Last Updated on March 20, 2023 by PowersToTravel
We had bought our transit passes and golly, we would use them!
Central Market
We headed off first thing to the Central Market, which isn’t central at all. It’s down by the river, to the south of the main city center, near Fővam tér, about a mile from our hotel. Ahhh, as we trundled along in our almost-empty Saturday morning tram. This is the life!
The Central Market turned out to be an historic three-story building, breathtakingly chock full of edibles and souvenirs. My photographer soul was awestruck by the colors. (The diabetic in me surprisingly resisted the caloric temptations, possibly because it was so soon after breakfast!) Sausage shops, fruit stands huddled next to booths filled with colorful Hungarian embroidery-work and painted products. Every booth tempted my camera.
Central Market, Budapest
Check out this slideshow!
They also invaded Greg’s wallet as we found item after item to buy, and ended up with so much to carry that we decided to take the tram back to our hotel, to deposit our goods, before getting back on the tram and heading back to Fővam tér.
Tram 2 along the Danube
At Fővam tér, near the Market, tram Number 2 runs along the river all the way up to Kossuth Lajos for the Parliament Tour. The view from the tram was nice, but it wasn’t spectacular, considering we’d already walked over the Chain Bridge and taken the evening boat cruise. We could just as easily have taken the Metro up to Kossuth Lajos, but then we would have been even earlier than we were, for our time tour.
Shoes on the Danube Memorial
I really don’t like to wait around, and I really don’t like timed tickets in the middle of the day, but as I mentioned earlier, my own lack of planning had led to our hanging around at the Parliament visitors center. We were so early that we walked back south along the Danube to the Jewish Shoes memorial. With the perspective we had gained from the Holocaust Memorial Center, the shoes memorial was extremely poignant. I felt a little ill at ease just taking photographs.
Shoes on the Danube memorial
Hungarian Parliament Building
Back at the visitor’s center it was mobbed with people as the visitor’s center seemed to be launching tours almost every 10 minutes… English, Chinese, French, Hungarian, language after language.
Parliament was worth the effort and worth the wait! The guide was entertaining, and the sights we saw are indescribable. Once again my camera just seemed to take off on its own.
Hungarian Parliament Interior, Budapest
Photography was prohibited in only one location – the great dome with its sole occupants, the Crown Jewels.
There aren’t many restaurants in the Parliament area, so we took the metro line 2 back to Deák Ferenc, and ate at a pub there, called Froccsterasz (say that five times fast!) We had burgers and were not impressed.
We next ventured down into metro line 1. We had learned from the guide at Parliament that the metro line 1 was the third oldest in the world, and first one in Europe, constructed in 1896. It runs deep under Andrassy Avenue out to the baths and Heroes Square. It was always on my planned itinerary, but it was nice to have some background from the guide.
Szechenyi Baths
It was an fine ride out to the Szechenyi Baths. We had read that at the Baths you could pay for a “tourist”-type ticket to see that baths and take pictures, without bathing. I was wanting to swim but Greg wasn’t too sure about it, and we didn’t want to be carrying our gear around Parliament, so we previously decided we would just be “tourists.” Unfortunately, upon our arrival the attendant said those tickets were not available. Was it too late in the day, wrong day? No explanations were forthcoming, just no access. The attendant did tell us that we could walk around and go in the front entrance to the café where we could see a little. So we did, and I did get some good pictures of one of the outdoor baths.
Széchenyi Baths, Budapest
Heroes’ Square
We strolled, or as you could say by this time, we staggered, over to the Heroes’ Square. We took some pictures at Heroes’:
Heroes Square Budapest
We skipped the Zoo, the Vajdahunyad Castle, and the Museum of Fine Arts, staggered back to the Metro, and returned to our hotel to nap.
Our exhaustion dictated that we not walk far to dinner, so we decided to eat at the Thai Spicy 9 restaurant, just a block from our hotel. What a great decision! Awesome Thai food.
Click here to return to the master itinerary.
Click here to move on to Day Four.
