Day Trip to Budapest from Vienna

Friday, 18th January 2015

 It's day 3 of our trip. The plan was to go to Budapest, since it's only about 2.5 hours from Vienna.

Since there were 4 of us, we rented a car instead of the usual way to travel in Europe - the Euro Rail. And of course, having a day at our hands, we didn't want to spend most of our time depending on the rail time. We intended to leave early, but had car issues got a little delayed. Towards the border, there were wind mill farms in Austria.

We took our passports etc, because we are traveling between countries, but it turns out, that between the EU countries, there wasn't really a border control. I thought that was pretty cool! You could see where you were entering into the new country; they had check posts, but no physical people to cross check documents etc. There was a little service station sort of an area right there. Now we had figured out, that even though Hungary was part of the EU nations, Euro was scarcely used. It was Hungarian Forints (HUF) that was the main currency. So we got some dollars exchanged. Word of caution for the wise - do the currency exchange prior to entering Hungary, not at the border, it was a tad bit expensive.

We hadn't even had breakfast yet, so we tried to hunt for some food in the restaurant/convenience store inside the service area. In Vienna, we didn't have trouble communicating with anyone. Most people responded in English. We could also figure out some signs in German and some words we could make out because they were somewhat similar to English. At the service area, not one soul spoke a word of English. And to top it off, Hungarian was not close to any language we knew! We couldn't figure out if the food the poor lady was selling was vegetarian or not! So of course we left, and came across a McDonald's half an hour or so later.The siblings were happy to have an "Americano" coffee :). We got some muffins and croissants there, and then continued our drive towards Hungary.

Now both the highways we took in Austria and Hungary are allowed a legal speed of 130 kmph, and cars were flashing at us and zooming past us, because us North Americans were super cautious at 130 kmph. We could feel that the country in general was poorer compared to Austria, but the countryside was nonetheless very pretty.

We reached Budapest around 1 pm. Divided by the Danube river are the once twin cities of Buda and Pest, occupying the west and the east banks of the river respectively. Our first stop was the majestic Buda Castle Hill. It was pretty much a small town inside of the castle. The first place we visited was none other than the bakery! Oh well, we didn't eat any of the yummy looking desserts here just yet. The plan was the come back and try them once we had burned some calories walking around =). The cobble-stone roads had an oldish charm, so did the buildings, and stores around.

We took a tour of the labyrinth inside the castle. The cave was lit up, and had mannequins that displayed Hungarian theater clothes. It also displayed an exhibition of pictures of few other well known caves in the world. There was a small section of the cave that was pitch dark, where you could walk and let your senses guide you. They had some spooky areas where there was somebody's coffins. They also did executions in the cave at some point in history. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the labyrinth, but this one is at the very entrance of the cave.

Afterwards, we walked past a pet store, an apothecary, on our way towards Mathias Church. The structure of the church was pretty spectacular from the outside. You can take a look for yourself.

Right across from there was the Fisherman's Bastion. It was home to some magnificent towers, which also exercised as lookout points for tourists. Probably in the past these were critical for maintaining the security of the castle.

The view of the Danube, and then right across from there, the Hungarian Parliament was breathtaking.

This picture below shows the Chain bridge - one of the two popular bridges in Budapest. Further in the picture, the dome shaped structure that is visible is the Hungarian Parliament. 

Budapest was definitely a beautiful city, and I couldn't have felt gladder about visiting it, than from those lookout towers. After finishing the quota of pictures in that spot, we started to walk to the other side of the Castle. There was a changing of the guards ceremony in front of the Hungarian Presidential palace that we were lucky of have encountered.

Being out in the cold for so long, it began getting to us, and just in time for us to have spotted a hot chocolate stall.

We walked around the actual Buda Castle, and got a view of the Citadel as well. The high walls of the castle made us realize the importance of castles.

You could easily spend an entire day at the Buda Castle. The best part was that roaming around the streets and courts and the creepy looking courtyards was free! We only paid for the labyrinth tour. Here's a few other cool shots of the breathtaking castle.

There was also an area in the castle where you could practice archery

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We left the Castle to find food. It was past lunch time, and we hunted down an Indian place :D! And boy did we gobble!!! Well, it certainly was fun paying 10,000 of a currency's units for lunch :)! The sky caught on the shades of the evening by the time we were done. The satisfied travelers' next destination was the Hungarian Parliament, which has quite some accolades to its name. It is currently the largest building in Hungary, highest building in Budapest, the third largest Parliament in the world, and one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings. That's quite something, don't you think? The grandeur of the building just shows, be it from across the river, or right in front of it.

