Easter school holidays in London means only one thing: travel time! Myself and my friend Denholm and his fun French housemate Lise planned a fun 6 day trip to Budapest and this amazing city was all that I expected and more!
After a pretty heavily delayed flight we were finally on our way!
The national currency in Budapest is Hungarian Forints, 400 Fortints = £1 approximately, in others words the Forint isn't worth very much, making Budapest an extremely affordable city! I am holding a 10000 Forint note, which is worth approximately £25 (or $45 AUD), crazy conversion rate!
The hostel we were staying at was called Carpe Noctem Vitae (which translates to Seize the Night Life... and THAT we did!), it is part of a chain called Budapest Party Hostels and is well known for organising fun (drinking) events each night of the week - there was always something to do every night of the week (there is no such thing as a chill night here!) - more on this later! There are also daily activities and drinking challenges to be beaten!
Our first day was pretty chilled, Denholm and I hung out with our cool new room mate Blair and we wandered around the city of Budapest, first stop was a really cool tea house called Sirius Tea House - it was more than just a tea house!
Some pics of the strange and quirky interior of Sirius tea house! We literally opened the closet and walked through some crazy mirror maze up a ramp and onto a platform! Strangest but best tea house I have ever been in!
Above left is the little window that we ordered all of our tea through! Above is Blair and Denhom chilling on our little upstairs ledge! Budapest is amazingly cheap so we paid approx £1 each for an entire pot of tea each and my vanilla, cinnamon flavoured tea was incredible!
We paid a quick visit to the Grand Market Hall, the main traditional product being sold here was paprika in every shape and form - this is something that Hungary is pretty well known for a features in many of their traditional dishes.
We headed off to Exit Point to attempt an escape room (more on that later) and then off to Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar - one of the most popular bars in Europe (apparently) - Ruin bars are literally old ruined houses and buildings that have been converted into bars. Some of them are huge, covering several stories and with up to 30 different rooms or bars!
This is a picture of me at Szimpla enjoying a cheap glass of wine (£1 glasses of wines at bars! Oh yes!).
After a quick stroll around the Budapest Grand Market we were ready for a late lunch and headed to a traditional Hungarian restaurant - I didn't get any snaps of the food but we made sure to get some drinks (at the super expensive price of £2 each - WOW! I could get used to these prices after living in expensive London). These drinks were perfect to get us ready for the upcoming boat party (yes, a party on a boat, what more could you want!?)
Unfortunately I spent too much time 'enjoying myself' to bother to take any photos but fortunately some professional photographers were roaming around. Above is probably the nicest drinking photo I have ever been a part of - this is Denhom and I looking reasonably sharp at the beginning of the night (before everyone decided that we should help them finish off their free bottles of champagne).
While on the boat we passed the Parliament house of Budapest, one of the most beautiful parliament buildings in the world (in my opinion) and the second largest in Europe (behind the London parliament buildings) - this was one of the few things I managed to get a photo of - I did steal this one from a friend though!
This is a pretty decent of some of the new friends we made during the night (no idea where Denhom went during this picture) - Blair (girl on my left) shared the 'inception room' (the hostel room, inside a hostel room) with Lise, Denholm and I and the other Canadian guys were in the room outside our hostel room, inside the room... if any of that makes sense (can you believe I teach English for a living?!). This was a fun night involving general drinking and debauchery as well as the creation some reasonably inventive, yet somewhat offensive, nicknames (what happens in Budapest stays in Budapest).
After a fun night of boat cruising and a rooftop bar with terrible music we all slept for a long time!
The night day a group of us from our hostel headed out on a walking tour of Budapest!
The above photo is of the lovely Blair in front of the Budapest Basilica - I have seen a LOOOOOT of Churches since traveling Europe and the UK but this is a pretty impressive building. It is the equal tallest building in all of Budapest and it is illegal to build anything taller than this!
