Boundless and Infinite: Travel Adventures: Budapest, Hungary

I realise it's now taken me months to finish this series of posts accounting my trip to Europe this year, but I promise this is the last of them, as Budapest was our last, and one of my absolute favourite destinations. So yeah, I hope these travel posts haven't been too personal and bored you all to death, but I wanted this blog to be a place that I can come back to one day and read about some of the cool things I got up to, but I have also tried to make these posts 'tourist friendly' so if any of you are planning trips to these places or wondering if they're worth going to, you can get more personal insight into the various cities.

So Budapest was absolutely lovely, I loved that it is kind of this bizarre mixture of what is simultaneously a historical gem filled with rich history and infrastructure, mixed also with a much more modern, stylish and hip side of town as well. One of the things we did whilst there was a walking tour of pretty much the whole city. While I will admit that this was a LOT of walking (you literally span the whole city from Pest to Buda- the city is divided by the Danube river into these two sides), it was 100% worth it.

Let me describe the city by talking about Pest and Buda separately as they really are quite different but both so worth seeing in their own right. Okay so Pest is the side of town that we were staying, we stayed in a really lovely student hostel called Mavericks that, as student hostels go, was pretty well rigged out and facilitated, so I really enjoyed that as a nice place to stay always makes a difference. Whilst I don't know much about the differentiation between Buda and Pest, my impression is that Pest feels a lot more young and modern. At night, in among the streets between our hostel and St Stephens Basilica, the streets were bustling with lively, lit restaurants and entertainment, the works, and in among this side of town there are the ruin bars and night clubs pumping out loud music. On this side of town is St Stephens Basilica, which is huge, absolutely stunning and surrounded by a big square, it is the tallest building in Budapest and if you look over at Pest from the other side of town, you can just see its dome peaking up above the rest of the city. Also on this side of town are the Parliament buildings and close by to those is a sculpture called Shoes on the Danube Bank. This is a WW2 memorial sculpture that I was so sad not to be able to see personally. Our tour guide told us about it and explained the back story, but we didn't manage to venture there in our own time, so if any of you are ever there, don't miss it like I did, as it is supposedly very much worth seeing. Pest just feels really relaxed and social and this side of the city really captured my heart and I kind of fell in love with it literally from the second we arrived. It is dotted with beautiful parks with pretty trees and the Budapest ferris wheel, warm baths, quaint little shops and other attractions such as Heroes Square, not to mention all the amazing shopping we managed to get done there, and actually spent a lot of time doing, which suited me perfectly.

So then, on the other side of town, right across the Danube over the Chain Bridge, is Buda. Buda feels a lot more like the very traditional, historical European post-war city, filled with old buildings, castles and cathedrals, but also, similarly to Pest, lots of greenery, trees and flower beds everywhere you look. My favourite thing on the Buda side was right up the hill, which is a bit of a trek (although I think there is a cable car system type thing too), Matthias Church, which (with no exaggeration at all) is honestly the most stunning building I have ever seen. I am not usually one who oohs and aaahs and gushes over architecture but this building is beyond stunning- describing it would not do it justice so rather just Google it (check out its roof tiling) and see for yourself. Up by the church there were also some beautiful sculptures and other lovely little cafes along tree-lined streets. In fact, this whole area and Castle District up on the hill is so lovely to explore, it was a bit quieter than Pest and has beautiful views looking down on the whole city, the river and across into Pest.

So yeah, as you can probably tell, I was really endeared and pleasantly surprised with Budapest and definitely hope to go back as there was so much I didn't get to do, and it was just a place I felt really happy and calm.