Our 5 hour flight to Dulles and our 7.5 hour flight to Frankfurt were uneventful. Neither of us slept, which makes for a long day/night.   We had long enough in Frankfurt to hit the Lufthansa Lounge, grab quick snack and charge our devices and get our 1.5 hour flight to Budapest.

We arrived in Budapest to beautiful sunshine, 65 degrees and our driver waiting for us to take us to the Kapital Inn our home base for the next few days.   Albert our host at Kapital met us and thankfully hauled our bags up 4 flights of stairs (no elevator) to a large, very modern, well designed and comfortable room with equally cool kitchen for breakfast. He also took time to give us the scoop on all things Budapest, including a map where he highlighted where to go, writing down the various sites, restaurants and bars, including the ruin bars (more on that later).

Now it was time for a nap, which was much needed with the little sleep (if any) that we had on the planes. Our bed was extremely comfy, the room quiet and it took Ken all of 30 seconds to fall into a deep sleep. After two hours of sleep and since it was 130p, we forced ourselves to get up, as our bodies were not wanting to do anything but continue sleeping.

We took our requisite Rick Steves book (RSB), Albert's map and headed for the Jewish quarter, close by our hotel.   We quickly found Macesz Huszar, a Jewish restaurant that was highlighted in the RSB as great food in a "grandma"s dining room” setting. It was bustling with the late lunch crowd and we enjoyed some yummy hummus, latkes (potato pancakes) and lamb goulash. Note about the goulash: it is not the thick heavy stew that we know at home, it is a thin, soup with carrots, potatoes and chunks of meat (this one had lamb). It arrived with a side of paprika, which ended up being dried peppers…seeds and all.   We sprinkled a bit on the soup and wow! Our taste buds exploded with the spice.

Then it was time to find the Danube River, so we followed the map and enjoyed seeing the old architecture mixed in with very modern building. We also passed the largest Synagogue in Europe, which had memorials to the many Jews that died in WW2.   The atrocities of that time are unthinkable, as over Hungary lost 600k Jews, the largest number in Europe.  

We found the Danube and continued walking up a pedestrian only avenue, that had the normal retail stores ( H&M, etc) making it undistinguishable from any other shopping area in the word.  At the end was one of the largest Christmas Markets was have visited, with cool foods, crafts and lit up beautifully for Christmas.

At this point was 430pm, the sun had disappeared and Ken’s energy went with it. He was ready to go back to the room and go to bed, but we both knew that would mean we would be up all night. So, we decided to go find one of the Ruin Bars in the Jewish Quarter.  After the fall of communism, many of the buildings had fallen into disrepair or as Albert put it “the structures were ready to fall on your head”.   Some creative person decided to buy one, make it habitable and into a pub. The original Szimpla, is a massive space and filled with shabby, mismatching furniture, lighting and decorations. Now, there are many, of varying degrees of shabbiness and artsy decorations, while still keeping their ruin vibes.

The first one we went to is actually a ruin restaurant called Mazletov. It was quite modern and didn’t have the shabby feel…but it was quite cool inside. While enjoying our beverage we met three young ladies from Los Angeles, who also had just arrived and were doing their best to keep awake as well.   We wanted to hit one more, so asked the waiter would he suggest Szimpla or Instant…he smiled and said Szimpla…it was more our style. I asked, because we are older?   He just smiled and nodded. Ok so the young girls were most likely headed to Instant we were headed to the Szimpla, where the old fogies were welcomed to a very cool space!

At this point we had made it to our goal of 8pm, stopped by a gyros stand and had a great sandwich, before heading back to Kapital for some much needed sleep.