluten and dairy free desserts though, so we took them to go. All in all, we got two huge tasty satisfying meals and two desserts to go for about $12.

Then we walked over to the river and saw the Chain Bridge. The Chain Bridge was the first bridge permanently connecting Buda and Pest (we were staying in Pest). Legend has it that it's designer was so proud of his creation he challenged anyone to find fault the bridge. When someone found that the lion statues on either side didn't have tongue, the designer reportedly committed suicide. Legends surrounding monumental structures in Europe tend to involve suicide frighteningly more often than not. It is a beautiful bridge though. 

We walked across and then decided to take the funincular up to Buda Castle. Everything up there was closed (galleries, museums, etc.) but the castle was still open to walk around and it was pretty cool being up there when it wasn't super crowded with tourists. 
After wandering for a while we headed home.

We sat down to eat the desserts from Koles after our walk around Buda castle . One was a cake with a sort of creamy layer on top (made with coconut milk). It had a raspberry syrup on top, but the creamy layer had a lot of something very herbaceous in it, maybe basil, and it made for a weird bite. I was interested enough to keep trying, but Jay decided to go for the other dessert that we'd bought. It looked kinda like a big cake ball coated in poppy seeds. Turns out it was a giant rice pudding ball (sorta), with a strawberry sauce poured over it. I think it was fairly flavorless, Jay heartily disagrees, plus it was an awful texture for him. He had two bites and spent the next 20 minutes silently shuddering.

So the dessert part of our evening was something of a bust. Though I was pretty entertained by Jay, so not as bad as it could have been. 

Tuesday, we wandered around and eventually found ourselves at a tapas restaurant that we had read would be safe for me. We got to try Jamon Iberico for the first time. I get it. I get the hype and expense. That stuff is AMAZING. 

One part of chain bridge

Chain bridge again, with Buda castle in the background.

Buda Castle, lit up at night.

After than we wandered some more (in case you haven't figured it out, Jay and I get a fair amount of joy just by exploring a city on foot) and eventually made it to a coffee date with Miki, a friend of Oliver and Nina's who visited the University of Michigan philosophy department a few years ago. He took us to "the best coffee place" which also happened to be the only coffee place on Jay's list of cafes he wanted to visit, and we had absolutely delicious coffee and spent the hour chatting with Miki until it was time for us to get to the Duna Palota (Danube Palace) for our boat tour. We went on a sunset boat ride the Danube, drank cocktails, and I took a billion pictures, in the hopes that one of them will be good enough to get blown up and go on our wall, because the Hungarian Parliament is quite possibly the most beautiful building I have ever seen. After that it was home again for more sleep.

Jay on the boat tour, Parliament in the background.

Hungarian Parliament

One of the springs off of Gellert hill.

On the left is the Gellert Hotel, where we went for the baths. The right is an ancient citadel. 

St. Stephen's Basilica, which we passed on the way to Parliament. We weren't able to go in though. They have strange opening hours that didn't work out well for us.

The ceilings in "the golden staircase"

More opulent beauty at the Hungarian Parliament

The chamber of the former House of Lords. The parliament is now unicameral, so this room is largely unused. 

One of ~88 statues depicting different vocations of the Hungarian people at the time the building was constructed

Wednesday, we realized that we had lots of things that we wanted to do, so Jay took the day off. Budapest is well known for its thermal baths, so we made a point of visiting the baths. None of the Roman baths survive, but the many of the Turkish baths are still operating. We went to the Gellert baths, which has several indoor and outdoor pools of varying temperatures. Jay decided he just wanted to live in the 36 degree C pool, until we went into the 40 degree C pool and he changed his mind. Neither of us had the nerve to get in the 18 degree C plunge pool. 

After the baths, feeling fantastically relaxed, we walked up Vaci street, where there is lots of shopping to be done. We had plans to go to a place called Fruccola for food, based on allergen friendly research, but it was too packed and it was clear that the staff were not well informed enough to help me avoid milk. It's funny, they're really good about gluten free here, and they're also very good about lactose free, but they don't make the distinction with dairy free. Frequently they'll use lactose-free milk in things, which is just irritating. Oh well. We went across the street to a restaurant (the name eludes me, but it wasn't worth remembering). When I told the waiter my issues and asked what I could have he said "chicken with vegetables" which I think means he just wasn't willing to do the work to see if substitutions could be made anywhere. I don't really blame him, cause I'm sure its a pain in the butt, but a waiter who takes the extra steps to help me eat well and eat safely usually earns themselves a place in my heart for the rest of time. Anyway, we were too hungry to seek out a different place, so I resigned myself to the "food as fuel" way of life for that meal. 


After that we hustled north to Parliament, where we had booked a tour of parliament after Miki had told us that the inside was comparably beautiful to the outside. He wasn't lying. So. Much. Gold. And some beautiful statues. It's a stunning building with an interesting history and I'm really glad we went on the tour. It was finished just at the turn of the century (~1902). With very few exceptions, the materials and labor that made up the building were all from Hungary. The few exceptions usually had to do with marble, since that's not one of Hungary's more abundant resources. A mere 20 years later the country lost 2/3 of its land following WWI. Much of the building was rebuilt after WWII, but the stained glass was the original, because when the war broke out, they removed the glass from the windows and stored it safely in a basement until the war was over. We also saw the Hungarian crown, which is at least 800 years old, but pictures weren't allowed in there and there were some very large and intimidating guards with swords to make sure we obeyed. 
 After visiting Parliament, Jay and I went to Culti Vini, which is a wine bar where you can try many different wines (all Hungarian). The wines are dispensed by a machine, and you have a card that is loaded up with a certain amount of money so that you can spend it where you will. There was one Tokaji dessert wine that was ~$20 just for a tiny taste. We didn't go for that one. We did try several wines though, including a white merlot which was just wacky. And then we spent some time with the dessert wines and settled on one that we could bring home for something special. Like, in 20 years. Seriously, this stuff ages well. After that it was back to the apartment. We stopped at Koles (from Monday) on the way and got dinner to go, went out for one more glass of wine and some host-gift shopping for our next stop. We crashed after that and got up early to catch our train to Vienna. Now we're in the apartment of a former exchange student that Jay's family didn't host, but interacted with quite a bit. She and her family are out of town, so we've got the apartment to ourselves, and it's gorgeous. We did a little wandering around, once Jay was done working, but then we retreated to the apartment cooked a meal, and enjoyed a bottle of Heuriger wine. It was about $3. It's young, refreshing, and absolutely delicious, the Austrian response to Vinho Verde. Tomorrow and Saturday will be fairly low key, and I'm looking forward to relaxing.