Budapest: Day Two

FREEDOM BRIDGE


PAPRIKA AND GARLIC FOR SALE

Our hotel is situated near one of the major metro stations. We walked over there to buy a book of tickets for the public transport system. You can use the same tickets on trams, subwazs, buses and commuter trains. Itás all on the honor system. You must cancel your ticket before hopping on the transport. We caught a tram which took us for a very bumpy ride along the Danube from Chain Bridge over to Liberty Bridge. thez are Budapestás prettiest bridges. At Chain Bridge the tram takes a sharp turn and then enters a grafitti covered tunnel under the foot of the bridge. At Libertz Bridge we got a great view of the side of Castle Hill and of HOtel Gellert, an Art Nouveau building. The hotel is world renouwned for its thermal baths and spa treatments. We walked across Freedom Bridge, a beautiful structure of green wrought iron. On the other side of the river we entered one of the citzás biggest covered markets. We saw manz stalls selling salamis and sausages, others sold veggies, still others specialiyed in paprika and garlic. Paprika is sold in its natural form as clusters of small red peppers or in the powedred form in colorfullz decorated tins. The market is at one end of Vaci Utca, the citzás pedestrianized shopping street. we took a stroll down Vaci Utca, but were not much tempted inside any of the shops. They were all a bit touristz looking. We wandered all over Pest past St. Stephens Basilica and other impressive monumental buildings. We happened upon Cafe Gerbeaud, one of the premier cafes in Budapest and stopped in for some lunch. I ordered tuna on a baguette and was served the strangest tuna sandwich I have ever seen. There was a big clump of tuna salad with olives and onions. Sitting next to the tuna was a small green salad and four slices of toasted baguette. Strange though it was, it was tasty. Brad had a salami sandwich, more on the normal sandwich side. He had Esterhazy cake for desert, another Hungarian specialty made with walnuts. Weary from wandering we went back to the hotel to rest up.

In the evening we caught the metro over to Heroes Square. Near there is a great restaurant that serves up homestyle Hungarian food. I got the chicken paprika and Brad got a pork dish. His started was goulash soup, while I started off with a delicious green salad with slices of orange and a cream dressing. The goulash soup is not as thick as we expected, but quite tasty.