The Hungarian city was once the twin capital of a dual monarchy of the Austria-Hungary empire, which fell after World War I. So the small city on the fringes of Europe has all the imperial grandeur slathered in Soviet functionality.
Firstly, apologies I couldn't think of a better pun for the title. I used all my creative juices on the trip, so I'm running on empty. Anyway, me and BFF Anthea planned a weekend away - it was a spur of the moment decision initiated by Anthea and I'm always up for going on holiday. Budapest was casually agreed.
We had to be up and out at 4.30am to drive to the airport to make our 8.30am Ryanair flight. Yes, that's right, Ryanair, at a time when they were cancelling flights because they didn't have any pilots. We side-stepped that particular setback, only to step into what can only be described a National Lampoon caper.
It all started with an early morning flight from Stansted, but the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants journey started the night before when we down two bottles of wine between us, watched Team America and I did the OCD thing of making sure the house was spotless before going away - after all, I don't want burglars who realise there's nothing worth stealing to judge me on my housekeeping skills as well.
We woke up late but managed to get out of the house on time. It was all going well until I missed the turning off the motorway adding another 40 minutes to our journey, which would've been fine if the petrol light didn't come on halfway through the return drive to the airport. We stopped for petrol opposite the car park. Then pulled in only to be told they couldn't find my booking (thanks, Holiday Extras), but it's a known problem and they let me in. Found a parking space near a transfer bus, which had just pulled up. Phew... Except, it was stopped there for about 10 minutes, it was 7.30am, an hour till take-off.
We raced through to the departure lounge (benefit of online check-in and only carry-on bags) and had to join the long queue for security - I'm convinced the 100ml liquids in one tiny bag rule is a Boots conspiracy. Our time standing there in secret panic made worse by the suicide-inducing sounds of Coldplay blaring out of the speaker system ended up giving us one of the many catchphrases of the trip. A man behind us, we assume on a business trip, was retelling a story to his companion about his failed efforts to send a communication. The monologue went a little something like this:
"I sent it my boss, dinwerk. I sent it to you, dinwerk. I sent to my other address, dinwerk. I sent it to XX, dinwerk."
His London accent and rhythm led me to exclaim that it was like being in a queue with Dizzee Rascal. And the term 'dinwerk' punctuated every cus and failure. However, this was a modicum of joy in painful airport experience (airports used to be full excitement, now they're full of dread) as Mrs Jobsworth made putting toiletries through a scanner to prove my Right Guard roll-on wasn't semtex a nightmare, each attempted ended in 'has to be in an official bag, dear', 'you can only use one bag, dear', 'you need to be able to close the bag, dear', 'the bag is torn, dear'... Oh, shut the fuck up. No one else in the world is so Nazi about liquids on planes, why are we subjected to this misery?!
We raced through the airport only to discover our plane was delayed by an hour. Off to Boots to buy the toiletries I was forced to bin (see, conspiracy). I got to the till and found my cash card was missing. And so National Lampoon continues.
Once we made it to Wetherspoons and got a full-English inside us, we were on the home straight. We snorted in derision at the volume of stags and wondered what it was about this tradition that meant men could act like total dickheads. In public. For an entire weekend. Abroad.
The homo-eroticism and humiliation paradigm of the stag weekend and its significance is something I will tackle when I've had more time to dissect it. However, the one respite of this foolishness was our row companion, Newbury resident, Bradley. He butted into our conversation just as I asked Anthea who her favourite dictator was (always a sure-fire hit), Idi Amin he answered - the second Ugandan reference of the day. He said he needed to get involved after over-hearing our takedown of the flight safety diagram on the back of the seat, that could only have been drawn by the work experience kid and me asking Anthea what her favourite element on the periodic table was. Hmmm, I'm judging him.
We landed, said our goodbyes and took a bus to the train station. The trains were wonderfully 70s and Soviet. I believe my assessment of the people who surrounded us was, "I feel like Cara Delevinge" - this was short lived. The journey was everything I expected from Hungary, Soviet with hints of south-east Europe. It's industrial and functional, like the last couple of decades hadn't happened.
A casual, 5-minute walk from Fredric train station (with a pitstop at Bonnie Restro) took us to our apartment. We stayed in a building on the banks of Danube, in the shadow of Elizabeth Bridge in the 5th District. The lady who checked us into the apartment told us it was a very famous building, but I've not found any evidence of this. However, I enjoyed imagining this majestic building with grand staircases, vast windows, art nouveau doors and marble floors as an artists commune that would be full of music and revolutionaries.
On the subject of doors, our first day was dominated by me marveling at the array of resplendent doors. Pest is by far superior to Buda with its doors. So that was day one architecture obsession.
When we headed out, we walked down Vaci U. and spotted a Belgian waffle shop, which Anthea got excited about and tea rooms, that I got excited about. I also found an empty, opulent building with carved balconies and curved glass to turn into a vintage vinyl and bookshop. However, it was opposite the Markthal (covered market) on Vamhaz Krt. We sampled our first taste of Hungarian wine, at the cavernous, paper festooned For Sale pub. It was there we found we could love Riesling.
We didn't stay there long, the gaggle of East Asian travellers and the sawdust floors didn't make it the most comfortable. And the service was appalling - I had to order three times before she got it right and I ordered by pointing at the menu... We decided to go to a restaurant recommended by TripAdvisor, but ended up at Borsso Bistro.
