Buda and Pest, Through and Through: 7/9/2025

As is often the case our day started with breakfast – the hotel’s included breakfast was certainly delicious. While it had cheese, eggs, fruit, … the works, I ended the meal (for the second time) with two core take-aways. (1) it’s hard to beat fresh-made omelets and (2) hash browns are always worth it! Granted, my dad was left with an inkling disappointment that among their fish offerings there were no salmon loxs. Hopefully he’ll get that craving sated in the coming week.

While breakfast was straightforward, checking out was it’s own hurtle of anxiety. Specifically, we were to check out of the hotel by 10, but our bags needed to be prepared for collection by 8. This meant that we really had to do all our packing the night before, and ensure that we were fully equipped for the full day ahead of us. Then, in the morning we had to leave our bags outside our hotel room door as we went to breakfast. Goodness I do not like that model(!) but it did all work out well in the end.

So, come 9:15 Archer and I, as well as my parents, departed the Corinthia Budapest for the last time and headed out into the city. This time we were more deliberate with our plan to use the public transportation to see the sites

we wanted (rather than doing any pre-planned excursions that Viking provided).  Honestly, Budapest’s public transit is awesome! Simply buy a day pass and then hop on any bus, tram, or metro car you see. From there it was only a matter of knowing which line and direction you wanted to go, but even that was relatively straight forwards. With that in mind, we headed into the center of the city to the covered market; Klauzál téri Vásárcsarnok, also known as the Klauzál Square Market Hall. Note, the Wikipedia link here includes a few pictures that do not do the place justice. It was PACKED, both with vendors and shoppers.

We’d been to other international markets before and this one was just as fun. Row by row the grounds were packed with stalls. Many were selling cured meats, others fruits, more still focused on spices (paprika especially). The grounds had both an upstairs and a downstairs where you could visit souvenir stalls, textile vendors, take-away restaurants, and more! One way to think of it was a super-farmers-market. We all found one thing (or more) to purchase, and we all had a great time. Our only regret was that we did not by more paprika (especially as it turns out the sweet variety). We incorrectly assumed we would have much more access to it in the coming days; alas, we got only what we got. Finally, while perhaps not the most prominent feature of the market, we enjoyed a particular corner where there was a display of cases upon cases of mushroom-terrariums. We got no explanation for why these were here, but they were super cute!

This brought us to a little before noon, at which point we knew there was a tram line that would bring us very close to our cruise ship, but also some other local

monuments. We still had a few hours, so we sought a few more sights! First, we headed north up the Danube River to the Parliament building with its beautiful red-tiled domed roofs. We never went inside, but as the rain began to pester us, we learned of an underground exhibit, the 1956 Memorial depicting the history of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and its brutal backlash from the Soviets. It was a short exhibit, but another glimpse into the past of the

city. Afterwards we hopped back on the tram south where we exit next to the Chain Bridge and walked a few blocks inland to Saint Stephen’s Basilica. It was a newer church – with it’s most recent construction being completed in the early 1900’s the church was in pristine condition. But, the most interesting exhibit we saw was the hand (literally - it's encased in the image here) of St. Stephen. Apparently he was killed under unknown conditions, but his hand was found and has been passed around European caretakers for centuries!

Exiting the church the rain was still upon us so we found a local venue for lunch.  Amongst us our meals included Aperol Spritzes (which are clearly a favorite drink in this city), goulash, chicken paprikash, and Hungarian sausage. It was all, as usual, delicious. Leaving lunch we made our way back to the Chain Bridge to check into our rooms on the Viking ship for the first time! Our ship is named Ullur after the Norse got of hunting and step-son of Thor. The other two docked boats were the Ingvi (the god of fertility and perhaps and earlier incarnation of Freyr) and the Gymir (a giant most notably the father of Gerdr, who becomes the wife of Freyr). Note, I've gotten really into Norse mythology over the past few years so (A) we got the best boat and (B) it was fun to find all the Nordic references in the boat names and other boat-base paraphernalia.

After a quick pause to learn about our rooms we headed out again, this time to the Széchenyi Chain Bridge which was literally right above where we were docked! We made the not-very-long trek across the bridge, enjoying all of it’s lion-facades, to the Buda side of the river. There we boarded the funicular that took us on a lift up the massive hill back to the Palace Grounds. The trip was short, but provided us an amazing panorama of the city (and we saw a bunch of local crow-friends!). After some time among the ramparts we took the funicular back down, crossed the bridge one more time, and bid farewell to our land-based time in Budapest.

It wasn’t too late yet, so we had a relaxed cocktail hour on the boat, followed by a 

greeting from the crew and safety instructions. This led to a family style (seating at least) dinner downstairs. I enjoyed beef goulash (again), a local-style perch dish, and ended with a crème brulé. Other meals included a chicken dish, a pear salad, a local-style bread pudding, and more.

By the time dinner ended the ship was on the move, but, it was headed north up the Danube, despite the fact that our travels would take us south and east). This was deliberate, and was just taking us around Margaret Island so that we could head south and pass through the city by night-light. We passed under the many illuminated bridges, and obtained stunning views of the numerous landmarks we had seen on land, all spectacularly lit to contrast the dark night sky. It was, a stunning hour of cruising as we headed out of the city. All in all, two thumbs up for Budapest!

Finally, the ship crew provided a daily newsletter each evening that included a "term of the day" each based on nautical history. I thought these were awesome and fun, so I will be sharing them at the end of each day's post!

Nautical Term of the Day: Start Over with a Clean Slate

“A slate tablet was kept near the helm, and was used by the watchkeeper to record speeds, distances, headings and tasks during the watch. If no problems occurred during the watch, the slate would be wiped clean so that the new watchkeeper could ‘start over with a clean slate.’"