From Bratislava to Budapest

We leave Bratislava for Budapest quite early in the morning and the change grows more and more palpable with every rattle of the train. There are six of us in our compartment. To a splendid mind, such a crowd would present a wonderful opportunity for a humorous character study in the style of a great Russian novel, though the crowd keeps changing: people come, sit next to us and then leave almost immediately. The reason, we realise, is that, for some reason, we smell. A Japanese man stays on, but sucks ardently on his eucalyptus drop. We don’t understand but we’re resolved to see it in a positive light: we ardently appreciate the space.

Our Airbnb host, and also my friend Markus in Berlin, recommend to go to Szimpla, a bar apparently with some connections to the Szimpla in Berlin, my home town. We do not listen carefully enough though – and end up in the wrong one. Hint: You want to go to the Szimpla Kert. The real one, finally, turns out to be a quite nice place. It is a mix of bar and club and ruins, you will meet a lot of young people – just as we did: A group of Erasmus students, who, who would have thought, knew how to party…

In fact, we did not stay at Szimpla alone that night, but went on to another bar and another bar and another club. Somewhere I lose Philipp; but then again I find some more of those Erasmus students and we just party on. Club after club is closing down, but we do not want to sleep yet, so we walk around, looking for another place. And here is some very valuable travel advise: Do not let yourself get dragged into a windy basement bar by some doormen in an Eastern European city. It could end up fine, but what also could happen, I heard, is that you pay EUR 150,- for a bottle of wine which looked like it would cost 15,- on the menu – and the half naked girls dancing around you will not make up for your loss. I heard.

The next day we sleep in, have underwhelming breakfast and then do some real good old-fashioned sightseeing. Which you should definitely do in Budapest; there is a lot to see:

Walk around castle hill and the parliament building. The latter one, especially at night, is the most exciting picture motive – and indeed Philipp and I spend at least two hours walking along Danube river taking pictures.

Another highlight was the central market where I can recommend trying one of the most famous foods, a Langós.

Then there is one thing, everyone recommends: Going to one of Budapests Thermal baths. Well, I don’t. At least I don’t recommend going to the one we were. It was cheap, but it was also kind of dirty – and it was super creepy. It looked like one of those left hospitals from the 1950s in a horror flic. I can only emphasize: Go to one of the good ones, like for example the Gellért Thermal Baths, and do not try to save a couple of bucks – it won’t be worth it.

The day before we leave we do some more sightseeing and then have original Hungarian Gulyas at Gettó Gulyás – another thing which you should really try. It was great. Happy and with filled stomachs we go to bed and ready ourselves for the next day: Our trip to Bucharest.