Budapest, Hungary 1
We had a wonderful opportunity to stay in Budapest for five nights and explore the capital of Hungary. We arrived there in the morning and started exploring the town right away. The Inner city was lively with a lot of shops, restaurants and people including tourists, but I didn't feel too crowded perhaps because the streets were spacious and many large and small greenery parks were set here and there.
We walked up to the Danube river and said hello to the Buda Castle on the Buda side.
Following many people, we crossed the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the oldest suspension bridge in Budapest.
We took a lot of photos on the bridge and eventually touched down on the Buda side.
We walked up north for a while and tried to get closer to the architecture of Hungarian Parliament Building over the river...
However, the Parliament was actually further than we thought. It was time to go back to Pest via the chain bridge for lunch.
There was a beautiful art nouveau building at the end of the bridge on the Pest side. It's the Gresham Palace, built in the early 1900s by the London-based Gresham Life Assurance Company as an office and apartment building, and now houses the Four Seasons Hotel.
Located a little bit south of the Gresham Palace, the Vigadó Concert Hall, built in 1864 in the Romantic style, sits in front of a lovely park with a fountain. It's always enjoyable to meet interesting architecture in a new city.
Our lunch place was Comme Chez Soi. It was a tiny Italian restaurant with a very limited number of tables. I made a reservation for 12pm, the earliest seating time about a month ago because many reviews strongly suggested making a reservation. It looked that all tables have been booked for the lunch time.
A complimentary appetizer plate came with bread. The middle of the plate was garlic butter. It was very garlicky and J loved it!
We shared grilled goose liver with apple flambé. The dish was a main reason why I chose this restaurant. I found that foie gras, made of duck or goose liver, is a Hungarian specialty while I was planning the trip, and the restaurant seemed like one of the best places in Budapest to taste Hungarian foie gras. The dish wasn't really Italian but apparently it was a restaurant's specialty. All other guests around our table were ordering it. The foie gras was creamy and lightly liver-y. Although I was a bit worried the sautéed apples made foie gras too sweet for J, it seemed that he didn't mind the combination. The mashed potato came with the dish. It was simple but salty and savory, which I thought nicely complemented the rich and sweet foie gras.
We ordered a side salad for each. The size was as large as a main dish. Well, we often lack fresh vegetable during a travel and it was a good chance to charge a lot of greens.
Also we had seafood spaghetti. The mountain of pasta was topped with various kinds of shellfish and was flavored with garlic generously. It was delicious and seemed like another popular dish of the restaurant. I saw a waiter carrying the dish a couple of times.
I was so full but was able to find a little space in the tummy for the complimentary lemon sorbet. It was a thoughtful offer to refresh the overwhelmed taste buds.
We needed a good walk after the big lunch. We headed toward the south, more precisely the Central Market Hall. More food...
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, or the University Church is a Baroque church that was built by the Pauline monks in the 18th century after expelling the Turks.
The next to the church is Eötvös Loránd University, the oldest and largest university in Hungary, founded in 1635.
We arrived at the Central Market Hall. It was a weekend and the market was so crowded. We quickly checked what are sold there and decided to come back and buy souvenir on a day before our departure.
The sky looked like it was going to rain at any moment, but we didn't have rain. Actually the clouds were welcome since I had a lot of sunshine already since our arrival.
Before going back to the hotel, I asked J to have a tea time. We visited Café Gerbeaud. Established in 1858, the classic European coffee house was on my ‘must-go’ list. I was so happy to make it on the Day One!
We didn't have to wait to get a table inside. It looked that people prefer being at the terrace in the warm weather. The interior was in the Wilhelminian (Gründerzeit) style with the Rococo style stucco ceiling, majestic chandeliers, marble tables and exotic wood paneling. A part of the dining area was somehow closed, which allowed me to take a photo of the elegant saloon without people.
J was still full from lunch but I was ready for a cake, of course. The showcase was filled with traditional Hungarian cakes. It was hard to select just one, but actually I had certain cakes in mind.
Anyway, it was a lovely tea time. We walked through Elizabeth Square, a public park with Ferris Wheel of Budapest.
The yellowish eclectic building of Anker Palace, which was built between 1908 and 1910 for a Viennese insurance company, the Anker Life and Pension, was our own landmark to go back to the hotel. The first day in Budapest was very satisfying.
To be continued...
