July 20 – Prague, Czech Republic to Budapest, Hungary
July 20, 2019
Last updated on August 27th, 2019 at 02:59 pm
We got up early, finished packing everything, finished off the food we had bought earlier for breakfast, and left our flat for the Metro station, just downstairs and a few doors down. The escalators weren’t going the right direction for us, so we had to carry the luggage down the first flight, but throughout the the rest of the trip to the train station, we were able to use the escalators, and we got more proficient maneuvering the luggage as we went. One line change in the middle and we were at the train station in good time.
When we got to the terminal, there was a large gaggle of people, many looking toward arrival/departure boards posted at the front of the lobby. It was a little confusing, but a nice local gentleman saw our dilemma and was able to explain to us that the platform for our train hadn’t yet been assigned, but would likely be about 5 minutes before boarding began. Sure enough, just a few minutes later, the crowds began moving, and we made our way to the last platform and the last car of the train to Budapest.
The train ride was relatively uneventful. Once we got on board and found our assigned seats, the next dilemma was what to do with our large bag. There was a rack above that Alan could pretty easily get our smaller roller bags onto, but it didn’t seem reasonable to get the large bag up there. After checking and not seeing other options, he hoisted that bag up as well. It jetted over a bit, but seemed steady enough, and did stay in place until we reached Budapest.
We started with a bit of napping, and then got serious about blogging. Joyce wrote about previous days, and Alan worked on sorting through pictures and learning more about how to create galleries in the new WordPress software we were using. We stopped occasionally to take pictures at the various stops along the way and to observe the people in our car.
One of the most interesting set of passengers came on someplace in Slovakia. They were a large bunch of weathered, mixed-age and gendered people who were quite loud. They had their luggage in boxes bound with twine, re-purposed softener salt bags, shopping bags, and whatever else was available. We would guess that they didn’t bathe very often either! There was a lot of shouting back and forth as they tried to find the best available seats and seemed to try out several. Once the train was underway, the ticket checker came on our car and soon they were leaving our first-class car for someplace else farther up the way. Some of the other passengers on our car opened the windows for a bit to clear the air. Our guess is that this was an encounter with gypsies.
Along the way, we passed through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and into Hungary without anyone asking to see our passports, and only a couple of times to check our train tickets. Altogether, we were on the train for about 7 hours.
When we arrived at the train station, we noticed right away that it was much warmer. We also noticed that the helpful, smaller signs that we had been seeing in English were no where to be seen. The Train terminal that we arrived at appeared to have been built in the 19th century without a lot of upkeep in the meantime. We learned later that it was designed by Eiffel (of the Tower fame). Once we found our way out to the street, we were basically right on the street…and found it hard to find any street signs. Even Google maps seemed a bit confused. We were at the intersection of several large, multi-lane streets, and finally found our way across in the general direction of our hotel.
We walked along and pretty quickly our little blue dot in Google Maps started following along the dotted line that was the path to our hotel. Maneuvering our luggage wasn’t too big a deal along a mixture of concrete, cobblestone, construction, and pavement. After a 15 to 20 minute walk, we arrived at Callas House. The hotel is next to the Hungarian National Opera House, which is under an exterior reconstruction. We heard it was beautiful, but all we saw was drapes over the whole building. Callas House appears to be a building from the mid to late 1800’s. It is full of beautiful dark woodwork and floors, mixed with intricate tile and plaster work.
The reception area and our room was on the 4th floor. On the second floor of the building is the Ecuadorian Embassy, to give you an idea of the neighborhood. Our room was very nice with two walls of windows that gave a view of the Opera House (draping) and the streetscape below. The bathroom fixtures were elegant.
One of the things that Alan really wanted to do in Budapest was to take a bath. Budapest has about 11 working bath houses, built in the Turkish or Roman style. There are natural geothermal springs all around, which are also noted for their medicinal mineral components. We learned that local doctors are known to prescribe admission to the baths for a couple of sessions a week as therapy. Joyce thought that sounded interesting, but was more interested in reading about it than experiencing, but she was a good sport in going along with it.
We chose the Szechenyi Roman bath for our excursion. It was straight up the street in front of our hotel, but would have been about a 35 minute walk. We explored whether we wanted to take a taxi or try the Metro. There was a subway stop just steps from our door, so we dove in and learned how to use the Budapest Metro. Seven stops later, we were at the Baths.
With a little bit of confusion, we found our way to our private cabin for changing. Don’t get excited about our exotic lifestyle, our cabin might have been 20 square feet, with the door closed. It was a little comical getting changed into swim suits there together.
With that accomplished, we set out exploring. The bath building is basically a building built in a rectangle with an open courtyard in the middle. there must have been about 12 to 16 pools in the interior, ranging from ice cold, to 38 degree Celsius to stifling saunas. Some were still and some were bubbling. There was also a sign to the Beer Spa, but if we were in it, we couldn’t really tell. We even stumbled across the sun deck where apparently people are free to get an all-over tan. We didn’t linger long there once we saw what the space was for!
We tried most everything inside (except for the Sun Deck). The crowd definitely veered toward a young male clientele, though there were enough older folks that looked like us that we weren’t too self-conscious. We spent a few minutes in each pool and moved on to try another.
Outdoors, there were two major pools. One was largely a lap pool, with a smaller recreational pool next to it. At the other end was a large recreational pool with the center having a special pool built into it. This pool was essentially donut shaped. In the center, there was a section with seating around the ring. As we came out into that area, the center section was packed and we saw bubbling around the people. In the donut section, people were walking in circles around the donut hole in about chest deep water. We did several laps around that outer loop when all of the sudden, we found ourselves swept along with bursts of water suddenly pushing us along. We noticed that the bubbling in the middle had stopped and those people were clearing out. We took our place in the middle and watched people really enjoying the jet-propelled trips around the outside, some more playfully than others.
We waited about 10 minutes and then it was our turn. Bubbles almost lifted us off our seats and the bubbles were splashing so high that it was sometimes hitting us in the face! It was pretty invigorating. When our time with bubbles was done, the outer jets started up again. It was difficult to cross the stream to get to the safety of the still pool, and Alan actually had to make a trip around again in the fast lane to exit.
We got showers and redressed and left the pool after about 2 hours. One bonus was that our deposit for the towels was returned to us in Hungarian Forints, so that saved us looking for a way to get some local currency for our short stay. We got back on the Metro and made our way back without incident. Who knew that we could have so much fun with several hundred strangers in bathing suits?
It was after 8 by the time we were back, and since lunch had consisted largely of nuts and water, we decided to find some food before turning in. The internet recommended a place about a 10-minute walk away called the Meatery. We found the restaurant, but Alan misidentified the entrance, and before we knew it, we were seated outdoors at the restaurant immediately next door. We had already perused the menu and picked out what to eat before we figured it out. We went with the “Tourist Special”, which consisted of goulash soup, chicken thighs with dumplings (think chicken and noodles, Hungarian style), and a Hungarian dessert. While we waited between courses, we had a lot of pedestrian traffic, the St. Stephen’s Basilica across the street, and motor bikes and fancy cars racing down the street to keep us occupied. We learned that meals are much more of an event here than at home, and with the relaxing bath, it was hard to stay awake.
We made our way back to the hotel, having to almost pinch ourselves to remind us that we were in Bucharest, Hungary, walking down the street. There was a special about the 50th anniversary of landing on the moon that we watched when we got back, realizing that when we were watching that landing live, we never dreamed that we’d be watching an anniversary special from a hotel in Budapest!
