A freedom-oriented lifestyle blog

Category: Hungary

A weekend in Budapest

Budapest is just a train ride away from Prague, so when our friends announced a weekend gathering in Budapest, it was just for us to book train tickets.

It was a loosely planned weekend with organized lunches and dinners, but what we did in between was up to us who came for the weekend. We have already been to Budapest once before, so this time we were focused on doing fun things with Othilia.
We had a lovely weekend with lots of play and discussions, the later with both old and new friends. We also meet up with our Hungarian friends and anarcho-capitalists who we first got to know at the Philosophy Europe convention in Prague back in September. Due to the nature of our whole weekend we won’t publish any pictures on our friends, but much more on us and what we were able to see of Budapest.


Budapest är bara en tågresa bort från Prag så när våra vänner tillkännagav en helgträff i Budapest var det bara för oss att boka tågbiljetter dit.

Det var en löst planerad helg med organiserade luncher och middagar, men det vi gjorde emellan var upp till oss som kom till helgen. Vi har redan varit i Budapest en gång tidigare, så den här gången var vi fokuserade på att göra roliga saker med Othilia.
Vi hade en härlig helg med mycket lek och diskussioner, det senare med både gamla och nya vänner. Vi träffade också våra ungerska vänner och anarkokapitalister som vi först lärde känna vid “Philosophy Europe”-konferensen i Prag i september. Eftersom våra möten var av mer privat natur så kommer vi inte att publicera några bilder på våra vänner, men fler bilder på oss och vad vi kunde se av Budapest.

This is our favorite picture of Othilia in Budapest. The Hungarian parliament in the background.
Now how did we get there? The train from Prague to Budapest took 6.5 hours and went via the Slovak capital Bratislava. The two-way tickets for us three (two adults and a child) were around 45 Euro. Othilia had fun during the train trip running between the wagons, here a well-deserved nap in Ulrika’s arms.
This is lovely to see bitcoin Atms and several of them here in Budapest. Not the best conversion rates though.
Our first evening in Budapest and what a welcome we got!
We love to walk around in Budapest due to the impressive architecture.
Our first whole day in Budapest started with Othilia showing her independence. She suddenly didn’t want any help and wanted to walk by herself. Here looking more closely at this purple scooter.
We tried to avoid this part of Budapest the last time we where here, so it was nice to see the tourist part of the city this time around.
We used google maps to find small parks for Othilia to run around in.
We found the Budapest eye, but we didn’t try it out.
Szent István Bazilika had a lovely square where Othilia could run around.
Liberty square had a water installation and Othilia was scared of the water funny enough, she usually loves water.
We just happened to come to Liberty square because we had found a playground that we wanted to take Othilia to. Best of two worlds, her parents could enjoy the surrounding on a macro level and Othilia enjoyed the playground on the micro level.
Othilia made huge developmental leaps while in Budapest. Suddenly, she wanted to push her stroller by herself.
We took several walks along the Danube river, it is a beautiful view from almost any place along both sides of the river. Last time we where here we visited the memorial for the 20 000 Jews that got murdered along the riverside during world war II, a place we really recommend people to visit.
This building in Budapest gave us “Atlas shrugged”-vibes.
New day and a new picture of the Danube river.
We had lovely weather here in Budapest. Othilia in her “Dalarna” dress in the end of October. She got that dress from her paternal granmother (farmor) and we love it. We truly enjoyed the feeling of late summer here even if the leafs had starting to fall down to the ground.
We got to see the Hungarian parliament building after sunset and it was spectacular. Our feeling of Budapest is that it is quite similar to Prague, but that Budapest is more of a large Metropolitan city, and feels bigger than Prague.
The weekend went by so fast and we had to say goodbye to all of our friends and head back to Prague. Thank you Sofia for organizing this weekend. You are welcome to visit Prague some day!
Next up is the end of October and our activities in Prague.


Budapest by foot and a pinball museum

Now it is time for us to write about our last days in Budapest and pictures from our walks around the city. The last thing we did was to visit the famous Pinball Museum, with cool arcade games, even games from the early 1900’s.
The update here is quite sparse right now, while we are hanging out with near and dear to us, but our backlog is decreasing and soon we will be right on track again and somewhere else in the world.


Nu är det dags för oss att skriva om våra sista dagar i Budapest och visa bilder från våra promenader runt staden. Det sista vi gjorde var att besöka det berömda Pinball-museet, med coola arkadspel, till och med spel från början av 1900-talet. Uppdateringen här är ganska sparsam just nu, medan vi hänger med nära och kära till oss, men vårt eftersläp minskar och snart kommer vi att vara mer i fas igen och någon annanstans i världen.

The shoes on the Danube Promenade is a memorial of the 20 000 Jews that were executed here during the world war II. The victims were forced to remove their shoes before they were shot and falling in to the river.

You can feel the tides of history walking around in Budapest.

Just walking around in Budapest is interesting. We passed a lot of spectacular buildings, this one is the Hungarian Parliament Building. It is built in a Gothic revival style and stood finished in 1904.

The public transportation system works well here, but in some cities it is just nicer to walk around and Budapest is one of them.

