Day 107: The Buda Side of the Danube

The switch from my hostel of last night to my place for the next 3 days went relatively smoothly. The place I'm in now is a private room in an apartment with 4 privated rented bedrooms and a shared washroom and kitchen. I'm on the Pest (east) side of the river, but a lot of the highlights of the city are along the west bank of the Danube on the Buda side, so I decided to focus on that for the day. On my way there I stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Menza that the guy who set me up in the apartment recommended. They have a fixed menu lunch for 990 HUF (about $4) that changes each day. I couldn't read the lunch description but ordered anyway since it's a pretty great price at a pretty upscale restaurant. It turned out lunch was two courses - a raspberry soup followed by mashed potatoes and chicken with a vegetable and rice stuffing. Probably one of the best meals I've had all trip, and can't really argue with $4 for it.

I also walked down Vaci St which is a big pedestrian shopping street, but I didn't really look into things in too much detail there yet. At the end of the street I crossed over the bridge to the west side of the river and hiked up the hill through the Jeubelumi Park to see the citadel and Liberty statue at the top (and the view of course, you know me and views).



I descended the hill on the opposite side and started hiking up the next hill over, which is the real interesting one. It contains the Budai castle (which now holds a museum and art gallery), some beautiful churches and a stretch of towers and walls known, for some reason, as the Fisherman's Bastion. The hill itself is also full of a warren of underground tunnels and chambers and a secret underground hospital. I was told that the tunnels are empty and not really worth buying a ticket to see, but if I have time I might check them out before I leave. Likewise I wasn't in too much rush for the gallery and museum since I'll be seeing much larger and more famous ones in Prague, Vienna and Berlin fairly soon. The castle had some beautiful fountains and sculptures around it though.




Further north on the hill was the Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion, which also gave another nice view down across the river to the Parliament buildings.





I meandered my way back through the city and picked up some simple food at a grocery store for dinner. I'm going to start my day tomorrow in the opposite direction, but I'm not sure what all I'll cover.