Semana Santa - Part 3: Budapest

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Inside St. Stephan's Cathedral

"The hand"

At the top of St. Stephan's Cathedral (Me, Annie, Megan, and Bonnie)

Views of Budapest

More views of Budapest

Cool Staircase on the way up (and down...)

When Megan asked for water... this is what they gave her...

Our lunch!!!

Budapest Castle

Castle Hill

The Chain Bridge

Cool view of the Parliament in the background

The little tram we took up the hill

Parliament Building

Fisherman's Bastion

I love my Budapest!

Cute buildings up on Castle Hill

Pretty street

I love my stars!!! And this was a door!!

I should have bought this shirt......

Easter markets

The Castle

Pretty sunset over Castle Hill

Annie and me on the Danube River

Budapest by night!

"For Sale" Restaurant

Varosliget Park

Hungarian ducklings!

We left Vienna really early on April 22, although our bus was an HOUR late, which was really lame! When we got to Budapest we took the metro to our hostel and then started walking to the center and ran in to Megan and Annie on the way, which was perfect!  We stopped at their hostel really quick but then went to St. Stephan's Cathedral.  It was cool because it wasn't over the top.  What WAS over the top was the fact that in a side alter there was the actual hand of St. Stephen in a shrine.  Ewww… We went up to the tower of the cathedral to see a panoramic view of Budapest.  It was so beautiful! What a lovely city!  We continued to the city center to eat at Gerbeaud, one of the most well known cafes in Budapest.  I had a gigantic club sandwich.  We continued quickly across the Chair Bridge to Castle Hill where we took a lift up to the top which was fun.  I really enjoyed the Fisherman's Bastion.  There were Easter markets which had some different type things there which was fun.  We saw the outside of the castle before walking down.  We had some drinks on a boat along the Danube River but we kept having some issues with some giant spiders hanging out above our heads and dropping down, so it was not the relaxing drink on the river that I had hoped for… After that we went to a restaurant called "For Sale" which had a lot of character.  It had handwritten notes posted all over the walls and peanut shells on the floor.  I had a cranberry pancake and some beer.  We went back to the hostel but didn't get much sleep due to the obnoxious and drunk Spanish guys that kept us up almost all night.  The next morning we walked to Varosliget Park and then went to the Szechenyi Baths.  Budapest is famous for its spas, and it being the last day of our trip, we decided to see what they were all about.  It was basically a lot of hot tubs of different temperatures and waters both indoors and outdoors, and some saunas with different scents.  It was indeed relaxing!  After the baths we went to a little café called "Pause" and ate really yummy pizzas.  The person at the train station had told us that our tickets were for two hours earlier than they actually were, but we had already checked out of our hostel and had all of our stuff with us, so Annie, Bonnie, and I hung out for a long time at the train station waiting to go to Bratislava, Slovakia.  However, finally we made it to Bratislava in our hostel and left on a plane early in the morning.  It was a great week traveling! I think Budapest was my favorite and wish that I had had some more time there, but there is always the future!.......