We walked across the Danube river using the first permanent bridge, opened in 1849, across the river to the Buda side of the city

Buda Castle can be found on the Buda side of Budapest. The first castle to stand on Castle hill was completed in 1265, but the Baroque palace standing here today was built between 1749 and 1769.

We got a great vied over the Danube river and Gellert hill from the Chain bridge.

The sun was about to set and it covered Budapest in pink light that we managed to capture with our camera. We captured more buildings and art work on picture that we show in the slide show below.

 

We love the central European kitchen, so Ulrika’s eyes were glittering when she got to eat Lángos in Hungary.

We also tried the Chimney cake (Kürtőskalács or Trdelnik), a spit cake with cinnamon and sugar stuffed with ice cream!

The last thing we did in Budapest was to visit the Pinball Museum, which is an awesome museum where you can try all the games you want if you have purchased an entry ticket for 3000 HUF (~10 Euro).

There are a lot of Arcade games here from the early 1900’s to more modern ones.

The earlier mechanical arcade games are still working so you can play them as well.

The classic Pac Man game. More pictures from the Pinball Museum can be found in the slide show below.

 

Thermal baths, a fake Transylvanian castle and the Magyars

Budapest is known for its natural springs. There are 118 springs in the area pumping up over 70 million liters of thermal water per day and that’s why there are so many thermal baths here.  They claim that the thermal baths, with its high concentration of minerals and salts, are good for different medical conditions, so perhaps this is why they are so popular. We spent an afternoon combining steam saunas with differently temperated baths and we loved it. 

We also encountered a fake Transylvanian  castle close by and ended up at the Heroe’s square in Budapest. The origin of the Hungarian people or the Magyars are very interesting. They are steppe people from central Asia and they found their way to Europe in the 10th century and settled here on a flatland surrounded by mountains. “Geography now”  has made a short introduction to Hungary that we can highly recommend if you want to learn more about Hungary and its people.


Budapest är känt för sina naturliga källor. Det finns 118 källor i området som pumpar upp över 70 miljoner liter termiskt vatten per dag och det är därför det finns så många termiska bad här. De hävdar att de termiska baden, med hög koncentration av mineraler och salter, är bra för olika medicinska åkommor, så det är kanske därför baden är så populära här. Vi tillbringade en eftermiddag vid ett sådant bad där vi kombinerade ångbastur med olika tempererade bad och vi älskade det.

Vi hittade också ett falskt transsylvaniskt slott i närheten av badet och hamnade på Hjältarnas torg i Budapest. Ursprunget till det ungerska folket eller Magyars är mycket intressant. De är steppfolk från Centralasien och de hittade till Europa på 900-talet och bosatte sig i ett platt landskap omgiven av berg. “Geography Now” har gjort en kort introduktion till Ungern som vi kan rekommendera om du vill lära dig mer om Ungern och dess folk.

Experiencing one of the many thermal baths in Budapest felt like a must do thing for us. We decided to go to the largest medicinal bath in Europe, the Széchenyi thermal bath.

You can take the metro to this thermal baths and one of the metro stops we passed to get there had a really funny name if you can read Swedish (Bajsa means to poop in Swedish).

We must say that the public transportation system in Budapest is good. The city is stretched out in all directions, but it is easy to get around with a little bit of help from google maps. You can even travel to Mexikoi here, but we wanted to get off at Széchenyi fürdö.

Széchenyi thermal bath during an early autumn afternoon in 2017. The thermal baths opened its doors  on 16 June 1913 and has since then expanded a bit and today you’ll find 3 outdoor and 15 indoor pools and 10 saunas inside this Neo-barouqe designed building.

You can choose different types of changing rooms and of course pay different entrance fees depending on if you want a changing cabin or just a locker.

We chose a cabin to share.

We’ve seen this clever electronic locking system both here in Hungary and in the Czech Republic.

Then it was time to try all the pools and saunas they had to offer. Most of the thermal baths are located in the yellow part of the building opposite of the pool.

The water is heated by two wells that are over 1000 meter deep and the temperatures ranging from 18 degrees Celsius to 38 degrees. More pictures from this place can be found below.

 

Széchenyi thermal bath are located in the City Park of Budapest.

Here we found a number of sculptures depicting (in)famous world politicians.

And we also found a real fake Transylvanian castle!

This castle, called the Vajdahunyad Castle, was designed by Ignác Alpár in 1896 and the castle was originally constructed out of just wood and cardboard. The intention of the cardboard castle was only to be a temporary exhibition to celebrate that it was one thousand years since the medieval Magyars first settled on the plains of Pannonia, the start of the Hungarian peoples existence in Europe. The attraction proved to be such a success and loved by the Hungarian people that a permanent structure was built in 1904.

Nowadays, parts of the castle are housing the Hungarian Agricultural Museum. More Pictures of the city park and castle can be found below.

 

Between Vajdahunyad Castle and Hősök tere (The Heroes’ Square) lies a big pond, which is turned into an ice rink during the winter months. The ice rink opened in 1870 and is one of the oldest ice rinks in Europe, but is used by humans in, and next to, boats during the summer.

