Day 12 (18 June): Wandering the labyrinth
Took a train from Pecs to Budapest this morning. Unfortunately we had to take another local train so there we spent a lot of time looking out the window at what is actually some quite nice looking farm land for 5+ hours.
Budapest turned out to be quite a simple city tonavigatee once we arrived and they have a very efficient subway (which is the continent´s first.) The only strange thing about their subway is how quickly thescalatorrs in the station move--much, much faster than I´ve ever seen before. We stayed again in another ´guesthouse´or room that an old woman was renting out; she turned out to be just as polite and crazy as the woman in Pecs was. It was also in a fantastic location near the Hungarian Parliment--a buliding on the Daunbe that dare I say it with any Brits around bests Westminster.
Since it was late when we arrived there wasn´t much we could do in terms of sites, but we got ourselves oriented with the city and made it into the Labrynth under the city´s castle. The Labrynth is a natural cave formed by sulphur deposits since the city sits at the edge of a large mountain range. They were originally inhabited by ´cave men´ in ancient times and late used as basement storage for the castle and occasionally prisions. They served as a cold war operations center as well.
We continued North on the west bank of the Danube to Obuda (or really, really old town) where we had dinner at a nice traditional Hungarian restaurant that was quite tasty. Hungarian food, thus far, has been the best, most flavorful food, on my trip. We also climed a hill to see the tomb of Guli Baba (which has become an Islamic pilgramage site) as Guli Baba was a Turk who helped overtake the city.
Economic observations:
1) Nothing will prevent Europeans from smoking. I personally hate smoking so this is getting frustrating for me, since all of my clothes, etc. smell like smoke by now. High sin taxes don´t phase them, nor do no smoking signs on trains.
2) Transportation in Hungary could still be better; it seems to me that Saturday would be a higher traffic day for long hauls, but they run no express trains on Saturdays.
3) Magyar, the Hungarian language, is like no other language in the world (except remotely like Finnish.) The Magyar people, Hungarians, came originally to Europe from Asia )Mongolia and Norhtern Inida, but certainly look Caucasian. As a result of having such a unique langugae, Hungarians all learn English, German, or both in order to deal with outsiders.
Budapest turned out to be quite a simple city tonavigatee once we arrived and they have a very efficient subway (which is the continent´s first.) The only strange thing about their subway is how quickly thescalatorrs in the station move--much, much faster than I´ve ever seen before. We stayed again in another ´guesthouse´or room that an old woman was renting out; she turned out to be just as polite and crazy as the woman in Pecs was. It was also in a fantastic location near the Hungarian Parliment--a buliding on the Daunbe that dare I say it with any Brits around bests Westminster.
Since it was late when we arrived there wasn´t much we could do in terms of sites, but we got ourselves oriented with the city and made it into the Labrynth under the city´s castle. The Labrynth is a natural cave formed by sulphur deposits since the city sits at the edge of a large mountain range. They were originally inhabited by ´cave men´ in ancient times and late used as basement storage for the castle and occasionally prisions. They served as a cold war operations center as well.
We continued North on the west bank of the Danube to Obuda (or really, really old town) where we had dinner at a nice traditional Hungarian restaurant that was quite tasty. Hungarian food, thus far, has been the best, most flavorful food, on my trip. We also climed a hill to see the tomb of Guli Baba (which has become an Islamic pilgramage site) as Guli Baba was a Turk who helped overtake the city.
Economic observations:
1) Nothing will prevent Europeans from smoking. I personally hate smoking so this is getting frustrating for me, since all of my clothes, etc. smell like smoke by now. High sin taxes don´t phase them, nor do no smoking signs on trains.
2) Transportation in Hungary could still be better; it seems to me that Saturday would be a higher traffic day for long hauls, but they run no express trains on Saturdays.
3) Magyar, the Hungarian language, is like no other language in the world (except remotely like Finnish.) The Magyar people, Hungarians, came originally to Europe from Asia )Mongolia and Norhtern Inida, but certainly look Caucasian. As a result of having such a unique langugae, Hungarians all learn English, German, or both in order to deal with outsiders.
posted by Traveling Brian at 7:33 AM
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