A day in Buda

Today was a Buda day. (Budapest is actually the combination of Buda; the city on the mountainous side of the Danube to the west, and Pest; the flat side on the Danube to the east.)

We made the daily trek to the Grand Market Hall to buy goodies for a picnic lunch. Bread, salami, fruit and of course crispy duck skin and pork crackling! We also got some dried and sweetened pomelo for snacks.

Then we headed upstairs to the cafes selling delicious Hungarian food and purchased a lángos to share. It is deep fried bread dough which can be sweet or savoury. We had the traditional sour cream and grated cheese selection. Oh so tasty!!

Full of food, we walked across the Chain Bridge that brings Buda and Pest together, and took the funicular up the hill to Buda Castle. For an hour or so, we wandered the castle grounds, climbed up and down castle walls, found cannonballs embedded in the walls from wars long ago, found an arsenal of old stone cannonballs, horses to be ridden by Hussars (a type of light cavalry), ancient ruins, not-so-ancient ruins and plenty more. The kids had huge smiles and Angus even exclaimed “It’s not every day you get to walk on a castle wall!”.

After a good couple of hours exploring, we made our way to the Buda Castle Labyrinth. Built under the castle, the naturally occurring cave system was excavated into a series of tunnels, cellars and prisons. Although perhaps the term dungeon is more appropriate given one of its past ‘guests’ was Count Vlad, also known as Dracula! In the deep, dark, dank tunnels which were poorly lit, it was easy to understand why Ella and Angus were quite apprehensive about enthusiastically exploring. They were mostly brave, but required a little handholding at times. I’m pretty sure Dracula didn’t get a reassuring hand-hold as a prisoner here!

After we surfaced, we walked to Fisherman’s Bastion and St Matthias Church.

Here we sat down for our delicious picnic. After devouring a good high-energy meal of fresh fruit and veg, coupled with ham, salami and pig/duck crackling we got up and explored some more.

We wandered the streets of the medieval houses and ruins and then walked down the hill to the river. Here we got on a boat to cruise the River Danube, taking in all the sites and delights Budapest has to offer. The commentary pointed out many landmarks and explained their significance or history.

The Hungarian Parliament House was a highlight. Such a beautiful piece of architecture. After 45 mins we hopped off the boat onto an island called Margaret Island. Here we hired a four-wheeled bike that mum and dad rode around the island, while Ella And Angus sat up front and enjoyed the ride. It was so nice watching them make jokes, sing together, pretend to be indicators when we were turning and in general have great fun. We even rode past a zoo that had some giant eagles in an aviary. After 90 minutes on the island we jumped back on the boat and headed home.

 After a long day out, we had dinner at a traditional Hungarian restaurant that Ella and Angus’ grandparents recommended. We had veal in a paprika sauce, fried duck with orange sauce and cabbage strudel, fresh steamed pike with potatoes and a salad of cucumber with sour cream (a favourite of the kids). There was so much food we asked to take the leftovers home for tomorrow night‘s dinner!