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We are now in Croatia, near Zagreb on our way to Zadar, a 3000 year old city near the coast.
Though I will tell you about Budapest, a city both Filippa and I really liked.The city is quite big and separated in 2 parts by the danube river, the Buda side, which is hilly and where the unesco protected castle is overlooking the city and the recently build Pest side which is flat and where the real heart of the city is. Now, one thing that striked me was that Budapest is a true mixture of East and West speaking of architecture ,in particular, and their language (Hungarians are originally from east asia and therefore their language is not similar to any european language) and the turkish baths. Last monday we got op early to try one of those and it was simply amazing. The building was rather old and the interior was really beautiful and it seemed that it hadn't been touched in years, so you could really feel the authenticity. We went outside where there was a sort of open courtyard surrounded by beautiful yellow baroque buildings, fountains and 3 swimming pools. The place was huge and the thermal baths were fantastic. We spent the whole morning there enjoying the blood rush in our bodies after sweating in a 60 degrees steam room and plonging our bodies in 18 degree water and also relaxing in the 30 degree pool with the old hungarian women and men. When we left the bath I felt reborn.
So what did we do after that? Went out for a drink? No, actually the day before we were invited by a hungarian family to have lunch (the husband is my fathers colleague). We were running very late (I had forgotten about our apointment and it was only because I was looking for something in my bag that morning and found the gift I wanted to give them by accident that I realised I had forgotten everything about that lunch.) He picked us up at a metro station and brought us to their house hidden behind the buda hills, in a small village. The hostess was very kind and after we sat down she served us a glass of unicum, which is the national drink here in hungary supposed to be healing (it contains 40 different herbs, it tastes like it too, actually I think it tastes like cough sirup) and it is stronger than a jaegermeister. « Egge shegge drey » the hostess said, like her husband (cheers in hungarian) what a long and complicated name to say especially for foreigners and very drunk people, and she emptied her glass. I had a sip and could feel the alcohol burning my throat and the bitter after taste on my tounge. It was difficult not to show my disliking of the drink, but the next second, the hostess made a sign and showed me to empty the glass, « egge sheege drey ». I looked over to Filippa who had just emptied it like me and I felt a slight uncomfort and slightly dizzy. Filippa seemed to struggle as much as me which recomforted me a little but eitherway, I thought I was going to fall of my chair any second. Then the eldest daughter appeard and as I was going to stand up to say hello I thought I was going to fall over the table and make a fool of myself. Eventually I found my chair and sat down still recovering. Filippa was struggling just as much. After 5 minutes the effect was gone. I could breathe normally again. That was when the husband offered us some hungarian wine, to go with the excellent gulash his wife had prepared for us. But we managed the situation very well after all. When we left it was raining and I felt quite tired, but it didn't hold us from going out again in the evening at a wonderful bar with half bathtubs as sofas, tractor seats as chairs and a very nice and chilling atmosphere. Probably the most popular bar in Pest I would say and the most crowded.
Moving on, let me tell you some interesting facts about Budapest/Hungary and it's history. We visited the synagoge (2nd largest in europe) in the city center and we learned that Budapest was the 5th place in the world where the concentration of jews was high (does that make any sense to you?), so there was a high concentration of jews in Budapest and the highest in eastern of europe. That is actually an interesting story, different embassies of Budapest bought up the synagogs during the 2nd World War to protect the synagogs from being destroyed by the nazis and they also saved the jews from being deported by giving them passports (like the swiss embassy). The synagogue itself was really beautiful, built by a catholic austrian architect at the turn of the century and it looked more like a mixture of a catholic church and a mosque, because the architect didn't really know what he was doing, as he didn't really know what the jewish religion was about.
Estee Lauder (the founder of the famous cosmetic brand) is hungarian (also from Budapest) and contributed a lot of money to the restauration of the synagogue.
Another interesting thing was that after the 1st World War, hungarians lost ½ of their territory, like Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia) back then it was the capital of hungary. So many hungarians still live in parts of Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia and Slovenia.
Another thing we really struggled with was the currency. 290 forints is worth a euro, so we would carry thousands of forints with us.
