Listening to Gipsy music in Budapest
Written: Mar 26 '02 (Updated Mar 27 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful, clean, romantic and quiet city, very good food, wonderful gipsy music.
Cons: No longer a cheap city but an expensive one, people are not very friendly.
The Bottom Line: Budapest is a beautiful city, well worth a visit.
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| teresarg's Full Review: Budapest |
I just came back from a trip to Budapest and Rome. Though my husband was intending to go to Rome only, I managed to convince him to add Budapest to our trip, and make it a little longer. From what I had seen in pictures and had heard, I had been dreaming of a romantic vacation in Budapest, and the three days we spent there really didn't disappoint me.
INTRODUCTION AND SOME HISTORY
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, owes its name to its two sides, Buda and Pest. Buda is the hilly side and Pest is the flat side. Both are separated by the Danube river, which used to be blue, according to the waltz, but now is brown. To cross from one side to the other there are several bridges. The most beautiful ones are the Liberty Bridge, the Chain Bridge and the Margareth Bridge. This later is near Margareth Island, a small island full of trees and vegetation, which was once a religious retreat.
Pest is a more buzy side, with most of shopping and hotels. Buda is more quiet and lovely. The Gellert Hill has ancient beautiful aristocratic houses (mixed with some houses of communist times)and the Castle District is wonderful .Most of the zone is only for pedestrians.I suggest anyone going to Budapest to take a few hours to visit this zone.It has small craft shops, typical restaurants, nice squares,apart from the churches and museums.
Budapest has many Gothic and Renaissance churches and buildings ,as well as some Turkish influence, left by the Turkish occupation.
Hungary was once one of the greatest European Empires and Buda was almost completely devastated during the Turkish occupation, in the 16th century. Then came the Habsburg's domain. The Habsburgs took Buda and Pest from the Turks and rebuilt the city, mostly in Baroque style, in the seventeenth century. When Prussia defeated the Habsburgs, two centuries later, Budapest was finally unified. The forty years of Communism, that ended in 1989, added its influence to this city that is still trying to leave it behind.
CHURCHES AND MONUMENTS NOT TO BE MISSED
With so many different influences, Budapest has a profusion of wonderful churches, buildings and monuments.Here are the places I visited.
IN PEST :
The Parliament, Budapest's postcard. It's a beautiful large building, on the bank of the Danube, facing Buda. I only saw it from the outside, though they have guided two hour visits. It's wonderful at night, when lighted.
The Jewish Quarter has the largest Synagogue of Europe. It was built in the bizantine-morish style and is beautiful.
The National Hungarian Museum has a great collection of art, documents and books that reveal Hungary's History.
The Downtown Parochial Church is the most ancient building of Pest. This church was built in the place of the tumble of St.Gellert and is a mixture of Gothic and baroque styles.
St.Steven's Basilic,near Elisabeth Square, which was dedicated to Istvan, the first Hungarian Catholic King. In this Basilic there is the Right Hand Sacred Chapel. It has, as a relish, the mumyfied forearm of this King, which impresses very much.
The Gresham Palace, located in front of the Chain Bridge, is a Secession time building, with a beautiful façade with stone sculptures and small towers.
Although I didn't enter the Zoo, its entrance is also very bizarre, in Indian style, with the sculptures of two elephants, one in each side of the entrance.
IN BUDA:
The Matyas Church is certainly the most beautiful and famous church of Budapest. Located in Castle District, its outside is wonderful, the roof is decorated with colorful mosaics and the entrance door with the Virgin and Her Son . The inside is wonderful, with beautiful stained glass windows and a rich decoration.
Next to Matyas Church is the Fisherman's Bastion, from where we can have an excellent view of Pest and the Danube. That is the best place to take some pictures of the Parliament.
Budapest is also known by its thermal baths. The Gellert Hotel, located in the Gellert Hill, has a large complex of thermal baths.It has a beautiful garden, with a large wave swimming pool and a pool with medicinal waters outside. The inside is also fabulous, with sculptures and stained glass.
