Monday, November 02, 2009

Last part of Budapest

The third day, the weather turned rainy again, as well as really cold - it felt like it could snow. We ventured out in the morning to the Gellert thermal bath, which is the largest thermal bath in Budapest. Once inside, it is quite a maze and no signs telling you where to go, so we had to ask a few times where to go. The baths are separated between men and women, so JP and I went one way and Sandy and Sydney went the other way. I would say that half the bathers go in their birthday suits while the other half not. Sandy agreed with those stats on the ladies side as well. The baths are split in two with one pool set at 38C and the other a little cooler at 36C. It was warmer than JP was used to, so we actually spent most of our time in the much colder community pool. In the baths, there is not much in the way of swimming, unlike the ones in Switzerland. Additionally the one we went to was all indoor, also unlike the Swiss ones. This one did have beautiful old statues and frescos everywhere, making you feel like you were back in the roman times. After the baths, we went back to our favorite restaurant for lunch. We were disappointed to find that the pork shank that we saw two days ago was no longer available. The owner promised to make a special order of it if we came back later for dinner - we agreed. After another great lunch (bean soup was out of this world), we went to the Terror Museum, which used to be the Nazi headquarters in Budapest. Its closed on Mondays so we walked a few blocks down to the Opera House to see if we could get tickets that night for the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. We were in luck - they head tickets for the 4 of us at a price of about USD 2.50 per ticket. After getting tickets, we decided to go on our second boat cruise. It was a horrible day for it, but at least we would have some cover from the rain. After the boat tour, we went souvenir shopping, and then proceeded back to the restaurant for dinner. They had prepared the pork shank as promised. It was a mammoth portion - Sandy and I both working together could not finish off the single portion. Unfortunately, it was dry and was not worth the effort to finish off. We had more bean soup as an appetizer which also was a bit disappointing as they made it with ham instead of the spicy sausage at lunch time. Regardless, they went the extra effort to make us happy and we left stuffed so it could not have been all that bad. Following dinner, we walked over to the opera house and found our seats. The seats were not great, (we could see maybe half the orchestra), but we could hear the performance just fine. They had a guest piano player that could really tickle the ivories. He played so effortlessly, it was amazing. At the intermission, the crowd was absolutely relentless in their applause. He ended up playing two solo encores to quiet them down. At the end of his second encore, JP, who was sound asleep, sprang up clapping with the rest of the audience. Since we paid so little for the tickets, we did not feel bad ditching the rest of the concert. We went back to the hotel feeling very satisfied with the days events.By Tuesday, we were exhausted, so we slept in and relaxed in the room. We packed up and were on the road by 10.30. We took the public transport to get back to the airport. The public transport is pretty comprehensive and easy to use. The subway has three lines and the subway stations maintain their same look from 130 years ago. The people of Budapest for the most part speak either English or German, so we did not have much problem communicating. They seemed pretty helpful, but were not particularly friendly to tourists. When staying clear of the touristy areas, I think we got good value for our money. We will contine looking for opportunities to explore Eastern Europe.