15 May 2018, Tuesday

After a well-rested night, we were all ready and raring to go this morning. However, the weather wasn’t on our side as it was raining and a chilly 12 degrees Celsius. The forecast showed that the rain would stop at about 12pm or later. The rain and gloomy weather hampered our sightseeing plans, so the next best thing was to stay indoors. After lazing around in the apartment for a while, we decided to head over to the nearby WestEnd City Center (click here), once the largest mall in Central Europe when it first opened in 1999.

We took the Metro train from Astoria station to Nyugati pályaudvar M station, arriving at about 11:30am. WestEnd City Center is a modern shopping mall with many shops and international brands. Our main objective here was really just to window shop and pass time, so we didn’t buy much stuff.

For lunch, we were craving for some Chinese food so we went to the food court and found a stall called Wok n’ Go Noodle House. We ordered a few dishes to go with the fried rice and noodles. For a food court, it was rather pricey at 4,720 HUF (S$29.50) but the portions were huge and the food tasted quite authentic.

By the time we finished our lunch at 2pm, the skies had cleared and the weather was perfect for sightseeing. We took a leisurely stroll from WestEnd City Center towards St. Stephen’s Basilica, about 20 minutes away. It quickly became apparent to us that Budapest’s reputation as a beautiful city is true. The buildings are all very nice and we noticed that there is very little graffiti on the walls, unlike in Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.

St. Stephen’s Basilica is a Roman Catholic church named after the first king of Hungary. It was completed in 1905 and it can hold up to 8,500 people. The central dome is flanked by two large bell towers, which contain six bells altogether. The height of the dome is 96m, the exact same height as the Budapest Parliament Building. Together, these are the two tallest buildings in Budapest, where current building regulations stipulate that no other buildings can exceed a height of 96m. The height of St. Stephen’s Basilica is also significant because it symbolises the equal standing between the church and the state in Hungary.

Entry to St. Stephen’s Basilica is free but there is a suggested donation amount of 200 HUF / 1 Euro to help maintain the cathedral. You can also pay 600 HUF (S$3.75) to visit the observation deck at the dome to get a panoramic view of the city.

As with all other cathedrals in Europe of this stature, the interior of St. Stephen’s Basilica is ornately decorated, with beautiful red marble walls and gilded flourishes topped with an impressive dome. I never fail to be awed by how grand and exquisite these buildings are.

After our visit to St. Stephen’s Basilica, we walked towards the Danube River and soon caught sight of the famous Széchenyi Chain Bridge. One of the landmarks of Budapest, Chain Bridge spans 375m and it connects Buda on the west to Pest on the east (where we’re at). Chain Bridge was completed in 1849 and it was the first permanent bridge across the Danube River. It is as significant to Budapest as the Brooklyn Bridge is to New York City.

Naturally, we had to walk across Chain Bridge to get over to Buda. At the bridgehead, a pair of stone lions stand guard. If you thought they look familiar, it is because they are similar in design to the bronze lions of Trafalgar Square in London. There is another pair of stone lions at the other end of the bridge as well.

It didn’t take us long to walk across Chain Bridge. Immediately upon reaching Buda, it felt like a different vibe from Pest. Historically, the capital city of Budapest was only formed in 1873 when the city of Buda (and the smaller city of Óbuda) on the western bank of the Danube was unified with the city of Pest on the eastern bank. Before that, they were distinct cities with different topographical features and personalities. Buda is hillier with more greenery and has a more laid back feel, whereas Pest is almost flat and it has more nightlife and commercial activities.

The immediate area around Chain Bridge on Buda is known as Castle District, comprising Castle Hill (Várhegy) and the ground level Víziváros. To get to the top of Castle Hill, you can take the Budavári Sikló, or Budapest Castle Hill Funicular. It looks like a fun ride but it costs 1,200 HUF (S$7.50) for a single trip ticket so we decided to skip it and walk up instead. In the end, it took us only about 10 minutes to walk up the hill.

At the top of the hill lies the Buda Castle, a historical castle and palace complex used by Hungarian kings in the past. The Hungarian National Gallery now occupies the main part of the Buda Castle building. It was established in 1957 as the national art museum and houses Hungarian art only. The Budapest History Museum also occupies a part of Buda Castle and it tells the story of Budapest’s turbulent history. We didn’t enter either museum as that was not what we came here for.

We came to Castle Hill for the views, and what a view it was! After the rain earlier in the morning, the weather was gorgeously sunny now, with puffy white clouds floating among the light blue skies. Castle Hill offers an excellent vantage point of the Danube River, Chain Bridge and Pest. From here, we could see that all the buildings in Pest were of uniform height, with only the Hungarian Parliament Building and St. Stephen’s Basilica standing head and shoulders above them all. The view here reminded me of that of Florence in Italy from the Piazzale Michelangelo.

We then walked to Matthias Church, a beautiful Gothic-styled church with a white façade and interesting patchwork-patterned roof tiles. The asymmetrical building has an imposing 80m-tall tower, dwarfing everything else in its vicinity.

Surrounding Matthias Church is Fishermen’s Bastion. A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners. Fishermen’s Bastion was named after the fishermen’s guild tasked with defending this stretch of the castle wall. Today, Fishermen’s Bastion is essentially a viewing terrace with many stairs and walking paths passing through the seven white turrets, which represent the ancient Magyar tribes. I’m sure I’m not the first to say this, but certain areas of the Fishermen’s Bastion resemble Hogwarts castle from Harry Potter!

You’ll need to pay a fee to walk on the bastion itself. We opted to just take in the free views from the general area, which I believe are the same as the views on the bastion. From here, you can get a really good view of Pest and the Hungarian Parliament Building.

After a short break, we walked down the hill from Fishermen’s Bastion and along the bank of the Danube River towards Batthyány tér Metro station. From the station entrance area, I managed to get a nice close up shot of the Hungarian Parliament Building across the river. 

We then took the Metro back to Pest to spend the rest of the evening. Along the way, we passed by the Dohány Street Synagogue. This great synagogue was consecrated in 1859 and it is the largest one in Europe. It seats 3,000 people and can hold 2,000 standing people. We didn’t pay to enter the synagogue, but the exterior looked beautiful.

Continuing with our Asian food craving, we decided to have Thai food for dinner. We ordered a tom yum soup, fried rice, pad thai noodles and mango sticky rice. The food was really good and tasted authentic. It cost us 7,205 HUF (S$45) but if felt so nice to have a good dinner to end our day!