We strolled through Budapest, randomly stopping outside of the bar we had been at the night before (prior to the boat party) - in the photo on the top left I am standing outside what looks like a pool of water but is actually the roof of a bar called the Akuarium - from the inside it looks really cool because you actually do feel somewhat submerged underwater. The photo on the bottom right is a statue that is famous for being the first statue that is not of a political leader but simply a young girl who was a princess that preferred to dress like a prince (cue Aria Stark).
Above in Denhom, Lise and myself in one of the market areas in Budapest, they reminded me of some of the Christmas markets in Germany and sold a variety of random souvenirs, crafts and of course beloved street food (Lise... those cinnamon things!)
From here we headed to the Chain Bridge - a famous Bridge in Budapest that was the first part to link the two cities of Buda and Pest! Yep, the two cities combined and to keep things simple merged their names to form what is now known as Budapest! We walked from the Pest side of the city to hilly Buda to continue our walking tour.
A lovely panorama of the Danube River as we crossed from Pest to Buda, courtesy of Lise and her photography skills!
A great shot of the 'Inception room' gang on the chain bridge in Budapest! We scrub up alright!
The next series of pictures are taken from the Buda side of Budapest in the Castle District (aptly named because there is a castle located on the top of the hill = genius), which is more hilly and looks down over Pest (hence, the rich people like to reside here).
Above left is a photo that provided us with some amusement, in true inception style we have a pose in front of a pose (in other words the guy behind Denholm posed for this picture for so long that we began to mimic his posing - we had time for all of us to take several of our own shots of us posing, while he continued to relentlessly and shamelessly pose for several hundred photos).
An aerial shot of the Chain bridge taking from Castle Hill, overlooking the Pest side of the city.
Budapest really is a beautiful city.
Thanks again to Lise for her lovely photography skills in capturing a great photo of the Parliament building during the day - looks very different but equally elaborate.
In the afternoon the inception room crew made our way over to Buda once again to take in some nice views of Budapest.
Turns out my panorama app isn't too shabby!
We climbed to the top of the Citadealla on Gellert Hill, I guess it is kind of like a fortress that overlooks the whole of Budapest. The statue at the top (bottom picture on the right) is a liberty statue (although I am not sure why she is holding a leaf...)
Being the smart and savvy backpackers we are, we packed a picnic lunch (complete with a few bottles of wine that Blair and I clearly enjoyed a little too much) so we could happily eat and drink while we enjoyed the view and somewhat uneventful sunset.
Later that night we went on a pub crawl and played pub golf . If you imagine a nine hole round of golf, with each pub being a new hole with a new drink you can kind of make an assumption about what this game entails (hint: drinking).
Our team was called Tequila Mockingbirds and we had a beautiful, [albeit] shrill bird call handshake, which was utilised to mobilise our team to move from pub to pub - I was not able to take many photos of the night and as a result this seems to be the only one available - looking lovely Braden!
---
After a very late night out at the pub crawl and many, many drinks Saturday was a day of mostly rest!
However, Saturday night proved to be one of the biggest, craziest, weirdest nights I have ever had: SPARTY. Sparty is more or less a giant crazy party in a hot thermal spa! Budapest has several thermal spas and every Saturday night one of them turns into a crazy party spa.
Mandatory selfie on the way to the Sparty!
Below is a taste of what Sparty is all about, picture a huge thermal spa (complete with a whirlpool in the middle), heaps of people, bright lights, music, drinks, steam and general craziness and shenanigans!
My waterproof camera was the flavour of the night and it was essential that underwater photos were taken - as you can see below we have some level of success but a lot of amusement!
Unfortunately the air was bloody freezing - there was no chance of me leaving the water once I had got into it (and it wasn't even that warm) - the pool guards, who were focused more on alcohol than general safety, tried to stop everyone from bringing drinks into the water. Since it was freezing everyone was running into the water with them anyway - totally worth the risk of being told off (or whistled at) in order to stay warm!
Despite the ridiculous amount of steam and random bodies we seemed to always end up back together, regardless of the numerous trips to the whirlpool and dreaded outdoor bar.
Definitely one of the best photos of the night!
There are several different people wearing that visor throughout the course of the night - nobody seems to know where it ended up though!
