Visiting Budapest

 

Happy weekend everyone! 

I hope you are spending time by the pool or seaside or even visiting new places, just like I did last weekend. 

I tell you what, the most difficult task for a blogger is to select photos, especially the ones from a specific travel. I tried to not make an excessive image overload here, because it is possible that not everyone has patience to get through a gazillion photos in a single article. Also, I am not much of a classic tourist, so you won't see too many photos that include me with a cool landmark in the background. I much prefer to create editorial type photos, but since there were so many things to visit and photograph, there wasn't enough time for me to be all dreamy and romantic. 

I spoke in my last post how easy it was for me to get around Budapest. The metro stations are quite close to each other and easy to find, but I mostly walked around to get a feeling of the streets and the city, so picking up a 24 hour metro pass wasn't really necessary. You can get a single ticket which costs 350 HUF which is about 1.2 USD, or the 24 hour pass, which is 1600 HUF - 5.7 USD.

 The prices were quite convenient for me, the only downside was the fact that around downtown, where all the amazing attractions are, it was sooo hard to find a place to buy bottled water. And when you do find it, you will realize it's much more expensive that the one you find in their markets.

 If you plan to eat downtown, you will see that the food is a bit pricey, especially if you have a low budget. Prices for a meal including a drink, go around 3000 - 4000 HUF and some restaurants add the tip to the bill as well. We didn't know that and we struggled to understand why our calculations didn't add up. 

Leaving that aside, as you walk around you will see and hear an abundance of tourists, agitation and souvenir shops. The buildings all look like palaces (I bet they belong once upon a time to aristocratic families) which are now occupied by famous clothing brands or fancy restaurants. I remember entering an H&M there and I was shocked by how huge it was, I didn't even had the patience to look through the products. I was amazed by the 3 level building, the huge painted windows, chandeliers, marble pillars and massive old wooden doors. It was so royal, it felt like entering a Chanel haute couture store.

Oh, and I ate the most delicious ice cream there! It's not expensive and you get too choose from so many unusual flavours like machiatto, plum cake, Japanese yuzu, ginger caramel,  rice pudding with raspberries or fruit punch! I'm still drooling thinking about them.

 I am going to stop now and leave you with the images, I only hope they are enough to show you a bit of this wonderful city. 

 I can't wait to go back there and explore more!