Erasmus Road Trip: destination Budapest

Well well, this month has been quite busy for me, even tough I’m on holidays until the 21st, that jeans until next Monday, I haven’t stopped a single moment, whether partying, travelling or just simply playing mus with my friends…

Last post was about the trip to Serbia and Bosnia, and this one will be about the weekend in Budapest.

And again, the means of transport was renting a car, but this time, a different one, we opted for a van, coz there were 8 of us going to Hungary. So on Saturday 12^th we gathered first in Rozna, then pick up Sandra and Maya in their flat, and finally pick up the people living in Bezigrad right before we started our journey.

The trip to Budapest was quite smooth, once you get out from Ljubljana there is a highway that connects directly to Budapest, so it’s pretty good, we spent like 5 hours on the van, but on our way, we passed near by Lake Balaton, so we strayed from the road to go see the amazing lake. (picture)

We didn’t stay long coz we couldn’t see very well the lake since it was partially frozen.

By 2pm we arrived in Budapest, the capital of the Magyars, my first impression of the city was that we arrived in big capital, heavy traffic, wide roads, trams, metro and tons of people on the streets. It didn’t take long until we found the hostel, it was located next to the Comedy Theatre of Budapest, the most difficult thing was to find a parking space for the van, but we were lucky so it dind’t take much time either.

I must say, the hostel was fantastic, big rooms with couches and stuff , very clean, nice environment, a really bargain for the price they charged us, 7.5 euros per night and person.

The Groove Hostel

We unpacked the stuff and immediately we went out to find something for lunch, and guess where did we end up… yes again, in McDonald’s… which obviously the menu was the same like in any other part of Europe, but even cheaper than in Belgrade..

Later on we went to do some tourism around the city, we didn’t even used the map, because Maya had a local friend, so he did of tourist guide and took us around.. nothing better than a local to discover the best part of the city.

We started in Margit Hid, and walk down Olimpiai Park to see the Parlament, we continued alongside the river down to Roosevelt Tér, cross the Lánchíd to reach Buda part of the city. Later on we went to see the fortress, the castle, Mátyás-templom and many more stunning sights!

As we were walking it was getting colder and darker, so some of us decided to go back to the hostel to rest, while others continued for a little longer, that why we got to cross back the bridge to Pest, and see Szent István-bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica), Szabadság tér and later on just walk back to hostel enjoying the beautiful night views.

After resting for a short moment in the hostel, we decided to go and grab something for dinner, we didn’t go to any special place, just a regular fast food restaurant, and after that we took the tram for 2 stops, until the bar hopping district, we got in to a very nice Pub, decorated with football motives, nice music and full of Soproni beer, super tasty. After a a couple of hours we moved to a club, which we was in the 5^th floor, it was like a old warehouse, I didn’t like the music much, but I had fun tough.

Some of us went back earlier to the hostel, so on the next day, only me, Luca and Carol got up early to do some tourism around the city, but first we went to Starbucks to have breakfast! While we were having a hot coffee and a apple strudel, we decided we wanted to go to see the Gellert Statue and the Citadella. With full of energy we went walking from the West Railway Station to the Citadella, it took us almost one hour to reach the place, it wasn’t that far actually, but walking up the hill to reach the Citadella it’s quite a tough job.. specially if you haven’t slept properly for the past weeks… anyway, wi finally reached it, and to celebrate we made a fantastic picture, enjoyed the views, we could actually see the whole Pest side, really amazing !

To go back to the hostel to meet the others, we decided to take the tram, great blunder, since we didn’t know where to buy the ticket we just hopped on the tram, but in 2 stops the inspectors came in and we got cought… they wanted us to pay 6000 Forints, or 25 euros.. we just made the fool and gave 1000, they insited that we had to pay, but we finally went out just paying that.

After the strange situation, it was quite funny actually, we got to hostel and met the other for lunch, we went to a typical Hungarian restaurant, and I tried authentic Goulash.. very very good! It tasted similar to any regular ‘Guiso de carne’.

And here it comes the best part of the day .. we went to Széchenyi Thermal Bath, waaoaoo, so good, on our way we got to see the stunning Heroe’s Sq, but the bath was so far better than that, specially after the morning long walk..

Almost 4 hours of pleasure bath, and relaxed body, we went back to the hostel, not before having dinner. While in the hostel we didn’t know where to party, since it was Sunday, so most of the places were closed, so we finally decided to buy some beers and just drink it in the room.

On Monday morning, we woke up quite late, we didn’t have check out time because no new guest were getting in, so we packed our stuff by noon, and then we went to see some place left, like the Fashion Street and surrounding, and also the Great Synagogue.

Later on we just got to the hostel and grab our stuff and hit the road back to Ljubljana,

The best thing is that the trip didn’t really finished when we left Budapest, when we got to Ljubljana, I left my stuff, got my clothes changed and went for dinner and go to the last Parlament’s Erasmus party.