If you are wondering how the castle looks from the Pest side, I can assure you, it is truly gorgeous. Here's a few shots that we captured in the night.

Such a beauty - the whole castle skyline, isn't it? Here's a Mathias Church in all its glory from across the Danube. 

We walked to the St. Stephen's Basilica from the Parliament. Here's what the church looks like, from inside and out. The heart just melts at the thought of so much beauty.

Guess who got hungry again after all the walking? Yes, you got that one right. And of course, we weren't gonna leave Hungary without getting a taste of all the desserts we had read up on before getting here. So we drove off to what seemed like a happening part of the town, hoping that one of those restaurants/bakeries/pubs would be serving the traditional Hungarian desserts. But we got a big fat Zilch. One of the restaurant's server was kind enough to call up a couple of bakeries for us who would be open that late, and confirmed that they carried the pastries we wanted to try out. Then, off we drove to the part of town close to the Basilica to a high end bakery called Gerbaude. We finally had the pleasure of trying out the Hungarian desserts. And we absolutely loved them over the overrated Sacher Torte from Vienna.

This is the Somlói Galuska - sponge cake balls and whipped cream and chocolate.

And this is the winner of all pastries we had in our trip - Dobos Torte or Dobosh, which is a layered Hungarian sponge cake. It was yummyness galore.

The Bakery was on a square opposite the Fashion Street of Budapest. It was almost 11, so we took a quick stroll on the Fashion Street before grabbing a cup of coffee for our two and a half hour drive back into Austria.

As we drove out of Budapest via the Chain Bridge, my last thoughts about the city was that it was rightfully called the "Paris of the East". I thought it was extremely cool to be able to drive up to another country for a day trip. And not just any other city in another country, another enchanting dear old city called Budapest. I would visit this place all over again some day.

Trip to Vienna - Day 2

Saturday, 17th January 2015

It's day 2 of the trip.
We got our breakfast from a place called Ströck, which appears to be a chain of Tim Hortons type Cafe in Vienna. They had a large variety of croissants. For the ignorant (I know I was one before I researched about Vienna), croissants are not French delicacies; they are originally Viennese!


Getting away from the food conversation, the first thing on our itinerary was the majestic Schönbrunn Palace. This palace is an example of the Baroque style architecture, very prevalent among Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The palace just looked like a huge yellow colored building from the outside. We got our tickets for the imperial tour, which also came with an audio guide. As part of the imperial tour, we could go through 22 rooms out of the 1400+ rooms this palace had. Each room had a number, and when inside a room, the audio guide would inform us about the various artifacts in the room. The palace had had many inhabitants, but the section of the palace we went through was particularly related to the longest ruling emperor of Austria - Franz Joseph and his wife Elizabeth. The walls and the architecture on the ceilings were very elaborate, and so were the paintings that adorned the beautiful mansion. A security room, reception, bedrooms, bathrooms, informal dining room, grand ball rooms, the list was never ending. There was also a grand tour, which covered some 40 rooms. But we thought 40 rooms would probably be too boring, and hence opted for the imperial tour. I am happy to say we were wrong :)! I am not sure how much we missed,
but one thing is sure, and that is that I wouldn't have been bored. One would certainly wonder what one can do in 1400 rooms in a house!! Taking pictures wasn't allowed inside the palace, and understandably so.

When we walked out of the palace, there was a gentleman who was selling tickets to see a Strauss and Mozart concert that was happening at the Mozart Concert House that was very close to the Palace. Now seeing an opera or a concert in Vienna was an option I had considered, but I wasn't 100% sold on it, specially since classical music isn't very appeasing to me. In other words, I was ok to skip it. My sister really wanted to see it. I may not have mentioned this before, but my sister and brother had also joined us for Vienna. So, she smartly decided to gift hubby and me the tickets as our anniversary present! So that was settled - we were watching the concert later in the evening. The gentleman also really recommended the Apple Strudel from the Cafe at the entrance of the palace, apple strudel being another of authentic Viennese pastries.

After our tour, we were free to roam around in the gardens of the palace. It was cold so we didn't spend a lot of time in the gardens. There was a well managed array of trees that looked pretty, and beautiful lawns.

I am sure the gardens look glorious and lush in the summers. In my head, this is probably what Versailles looks like, but I can only tell when I have been there once :). Strolling at the back, we reached Neptune fountain.The sculptures were beautifully done and did absolute justice to the stunning palace. Good thing also was that the gardens were free to access for public, and we actually saw people jogging along the paths inside the gardens.

