Budapest Travel Diaries: Valentines Day in Budapest

So technically we didn’t PLAN any Valentines Day activities in Budapest. We just happened to be in Budapest. On Valentines Day. And we just accidentally managed to book ourselves a romantic Valentines meal.

Have you read Budapest Travel Diaries: Walking Tours & Ruin Bars?

It’s our second full day in Budapest. There are no apparent ill-effects from the beer or the Unicum. A few ill-effects from eight miles of walking yesterday but nothing that another day pounding the Budapest streets won’t cure. Our first stop after breakfast is St Stephen’s Basilica. For a small donation, we enter the basilica and admire the beautiful interior. We also get to see that mummified hand. Zoltan had advised us that to see the mummified hand in its full glory, sit back and wait for other unsuspecting tourists to pop coins in the slot to light up the display case. Great tip. Apparently other bits of St Stephen’s arm are scattered around the globe for those who want an interesting quest.

Pounding the streets of Budapest. Again.

Still unsure about the public transport system in Budapest, we decide to walk from St Stephens up to Heroes Square. After all, it’s just a couple of miles. Halfway up Andrassy utca, I’m ready to drop. Yesterday’s walking has taken its toll. We could just jump on a tram. Or a bus. Or the Metro. But still we keep walking. At some point we will realise that we don’t HAVE to walk everywhere. Public transport is not for wimps.  It is for sensible people that want to enjoy places when they get there, not be moaning, limping and searching for the nearest bench. 

We feel like heroes ourselves as we finally make it to Hősök tere – Heroes Square. No-one is likely to immortalize the Fletches with a statue though. We don’t quite have the energy for ice skating, but it looks like a fun thing to do if your legs aren’t made of wibbly wobbly jelly.

One thing I have become adept at in European cities is politely ignoring anyone who looks like they may be selling anything. So when someone asks if I am looking for any tours today, I give them the usual polite “no, thank you” without making eye contact. Only when I have passed by do I realize I have just shunned the nice American couple from yesterday’s tour.  Luckily they are amused by my faux pas, and forgive my lack of social awareness.

We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo – how about you, you, you?

It’s something of a grey day today, with the sunshine trying to peek through but there’s a chilly wind.  We sit by the pond for a while, before deciding to go visit the local Budapest animal life at the zoo.  I’m not expecting great things from this city zoo, but I am immediately taken by the sloths that are roaming free, and make friends with an inquisitive alpaca.  Not all the signs are in English, so sometimes we have to play guess the animal. Easy when it’s a giraffe or a rhinoceros.  Not so easy when it’s a blue-breasted, red-crested, long-toed iguana.

The zoo is deceivingly big and it’s easy to spend a whole morning or afternoon there. But (unsurprisingly) the need to rest our weary feet overwhelms the need to see every single animal, so we say a fond viszontlátásra to our furry friends and leave the zoo in favour of a fast food lunch at BRGR. 

Faced with the three mile walk back to our hotel, we finally give in and take the metro.  Fast, efficient – why have we not done this earlier? Mr Fletche wants to eke out the last of his battery life (yes, somehow it’s still going) with a walk along the Danube. Another two mile walk. I grin and bear it (almost) and am rewarded with a beer at For Sale at the end.

Back at the hotel, it takes all my will power not to crawl into my pyjamas, sink into that comfy bed and sleep til morning. But it’s Valentines Night, and more importantly it’s our last night in Budapest, so we cannot give in to the lethargy.

We hadn’t planned a Valentines dinner anywhere because we:

1. didn’t know what we’d want to eat
2. didn’t know how far we’d want to walk
3. don’t really do Valentine’s Day….

We hoped that there would be somewhere nearby that would fit us in last-minute. A quick scour of Tripadvisor suggested Café Intenzo.  Close to our hotel, we’d walked past this little restaurant on many an occasion. We tentatively peer through the window. There is one single table empty. Hurrah! We’re in, taking the last unreserved table.

Despite not doing Valentine’s Day, it’s hard not to get into the spirit of things with the rose petals, and candlelight, and heart-shaped balloons. Bottle of wine it is then, on the recommendation of our waiter.  We opt for traditional Hungarian meals (i.e. meat in sauce, with lashings of paprika) and enjoy our traditional desserts too. When our waiter recommends a palinka as a digestif it would be rude not to.  Yep, that warms the throat nicely, and is slightly more palatable than last night’s Unicum.  Wonderful meal, fantastic service, and well priced at around 55 euros.  No complaints at all and would fully recommend.

After a long, leisurely meal, we decide to call it a night. There are so many different bars and restaurants to try you could be here a month and not touch them all, but after packing so much into our few days, we are ready to spend our final night in that comfy bed…

Homeward bound…and airport woes

Our airport transfer is due at 9:15, so it is with a heavy heart that we repack our suitcases and enjoy our final breakfast. Our return journey to the airport goes smoothly, although the driver is as uncommunicative as the first one. Who wants cheery morning conversation in a taxi anyway?  We wheel our cases towards the self-service check in machine.  Mr Fletcher. Tick. Mrs Fletcher. Tick. Suitcases. No tick. Hold on – suitcases? We have two. The computer says no. Our outbound flight on Air France included 23kg luggage allowance. Our return carriers KLM give us zero. Other than leaving our worldly belongings here on the concourse at Budapest airport we have no choice but to pay the 18000 forints (just under 60 euro) to take our own stuff back home. Lesson learned. Always read the small print.

We finally negotiate our way through security (bye suitcases, at 30 euro each I hope you make your way home successfully…) despite shockingly poor signage and find ourselves a seat in the departure lounge for the long wait before our flight is called.  Why does time seem twice as long in airports on the return flight than it does flying out? There’s a 15 minute delay. This cuts our connection time down to an hour and a half, roughly the same as it had been in Paris. We’re finally on the plane, pootling along quite happily, but high winds over Amsterdam mean we have to delay landing by 15 minutes. This cuts our connection time down even further. So much for grabbing lunch at Schiphol, at this rate we’ll be running from one gate to the next. And indeed, this is what we find ourselves doing as the departure gate is as far from the arrival gate as it can be without being in another airport.

There’s a huge queue outside the gate, as security is carried out at this point. It is now, with half of the plane’s passengers already through security, that we’re notified that there’s been a gate change. There follows the most unorganised, incompetent shuffle of passengers from one gate to another, with hoardes of ever-increasingly frustrated passengers queuing outside the second gate whilst those that have already passed through security are herded up like sheep from one cage to the next. Unsurprisingly, the flight is delayed.

KLM and Schiphol were amazingly efficient when we travelled to/from Amsterdam two years ago.  Today – not so much. However, after a short hop, skip and jump over the channel, we are finally reunited with our suitcases (although one is rather soggy) back in Birmingham.

I liked Budapest a lot, and would definitely return. And next time I will not only purchase a public transport ticket but I will actually use it.