EATING IN BUDAPEST
I found Hungarian food to be one of the most tasty I ever had. Most of their dishes are made with paprika, which has its origin in Hungary. In one of the restaurants we went, I read in the menu that the Hungarian food was a mixture of Turkish, French, Bavarian and Serbian food influences.They serve several kinds of breads with herbs and seeds.The most famous desserts are the Gundel pancakes, pancakes filled with almonds and covered with chocolate sauce. I also advise you to try their sausages. In the market squares they usually sell them with bread and onions or other garnish. They are a bit spicy but delicious. Food is not that cheap. We went to several restaurants and some of them were really expensive. If I compare the prices to Lisbon's prices, the Budapest restaurants are more expensive.
Some of the restaurants where we went that I recommend:
The Nancsi Neni : this is a family run restaurant, located outside the center,in a valley,approximately 20 minutes by taxi.It is a typical cozy restaurant, with wooden walls and small windows with red and white curtains. There is a Gipsy playing guitar. We had lunch there and had to book it with much advance because it is always busy. The food was good but not fabulous and it had a good atmosphere. We paid about 40 dollars for our meal, with wine included.
The Király : this restaurant is located in the Castle District. It's a beautiful restaurant, more formal, with excellent food, a band of gipsy music and opereta revues every night. The violinists come to our table and play for us, looking for some dollars, and at the end they sell us their CDs. We bought one that I already listened at home and loved it. I really enjoyed the gipsy music. The atmosphere of this restaurant is romantic and their food and service were also fabulous. The prices were "fabulous" too, we paid 180 dollars for the dinner.
The Bistro Jardin : this was a restaurant at the Kempinski Corvinus Hotel, where we stayed. And it was the best place where we ate. They had a wonderful buffet at lunch, and a menu at dinner. We had three excellent meals there. Their food has nothing to do with usual hotel food. It's homemade style and tasty. The prices are not very expensive also, each course costs around 14 dollars. This is the restaurant I recommend the most.
SHOPPING IN BUDAPEST
Budapest isn't the place to go shopping. The main shopping street, Vaci Utca, has very outdated shops and though they have several foreign brands, like Mango, Benetton, Marks and Spencer, the things are not nice and the shop windows are not nicely decorated. Clothes and shoes have no quality and have expensive prices. Hungary is famous for its porcelain and has two main brands, Herend and Zsolnay, but, frankly, I didn't like them.
If you want to buy some gifts to come home, they have nice bags of paprika, good wines, foie gras boxes, the Tokaji dessert wines, salami and wood hand painted crafts.
I advise you , if you want better prices, to buy the foods and wines in a food market, because it's cheaper. I bought a 400 gr can of foie gras at the market for 8000 forints and saw the same can being sold at a Vaci Utca food store for 9500 forints. The Central Market (Nagy Vasarcsamok)is an enormous market, very clean, worth a visit, where you can buy all these things.Of course, don't forget to buy at least one CD of Gipsy music.
MY FINAL THOUGHTS
I found Budapest a beautiful and romantic city.The weather also helped, because although it was a rainy day when we arrived, at the end of the afternoon, we were extremely fortunate to have a sunny weather in the following days.
The people are a bit hard and are not very friendly. Of course, they have suffered a lot and they are still trying to emerge. Their medium salary, as I was told by a driver, is about 220 dollars, so I don't know how they can manage. Before I went to Budapest I read some reviews that said that Budapest was a cheap city. If it was, it isn't anymore.
Be careful if you go there, because you can be cheated with the change. We were. I paid in Euros for some goods and I was given 100 forints coins mixed with 1 Euro coins. One Euro is about 244 forints! Always check your change. Also, beware of of your things at the room in the hotels. Even if you have cheap jewellery, put everything in the safe.
I think four days is enough to visit this city and , though it's lovely, it's a place to visit only once, everything you need to see you will see in the first time you're there. Unless, of course, you fall in love with Hungarian food and gipsy music.
Thank you for reading!
Teresa
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
teresarg
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Member: Teresa
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 30 members
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