We started to head back from the gardens, and en route was the Cafe with the famous Apple Strudel. Of course we were going to stop :)! The Cafe also has an "Apple Strudel Show" every hour, where they teach you the recipe for making the apple strudel. It was some goood apple strudel - the finest we had till date, only we would have loved it more if we were fans of all things apple-y and jams.

We left the Palace after our date with Apple Strudel. Next stop on today's itinerary was the Karlskirche or St. Charles Church.

The Church looked huge from the outside, the dome particularly grand. There was an entrance fee to the church, which sounded bizarre, but whatever! We went in, and it was such a marvelous church! The structures were exquisite, and so was the art work.

There was an elevator inside the church, which took us to a wooden platform quite a few meters above ground. From the platform, there was a scaffolding with about 6-8 flights of stairs that took us right to the center of the dome! It was quite a surprise to know we could get to the very top of the dome. It was downright scary, partially because we were on squeaky wooden stairs, partially because there was a restriction of 10 people to be on top of the stairs with no way to tell how many were already there. Also, from down below, the dome didn't seem that high, but from high up there, the ground was very far! You could look out of the dome windows and get a view of the whole city. We could also check out the art work more clearly from up here.

After Karlskirche, we started walking towards what was termed as the 4th most beautiful staircase of Europe - Fillgraderstiege. On the way there, the environment was very lively. We walked passed the State Opera House.  This area of Vienna is called the Museum Quarter. We reached one end of the street called Kartnerstrasse. Apparently, this street is the equivalent of Champs-Élysées in Paris and 5th Avenue in New York. Also being hungry by this hour, we saw a Burger King and decided to eat there. We got a very yummy vegetarian burger there. I know what you are thinking, but yes, it was a real treat for us vegetarians to find a very tasty veggie patty and it wasn't made of soy!! Very close to Burger King was the famous Hotel Sacher, were we were going to try the real Sacher Torte. There was a lineup if you wanted a cake slice. So we settled for the small individual cake pieces that were present in the bakery. We were secretly hoping that this experience of the original Sacher Torte would blow our minds and make us believe that Sacher Torte was the real baked stuff there was. But alas! It was not to be. Again, we loved the rich chocolate flavor. But the cake was dry, the jam added the sour taste to it. It was better than the Day 1's cake, but it wasn't something we'd like to lay our hands on again. We were okay with that. We had been able to check out the item from our list that said "Try the original Sacher Torte".

Now back to the Fillgraderstiege. As we walked towards the stairs, the crowd began thinning. We should have taken the hint and stopped walking. But the chance to see the 4th most beautiful staircase of Europe - oh how could we miss that! So after another 10-15 minutes, we reach there. I must say, again we had super high expectations of the stairs, but I leave that to you to determine whether these stairs deserve the credit or not :)! I, for one, kept feeling pretty stupid at making everyone walk 20 minutes one way for this :p!

It was about 5:15 now, and we still have some time before the concert, for which we had to be back at the palace by 8 pm. We spent some time at Naschmarkt, which is a farmers market of sorts, with restaurants, and colorful souvenir shops etc. Hubby and me are magnet collectors, so of course we picked up a magnet for us.

It was almost time for us to return back to the Schonbrunn Palace for the Mozart and Strauss concert. After the doors opened, it was quite a shocking sight. The hall was rather small, and had same level chairs for seating. But I brushed the thought aside - we were here for the musical journey. It could really also mean that the concert hall was still being run in a style that was used back in the time of Mozart. Sharp 8:30 the concert started with compositions of Mozart. There was a set of 6 musicians. For some of the compositions a duo sang some songs and performed in front of the audience. They were quite an entertaining pair. The songs were possibly in German but I couldn't be sure. The level of synchronization amongst the musicians was definitely praiseworthy. There was a break of 10-15 minutes in between and then the compositions of Strauss were played by the musicians. We were exhausted by walking so much throughout the day, and the soothing music was like icing on the cake. I am guilty of having taken a quick nap while being serenaded by the melodies, and having woken to the sound of applause. Not my proudest moment I must admit. All in all, I am glad to have seen the concert. It was a good concert, it just wasn't my piece of cake :)!

That was almost the end of day, save for a pizza after that. We walked back to our hotel, only too glad to have spent another wonderful day in this beautiful city. 

Trip to Vienna - Day 1

Friday, 16th January 2015

Whenever me and my husband visit our families back home, we try to take a short stop over on our way there or back. Short is about 3-4 days. This time on our way back from India, we planned our little stop over in Vienna, and I am so glad we chose Vienna. You`ll see why :)!

