Dates: November 24th, 2019 to November 26th, 2019
We arrived at our illegal hotel in the Jewish Quarter near the Dohány Street Synagogue after a debacle with the bus, so we went straight to bed. The next morning, we quickly head to an ATM to get some forint. The ratio is about 300 to 1 with the US dollar, and we—two experienced math teachers—talked ourselves into confusion and accidentally took out 15000 forint, aka 500 dollars. So we had some forint to burn.
Talking with R’s family Beata, who is from Budapest and thinks it is objectively more beautiful than Vienna (not a competition, but definitely has some wonderful hills). Seeing the Országház was a cool experience and it is a beautiful building. We spent most of the time in Pest (from our recommendation, the more urban part with Buda being residential per our source). only crossing the river to get some views and see the Castle District.
A few places we got some food:
Tökmag Vegan Street Food—we actually stopped here twice. Per the name, good vegan options and GF bread for sandwiches.
Nanushka Store & Cafe—shop, but had a pretty decent coffee shop. I had a drink with some orange powder stuff on it. Great stuff.
Hotsy Totsy Budapest—a nice corner bar.
My Little Melbourne Coffee and Brew Bar—a feature from the coffee book and an oddly Australian themed bar.
Madal Cafe—Not going to lie, I was truly floored to find a coffee shop themed around Sri Chinmoy, the spiritual figure of the now defunct Victory’s Banner.
We’d love to come back again. We walked up to but didn’t get a chance to indulge in the many hot springs. And we’d love to see it in the summer.