The millenial memorial monument at the Heroe’s square and the tomb of the unknown soldier.

The column are flanked by the seven chieftains of the Magyars (Hungarians), which was the leaders of the seven tribes of the Magyars originally from the Ural mountains in Russia, who arrived to the Carpathian Basin in 895 AD (today’s Hungary).

Two colonnades with statues from later leaders of Hungary surrounds the Heroe’s square.

Then we continued our exploration of Budapest, that will be part three of Budapest, which will hopefully come soon.

Budapest, a hidden library and a fellow Swedish bitcoiner

We left for Budapest after our first round to Prague to assist our friends, the King family, when Edward Satoshi King was about to enter the world. Budapest has been a city we’ve been waiting for a chance to visit, and now it was time for us to see this place.  We use the website Atlas Obscura to find places worth visiting when we arrive to a new place and that’s why we  ended up in Ervin Szabós library, a hidden gem in Budapest. We also went up on Gellért Hill – the view of Budapest and the Danube river are magnificent from the top.

We were fortunate to be in Budapest at the same time as another fellow Swedish Bitcoiner, Nanok Bie, the Editor-in-chief of news.bitcoin.com. We met up for dinner and we had a lot to talk about. Thank you Nanok for pleasant evening!


Vi åkte till Budapest efter vår första tur till Prag när vi var där för att hjälpa våra vänner, Kingfamiljen, när Edward Satoshi King skulle komma till världen. Budapest har varit en stad som vi har väntat på en chans att besöka och nu var det dags för oss att se den omtalande staden. Vi använder webbsidan “Atlas Obscura” för att hitta platser som är värda att besöka när vi kommer till en ny plats och därför slutade det med att vi bland annat besökte Ervin Szabós biblioteket, en dold pärla i Budapest. Vi åkte också upp på “Gellért Hill” –  utsikten över Budapest och Donaufloden är magnifik från toppen.

Vi hade också turen att vara i Budapest samtidigt som en annan svensk bitcoin-entusiast, Nanok Bie, chefredaktören för news.bitcoin.com. Vi åt middag honom och vi hade mycket att prata om. Tack Nanok för en trevlig kväll!

The mighty Danube (or Donau), the second longest river in Europe that divides Buda and Pest – the capital of Hungary. Budapest was our next home for a few weeks after we left Prague.

Gellért Hotel is where you want to get of if you want to walk up on Gellért Hill to get an amazing view over Budapest. This hotel opened its doors in 1912 and it is famous for its thermal baths .

The Liberty bridge stands in front of the Gellért  Hotel and is one of the bridges connecting Buda with the Pest side of Budapest.

It is a short, but steep walk up on Gellért Hill. The hill is named after Saint Gerard who was thrown to his death here in the 11th century.

We passed the most awesome playground we’ve seen so far during our travels. Take your children here if you’re in town.

Look at these slides!

South part of Buda from Gellért Hill.

You’ll find the Citadella, a fortress built in the 1850’s, and the Liberty statue on top of Gellért Hill. The Liberty Statue was erected in remembrance of what was then referred to as the Soviet “liberation” of Hungary during World War II. The first inscription stated “To the memory of the liberating Soviet heroes the grateful Hungarian people 1945”. After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the Hungarians changed the inscription to “To the memory of those all who sacrificed their lives for the independence, freedom, and prosperity of Hungary” .

The Danube river originate in South Germany and then flows through 10 different countries (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine) before ending in the Black Sea.

Pontus took a picture of Ulrika at one of the viewpoints on Gellért Hill. From this place you see the Pest part of Budapest. Budapest is one of the most densely populated cities in the EU. There aren’t so many tall buildings here, but the city seems to stretch far out in to the horizon.

The Citadella was not open when we went there, so after enjoying the view we walked back down through the Jubileumi Park.

The Gellért Hotel from the side and the Gellért square where the tram and bus stops are.

We were fortunate to end up having dinner with another fellow Swedish bitcoiner our first night in Budapest. Nanok Bie is a journalist and currently Editor-in-Chief at news.bitcoin.com, so we talked about whats going on in the cryptocurrency world and of course the bubble that separates Sweden from the rest of the world. We had a lovely evening and we hope to meet Nanok again somewhere else in the world.

We use the website Atlas Obscura to find unexpected places to explore and in Budapest we found out about Ervin Szabós library from that site. The library is described as “a 19th century aristocrat’s mansion, turned into a library, hidden in a modern library” and it is exactly what it is.

You’ll find Ervin Szabós library tucked in the 4th floor in a rather dull “modern” library and you wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t know about it beforehand.

The City Council purchased the building in 1931 and converted the palace rooms into reading rooms that is still used today.

There are five different rooms to explore, all built by a well-known Hungarian aristocrat, Count Frigyes Wenckheim at the end of the 19th century. The building is called the Wenckheim Palace, but the library was named after the director of the library, Ervin Szabó, a librarian and anarcho-syndicalist, who became a leader of the Hungarian anti-war movement during the first world war.

You can find both old an newer books, here but most of the books from Wenckheim’s time have been moved elsewhere or destroyed. More pictures from the library can be found in the slide show below.

 

 

 

 

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