Apart from visiting a place, my second favorite part of the whole process is researching about the place, checking out maps, reviews, planning itineraries, the whole nine yards. It`s so much fun! I wouldn't mind doing that for a living, you know. May be one day I'll post about my process, which I am sure is not a whole lot different from most people out there, but that's a story for another day.

So anyway, we land in Vienna super early in the morning, go to drop off our luggage so we can have minimal stuff with us. But as luck would have it, the computer systems were broken, and they would not accept any luggage at all. So we took a cab, hauled all our luggage, and went to our temporary abode for 4 days. The place we chose was in Central Vienna, where all the action happens. We got a relatively early check-in, for a slight cost, which wasn't bad considering we were dirty and tired from all the traveling. We had breakfast in a cafe called Anker Snacks &Coffee. Thanks to our cab driver, we knew that the Austrian way to have a coffee is to get a Cafe Melange, so we ordered that. It is essentially a shot of espresso mixed with steamed milk and topped with foam. It was not very strong coffee. I especially liked the fact that since the milk was warm, the coffee didn't get cold as soon as it was handed over - a problem I generally encounter with my Tim Hortons cream-and-sugar coffee :).

We rested for sometime and started our planned itinerary sometime late afternoon. The temperature was about 2-3 degrees Celsius, and we had planned to walk. So we bundled up and started walking towards our first stop of the day - Museum of Fake Art or Faelscher Museum, as it was called. The museum was a huge disappointment - there were not enough artifacts, and it was rather uninteresting. It would have made sense for it to be a small section of some other art museum. Right across from the museum is the Hundertwasser House.

It was a one of a kind architecture of a building; the house was colorful and vibrant and gave a very friendly vibe. It felt like the building was a true artist's canvas, a player's playground. There were domes and triangles and curves and angles everywhere, uneven floors and bricks and mosaic and arches and colors, all made the building very unique and playful. We walked around the building, the only part of the building that we could see from the inside was a small cafe called Kunst und Cafe at one end of the building. The cafe was pretty quaint and bright. They had a short free documentary film of Hundertwasser playing inside it, which visitors were welcome to watch.

There was also a Hundertwasser Village very close to the Hundertwasser House. That was our next stop on the itinerary.The village is a collection of shops, all selling souvenirs, arts and crafts of Vienna. It was also inspired by Hundertwasser style of architecture. We had fun exploring the colorful village.

By this time we were pretty amazed by the works of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and the obvious next stop was the museum that displayed his art work - KunstHaus Wien. The building was a short walk from the Hunderterwasser Village, and was also designed by none other than Hundertwasser :)! We were inspired by this guy so we couldn't leave without seeing what kind of creative juices he had flowing. We checked out the permanent exhibition of the museum, which was his work. All in all, I believe he was a true artist, and I absolutely loved the vibrancy in his work, and the use of bright colors. He apparently didn't like straight lines, and that was demonstrated very well in his work. There were also a few models of other buildings and architecture he did, and I was would accredit him for his architecture more than his art, but that's a personal opinion.

After soaking in the glory of Hundertwasser's works, we decided to take a stroll down the Danube canal, that flows very close to this area of Vienna. We followed the Danube canal to Schwedenplatz, were we started seeing more life in the city. There was a hotel building across from the Danube that had some sort of a fancy light show going on it. All the bridges across Danube canal were pretty and lit up.

We grabbed dinner at a middle eastern restaurant Sababa. The food was decent and enough to satisfy our appetites after a long day of walking. Before dinner, we had seen a cafe that had some very eye catching desserts, so after dinner we were sure to catch dessert there. The place was called Gelataria Castelletto. Oh the guilty pleasures of the sweet tooth, we ended up ordering 4 different desserts!! The first two were the traditional Viennese desserts of Sacher Torte and some chocolate-covered-puff-balls-filled-with-creme-dessert-whose-name-I-forget.The puff balls, whose name I am so sad to have forgotten, were delicious!

We had extremely high expectations of the Sacher Torte because we had read so much about it, but it didn't do justice to our expectations. The cake felt dry, and the jam wasn't adding to the flavor in a good way. The top layer of chocolate was pretty tasty, though. We thought, may be, we have to try it from the "Hotel Sacher", from where the original Sacher Torte came to be, so that comes later.

After being let down by Sacher Torte, we settled on a mousse cake and some vanilla gelato. We didn't go wrong with these choices.

This was the end of our itinerary for day one. I thoroughly enjoyed walking in this pretty city. Every single building that we walked across was a treat for the eyes. You could feel the richness and the history of this city in its buildings. I was looking forward to the rest of the days in Vienna!