I think this picture (above) captures the craziness of the sparty - the steam that prevented you from seeing too far, the huge crowds of people in the spa and the inappropriate close proximity of everyone (believe me there were worse things than this happening in that spa!). This is also about the time of the night when all of our pictures began to degenerate... haha!
Bryce - the star of underwater shots.
Lise - the queen of almost being drowned in most of the photos she is in.
Above right: the famous goodbye shot that Bryce adamantly denied happened, photographic evidence certainly is a bitch! Also several not so well organised and focused group shots taken towards the end of the night.
AGAIN Bryce is underwater, the group is struggling to get a decent photo and Lise is being drowned - seems like their was a theme for the night!
Photo taken just before we leave, at approx 3am - the craziness continued for several more hours but we were so cold that it was time to leave. Bryce and Denholm continued the party in the most debaucherous fashion possible, this included: pillow fights, climbing statues, giving homeless people presents, being rejected at KFC and crashing into our dorm room like wrecking balls.
----
The next day the group got out of bed, somehow, grabbed some breakfast/lunch and wandered around Budapest one last time before many of the group had to head off to their next destination/home.
A traditionally awkward lunch photo - Luke has pretty decent selfie taken skills!
Above left is a picture of the entrance to the spas during the day, they looked very different during the day and of course had a very different atmosphere (relaxation as opposed to craziness!). On the right is a picture of Hero's square.
An amazing group photo of our group sitting on the statue in Hero's square - after getting rejected by the common 'Hungarian No' we finally found a nice stranger who was happy to take our picture!
Lise and I with a statue close the parliament building - I am not entirely sure what this statue is supposed to be about, aside from an army man of some kind but his eyes were seriously creepy so we jumped in for a picture!
Another thing that is super popular in Budapest is the idea of escape rooms. Put simply, a group of 2-5 people are shut into a room for an hour and have to escape the room. You have to complete puzzles, brain teasers, find clues, search for locks and figure out codes in order to escape. Some of the puzzles and codes are extremely abstract and you have to think outside the box - we did two different escape rooms while in Budapest, the first was an Alice in Wonderland theme and the second was a 1984 (George Orwell) themed room. It sounds bizarre but it's so challenging and so much fun!
This is a picture of us after successfully completing the 1984 escape room (in just under one hour - which is the time limit). We were far more successful with the Alice in Wonderland room, we escaped with 13 minutes to spare, which happens to be the 4th fastest time that any group has escaped from this room in! It's safe to say we were pretty chuffed with our efforts.
-----
On our final day in Budapest we were fortunate enough to go caving, something we had all been really looking forward to!
A group shot of Lise, Denhom, John and myself before heading into the caves of Budapest!
The pictures don't really do the caves justice, the group we were in decided on taking a reasonably hard route through the caves. This meant that the first 40m of so consisted of a lot of tight spaces and army crawling through and under the rock... fortunately none of us are claustrophobic.
My in my super sexy caving overalls - not the most flattering outfit in the world!
The photo on the left gives you some idea of some of the tight spaces we had to squeeze through, however there were even tighter ones in which the only way to get through was to shake and wiggle and let gravity do it's thing!
This is a bizzare looking shot but Denhom is actually lying down in this photo!
Some random photos of us making our way through the caves, it was actually quite hard work at some points. The top right is a photo of me emerging from a tiny hole that we all had to drag ourselves up through, it seemed to take more energy than usual to get through tight spaces when you cannot bend your arms and legs the ways you would normally aim to.
Some more beautifully unflattering photos of Lise and myself in our super lovely caving suits!
Some more photos of us in the caves, after every big section of crawling through tight spaces we had a short rest in bigger opening, featuring singing (good and bad) and funny stories and myths told by our guide. All up I think we were in the caves for roughly 1.5-2 hours.
Final photo of Lise and myself not long before we finally resurfaced!
That more or less summarises the crazy, chaotic and unforgettable time I had in Budapest. I can only hope that the rest of the cities I visit in Europe are this much fun with equally awesome new friends for company!
To all of my wonderful new found friends, hopefully we meet again somewhere in the world and if you're ever in London you know how to find me!
xxx
