Budapest, day 8: on to Prague

Now we were really on our way home from Hungary. We left the same way we had come, but this time it was sunny instead of dumping rain, so we got to see a bit more even though we didn't leave the highway. However, as we drove through Slovakia, the clouds got darker and darker. Soon we were driving through a series of some of the heaviest cloudbursts I've ever encountered. Fields were flooded and rivers were almost up to their bridges.

This continued on an off until we neared Prague. Amazingly, they had very appropriate signs.

We'd booked a room at a Best Western on the outskirts of town. It was surprisingly cheap for a "four star" hotel. We'd stayed at a three star hotel in Dresden which was really nice, but this was more like a motel. That didn't matter, because we weren't there for long. We took a bus to the metro and into town.

We hopped off the metro briefly at the Museum district for a quick look around, then we took the subway the rest of the way to the river. We walked across the bridge and up the hill to the castle.

The view was incredible, but what really impressed was the gothic cathedral. I'm totally into gargoyles, and this cathedral had the best gargoyles I'd ever seen. There were all possible species: wolves, cats, wild boars, dragons, birds, and even humanoids. I'd love to go back and photograph them all.

We walked back across a different bridge in search of dinner, and ended up at the old town square where we had some absolutely wonderful goulash in bread bowls.

After dinner we walked until we were exhausted. The metro station wouldn't take Euros or plastic, so we eventually resorted to taking a cab back to the hotel.

Budapest, day 7: my turn as guide

My husband and a couple of his friends were free after lunch, so we decided to do some sightseeing together. The weather was lovely, and after all the eating and sitting they'd done all week, they were ready to walk. Earlier in the week I'd asked the concierge how to walk or take public transportation to the Citadel. I could see it on the next hill, so I figured it couldn't take more than an hour to walk there. Unfortunately he said it would take 3 buses to get there, and when I suggested walking, he responded like I was crazy. He said it would take hours and suggested I take a taxi. After waiting a few minutes for the taxi in miserable weather, I'd decided to postpone the trip, but now was the perfect occasion. With four of us, splitting a taxi was reasonable.

The reason I wanted to go to the Citadel was to see the series of photos showing Budapest every decade between 1850 and 1950. These were interesting, and the view was fantastic. For guys who hadn't seen much of Budapest during the daylight, this was a good place for them to start. This place had been a fortress in one form or another since Roman times, and they had some anti-aircraft guns on display. Also at the Citadel was the Lady Liberty statue which was given to the people of Budapest by the Soviets to celebrate their liberation from the Germans. When the communist era ended, the statue was wrapped in a white sheet, splashed with red paint, and thus re-purposed.

One of the guys had to go back to the hotel, but we had plenty of time, so we walked back from the Citadel. It took only 35 minutes to walk to the base of the Castle District, and even with all those stairs, it couldn't have taken him more than 15 minutes more to get back to the hotel. The rest of us crossed the chain bridge (the guys admiring the engineering) to Pest.

We were thirsty, and it was getting to be snack time, so I suggested finding the famous Cafe Gerbeaud. Most of the many coffee houses in Budapest had been closed during the communist era since coffee houses were where people went to conspire, but this one remained for the benefit of the tourists from Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe. This one truly was amazing. The ambiance was fantastic, and the cake was to die for. The thing that drove me crazy was the water. I don't particularly like mineral water, and the stuff in Budapest really tasted like wet rocks even if it didn't have bubbles, so I ordered ordinary water. Once again, it was served in a shot glass! I asked for more water, and I was given another shot glass of water with a dirty look from the waitress.

I took the guys for a walk around Pest, recapping much of what I'd seen on my walking tours. My husband noticed some interesting architectural details that I hadn't paid much attention to. The neoclassical relief images on the sides of buildings all glorified the hard-working proletariat instead of Greek or Roman decadence. After a light dinner at an outdoor cafe in front of the cathedral, we headed back to the hotel. They guys walked, but since I still had my transit pass, I took the metro and a bus. I was surprised that the guys made it back to the hotel only 10 minutes after me.

Budapest, day 2: Dresden to Budapest

We tried to get an early start, but the breakfast buffet at the hotel was so good, that we couldn't rush through it. They even had trays of assorted desserts which included something that at first glance appeared to be a brownie. There was only one of these, and I was reminded of a bumper sticker I'd seen long ago: Life in uncertain--eat dessert first. That seemed particularly applicable at this moment, so I had this square of dense chocolate/cherry cake with a cup of hot chocolate as well as a reasonable breakfast of scrambled eggs, a multigrain roll with cheese and liver paté, cantaloupe, a yogurt drink, and tea. Knowing that my husband does not like to stop for food when driving, I figured it was okay to stuff myself. It turned out that was a wise decision.