It's a brilliant restaurant. The food was amazing, we both had the rabbit (despite Anthea insisting she was a vegetarian on holiday), I had goose pate and Anthea had muscles. We were taken good care of by the hot waiter, Aron - who gave us a shot of mulled wine and beef taster spoon. The restaurant is highly recommended for it's simple, art nouveau decor, impeccable service, and live gypsy music.
The night ended the same way as a lot of the stags we judged on the plane out, in Szimpla Kert ruin bar. Don't let that deter you, the bar is huge, with loads of different rooms outside and in, DJs, street art and retro objet d'art. Our best find of the evening was next door, at Karavan Street Food - a marketplace filled with little vans selling pizza, goulash and beer with plenty of outdoor seating draped in fairy lights.
These finds would surprise and delight us all weekend.
Woke up the next morning without a hangover, surprisingly. Must be the superior quality wine. It was sightseeing day, so we walked over the Elizabeth Bridge to the Black Power (Szent Gellert) monument and tested Hungarian reds in Zona Bar, before heading to Castle Hill on a funicular - it was here I declared I enjoyed novel methods of transport and dodged all the sales people wanted to take us up in a golf buggy.
Castle Hill and district of Buda had the Disney feel I attributed to Prague. All a bit too forced, planned and false. The castle was lovely, everything I would expect from an imperial, European city. Perched on the edge with Pest and the Danube sprawled out before it. It had the paint-by-numbers neo-classical columns, the ornate capitals and cherub keystones above windows. The manicured gardens, the horse guards in their impressive, half-coat regalia, imposing French windows and porticos. It was a bit... well, seen-it-all-before. The best bit was the view and the ride in the funicular.
To me, cities are built by their conquerors and brought to life by their inhabitants - Buda was definitely lacking in the pluralism of centuries of Ottoman, Magyar and Russian rule. It felt like being in a Habsburg Sims game. So much so, we ate lunch at Jamie's Italian. It was very good, but I don't go away to eat in a chain restaurant that has a branch at the bottom of my road.
We missed out on going to the Hospital In The Rock, a perfectly preserved WWII hospital deep in the mountain with a nuclear bunker. It's top of the list for next time.
Crossing back into Pest, which is the best, over Chain Bridge - probably the most recognisable landmark of Budapest, we headed towards Parliament. A bastard-child of Westminster and St Paul's Cathedral and St Stephen's Basilica, where there was a service. Again, beautiful, but underwhelming.
So we walked around that area, attracted to anything that had fairy lights on it. We ended up walking down a side street off Dob u. which was lined with cute bars of different themes, all buzzing with life. We searched for the highly recommended Doblo Bar, where we spent the majority of the evening. The wine was brilliant, the people were casual, the service was spot-on and the ambiance is what Saturday nights are made for.
A ruin bar that was on our list was Red, a Soviet-inspired place around the corner from our apartment. Needless to say, we were less impressed with the bar, although the bar staff gave us one shot of apple and one shot of cherry liquor. It tipped Anthea over the edge... Luckily, we only had to cross a road to get back.
Sunday is normally a lazy day, but not when you've only got three and half days to explore somewhere new. And today was the spa day, so sort of lazy. The world famous and hottest thermal spa in the world at Szechenyi Baths. The yellow, palatial spa had a feeling of stepping back in time, with its quaint wooden changing booths and chandeliers. The baths were perfect and the sun was out, although we did notice that people seemed to walk around the pools cradling each other. It was then we decided there must be some love pheramone in the water, as we realised Hungarians were very tactile with each other.
Top tip: you can get away with not paying for a cabin just by briefly squatting in one to get changed.
We ate lunch at Robinsons, which despite being prime real estate, overlooking a lake in the park, the decor was a bit 90s and the food was overly fussy and didn't really work together. However, the hippy bar of Kartem (minus the headless man shown on Google Street View), outside another regal looking building was more like it. Until all the dogs showed up.
Also, we noticed Hungarian swampies camping out in the park protesting what seemed to be the planned destruction of trees. I need to look into this, why would the uproot trees that are in the middle of a park?!
After fully recuperating in the spa, we headed to the best district, the Jewish quarter. It's where all the best bars and restaurants are in a rat-run of decaying, Georgian townhouses. I found here such vibrancy and creativity. It was gagging to be like contemporary Europe with all the trappings of gentrification without the polished feel. I recommend Mazel Tov for Middle-Eastern food and drinks at Instant ruin bar. Although wherever you go in the district, you'll find bars and restaurants that you wish existed at home.
We were there between 22 to 25 September and it was awesome. It's the best time of year to go, there weren't that many tourists and the whole city didn't feel populated or busy at all. And the weather was perfect - warm enough to sit outside and cool enough so you're not sweating buckets while walking around the city.
And you would've noticed, I'm not talking about Budapest's history, politics or social dynamics as I normally do, this is because it has a familiarity to it, so you can just relax and enjoy the ride. And the fact that it doesn't really have any points of interest, like Versaille or S21 means when you come here, you're a Hungarian, not a tourist looking to recreate the selfies of a million visitors before you.
First published 3 October 2017