I could carry on, but I must tell you about Split, where we are now actually…
Budapest:
We are now in Croatia, near Zagreb on our way to Zadar, a 3000 year old city near the coast.
Though I will tell you about Budapest, a city both Filippa and I really liked.The city is quite big and separated in 2 parts by the danube river, the Buda side, which is hilly and where the unesco protected castle is overlooking the city and the recently build Pest side which is flat and where the real heart of the city is. Now, one thing that striked me was that Budapest is a true mixture of East and West speaking of architecture ,in particular, and their language (Hungarians are originally from east asia and therefore their language is not similar to any european language) and the turkish baths. Last monday we got op early to try one of those and it was simply amazing. The building was rather old and the interior was really beautiful and it seemed that it hadn't been touched in years, so you could really feel the authenticity. We went outside where there was a sort of open courtyard surrounded by beautiful yellow baroque buildings, fountains and 3 swimming pools. The place was huge and the thermal baths were fantastic. We spent the whole morning there enjoying the blood rush in our bodies after sweating in a 60 degrees steam room and plonging our bodies in 18 degree water and also relaxing in the 30 degree pool with the old hungarian women and men. When we left the bath I felt reborn.
So what did we do after that? Went out for a drink? No, actually the day before we were invited by a hungarian family to have lunch (the husband is my fathers colleague). We were running very late (I had forgotten about our apointment and it was only because I was looking for something in my bag that morning and found the gift I wanted to give them by accident that I realised I had forgotten everything about that lunch.) He picked us up at a metro station and brought us to their house hidden behind the buda hills, in a small village. The hostess was very kind and after we sat down she served us a glass of unicum, which is the national drink here in hungary supposed to be healing (it contains 40 different herbs, it tastes like it too, actually I think it tastes like cough sirup) and it is stronger than a jaegermeister. « Egge shegge drey » the hostess said, like her husband (cheers in hungarian) what a long and complicated name to say especially for foreigners and very drunk people, and she emptied her glass. I had a sip and could feel the alcohol burning my throat and the bitter after taste on my tounge. It was difficult not to show my disliking of the drink, but the next second, the hostess made a sign and showed me to empty the glass, « egge sheege drey ». I looked over to Filippa who had just emptied it like me and I felt a slight uncomfort and slightly dizzy. Filippa seemed to struggle as much as me which recomforted me a little but eitherway, I thought I was going to fall of my chair any second. Then the eldest daughter appeard and as I was going to stand up to say hello I thought I was going to fall over the table and make a fool of myself. Eventually I found my chair and sat down still recovering. Filippa was struggling just as much. After 5 minutes the effect was gone. I could breathe normally again. That was when the husband offered us some hungarian wine, to go with the excellent gulash his wife had prepared for us. But we managed the situation very well after all. When we left it was raining and I felt quite tired, but it didn't hold us from going out again in the evening at a wonderful bar with half bathtubs as sofas, tractor seats as chairs and a very nice and chilling atmosphere. Probably the most popular bar in Pest I would say and the most crowded.
Moving on, let me tell you some interesting facts about Budapest/Hungary and it's history. We visited the synagoge (2nd largest in europe) in the city center and we learned that Budapest was the 5th place in the world where the concentration of jews was high (does that make any sense to you?), so there was a high concentration of jews in Budapest and the highest in eastern of europe. That is actually an interesting story, different embassies of Budapest bought up the synagogs during the 2nd World War to protect the synagogs from being destroyed by the nazis and they also saved the jews from being deported by giving them passports (like the swiss embassy). The synagogue itself was really beautiful, built by a catholic austrian architect at the turn of the century and it looked more like a mixture of a catholic church and a mosque, because the architect didn't really know what he was doing, as he didn't really know what the jewish religion was about.
Estee Lauder (the founder of the famous cosmetic brand) is hungarian (also from Budapest) and contributed a lot of money to the restauration of the synagogue.
Another interesting thing was that after the 1st World War, hungarians lost ½ of their territory, like Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia) back then it was the capital of hungary. So many hungarians still live in parts of Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia and Slovenia.
Another thing we really struggled with was the currency. 290 forints is worth a euro, so we would carry thousands of forints with us.
I could carry on, but I must tell you about Split, where we are now actually…
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