My journey through Eastern Europe began in Budapest, a city of bright lights, bicycles, majestic buildings and secret labyrinths. Though jet-lagged and without my luggage, my time in Budapest was just unforgettable.
Budapest has two souls; it's unique charm lies in the contrast of historic Buda with lively and urban Pest. Pictured above is the view of Pest from Buda across the Danube. You can see the Chain Bridge and the bulbous towers of St. Steven's Basilica.
Our cozy duplex apartment in Pest was right on Nador Utca, close the basilica and in the heart of the center city shopping district. On Saturday, we were able to sneak into the basilica just in time to hear the singing of hymns with organ accompaniment.
The grandeur of the interior was unbelievable.
Budapest is also home to the largest synagogue in Europe, The Dohány Street Synagogue.
Unfortunately, the visiting hours were limited and we never made it inside. But my research tells me it looks a little bit like this:
On my second night in Budapest, we took a nighttime ferry tour along the Danube. If Budapest is a remarkable sight to behold by day, it is just breathtaking at night.
The massive, Gothic-style Parliament building was most impressive.
And the Chain Bridge looked so majestic as we passed underneath.
While mesmerized by Budapest's ability to light up its medieval castles like the interior of a metropolitan nightclub, we were also struck by the city's obsession with its history of terror, impalement, imprisonment and torture. On Wednesday, we visited the House of Terror (Terror Haza), an exhibition of the torture inflicted on victims of the Nazis and the regime of Soviet Hungary. The next day, we went to the murder house, a commercialized tour of a selection of history's serial killers, featuring mostly American murderers and psychopaths alongside Countess Elizabeth Báthory's, a royal Hungarian with a thirst for 'virgin blood', and, of course, Vlad Dracu the Impaler. If the cheesy visual and audio effects weren't enough, the tour ended in the meditation room, where we were seated in front of a Garden of Eden-inspired scene told via voice-over to raise our children right and pray for the troubled ones. Mildly disturbed and thoroughly confused, we cheered ourselves up with our daily quota of gelato.
The flavor of Budapest was, overwhelmingly, that of Hungarian paprika. There was goulash galore. . .
. . . and we also had the most delicious lemonade with nearly every meal. Lemonade came in raspberry, blueberry, elderflower and nearly every flavor you could imagine. Here we are enjoying lemonade with lunch on this picturesque plateau on the Buda side:
On Friday, we crossed the Danube by foot and climbed the steep cliff up to the historic district of Buda. This was by far the highlight of the trip. The Buda Castle and State house towered above charming cobblestone courtyards and artisanal markets.
Later, we snaked our way through the colorful rows of houses shown above to the secret labyrinths under Buda castle, were Vlad Dracu was supposedly imprisoned during his reign. We had the most fun navigating our way through the dark corridors and inspecting "Dracula's grave".
On Saturday night at 11:30, we finally boarded the overnight sleeper train in Budapest's antique Keleti Station. Twelve stuffy/mostly sleepless hours and two passport checkpoints later, we arrived in Transylvania. More on that soon.