We drove through central Dresden again on our way out. Road construction soon after the Czech border took us on a very scenic detour. Here the city was much more industrial looking. On the hillside overlooking the river, there were again lovely huge Victorian manor houses, but these looked like they could use some renovation. Some looked like they urgently needed a lot of renovation, and interspersed were boring modern houses. The landscape was beautiful, and there was a lot of potential, but the impression was sad. I think this was more of what I was expecting from Eastern Europe.

We got to Prague around 10 AM. Since it was too early for lunch, we drove around a little before returning to the highway. It was gorgeous, as I'd expected, and I definitely want to go back. The roads in the Czech Republic were nowhere near as good as they were in Germany, and they seemed to get worse as our drive progressed.

Our route took us through Bratislava, Slovakia, which looked very much like what I'd expected for Eastern Europe, except instead of cement gray, the buildings had been painted a variety of bright colors. A few historic buildings punctuated the scene which was otherwise mostly industrial or agricultural.

The roads were just as bad when we crossed the border into Hungary. Map reading was pretty much impossible in those conditions, and Budapest is not a car-friendly city. The signs are in Hungarian, and left turns are pretty much impossible. I was really glad I wasn't driving. With the help of a fold-out map in my Swedish library book on Budapest, we eventually found our hotel.

It turns out that the Budapest Hilton is quite a landmark since it's partially a modern building and partially built into the ruins of an ancient church. It's on the top of a hill overlooking the Danube in the historic walled palace district. It was 4 PM by the time we got in, and we hadn't eaten lunch, so I was starving. We found a place just a block from the hotel that had the most incredible cakes and coffees, so once again I had hot chocolate and a piece of chocolate (mousse) cake. Yum. I'll have to see how many of these cakes I can try during this trip.

We were invited out to dinner with my husband's colleagues a few hours later, but there's no way I would have made it without eating something. Since it was dumping rain and very windy, we returned to the hotel without much sightseeing. Dinner was excellent. I had white asparagus with hollandaise sauce, lamb, and risotto. Dessert was included: a sponge cake with cream filling and chocolate sauce. It was incredible, but I am now so full I can hardly breathe. For those keeping score, that would be two hot chocolates and three chocolate desserts in one day. I might have to make a visit to the hotel gym tomorrow if my clothes are still going to fit me by the end of the week.

Budapest, day 1: Sweden to Dresden

With our daughter in her grandmother's care for the week, my husband and I left Saturday morning for Budapest. Since it's a 14 hour drive, we decided to take it over 2 days. We left home at 9 AM, which gave me about 4.5 hours sleep after photographing a wedding the day before. We drove through Denmark and took the ferry from Gedser to Rostock (Germany) then drove via Berlin to Dresden. We had estimated that we'd make it hopefully as far as Berlin, possibly as far as Prague, and Dresden was in between, so that was pretty good. It was raining the whole way, sometimes so hard we could hardly see the car in front of us. This made for rather limited sightseeing, but I'd seen the part as far as Berlin just last December. My husband was also a bit disappointed since the rain dampened his autobahn experience. If it hadn't been for the rain, we would have made it to Prague.

My only experience with Eastern Europe was Berlin, both in 1989 and 2009, so I was really looking forward to seeing more of it on this trip.

It stopped raining shortly before we arrived in Dresden around 6 PM. We drove around for a while before we eventually found a vacant room at the Holiday Inn in the Bohemian part of town. The room was expensive but very nice, and at least parking and breakfast were included. We walked to the area where there are a lot of restaurants and finally settled on Italian. I ordered pasta with fresh asparagus and salmon, and my husband ordered lasagna. He inadvertently got the spinach lasagna, and while he was able to eat it despite hating spinach, I traded with him half way through. I thought both dinners were absolutely delicious!

Dresden was a lovely city, and I'd like to go back. I'd thought Dresden had pretty much been destroyed during WWII, so I was very much surprised by the fantastic architecture. Could all of this been rebuilt since 1989, or did the East Germans have better taste than I'd given them credit for? I'd rather imagined a city dominated by soulless cement high-rises (kind of like Malmö), and while some of the city was modern, it reminded me pleasantly of a cross between Wurtzburg and Berlin. There were many gorgeous huge homes, probably from the turn of the century, and most had been or were being restored to their former glory. Some had been replaced by modern structures, but the character of the neighborhood remained.