Travel To Budapest, Hungary

Germany -> Bratislava, Slovakia -> Budapest, Hungary -> Vienna, Austria

The next morning, after breakfast of bread and cheese with our host, we went to Keleti Palyaudvar train station to buy the tickets for the evening train to Wien/Vienna. The trip from Budapest to Vienna takes about 3 to 4 hours. See the timetable. I forgot the price but train in europe is pricey than bus price probably not more than 20 euro.

There are a large train timetable at the front of the station where everybody seems to be standing in front of it which I don't know why. It's a old kind of time table which the words flips whenever there are new information; not like the digital one that are used in the present. Therefore, every few seconds the words flips (with the sounds) to show new train arrive or departure. Cool! :P

There seems lack of seats around and only a few food shops have chairs.

Pic: Keleti train station.

Pic: The ceiling.

Pic: The train that we were boarding looks much nicer. This one probably the train to local stations.

Then, we went to one of the places that our host suggested which is the citadel. Probably we choose this because he said he used to skip his university classes to go here. The citadel is located on top of a hill. However, I didn't expect that the citadel to be in a very high position. (We haven't do much research on Budapest either).

Pic: The citadel is behind the hotel building on the left, higher than the cross monument at the back of me.

Budapest was divided into 2 parts, the hilly parts which is called Buda and the lowland parts which is called Pest. It is divided by river Danube. The citadel which is located in Buda area on top of Gellert Hill is a stronghold or fortress that was built by Habsburgs in 1851 to show control over the Hungarians. To get to the citadel, you can either drive or walk up the hill through a park which lovely trees and places to rest. Which we did rest lots of time in the journey upwards. Lots of people keeps passing us by. I'm sorry to say that if not because of me, the other two guys had already arrived at the top earlier than we should have :P

From the park and at the top of the hill, we can see most of the Buda and Pest area and the view is very breathtaking. A very nice way to spend an evening. However, the battery of my hubby's camera was finished and we couldn't took pictures of the view. We haven't copy the pictures from Fahmi's camera yet.

Right in front of the citadel is the Liberation Monument which was built in 1947. The figure is a woman holding an olive branch in her hands which symbolize peace.

Pic: The Liberation Monument.

Pic: At Manu's living room.

After spending some time there, we went back to the train station and proceed to Vienna. Our next host house is very easy to find since it is very near to the center of town. Emmanuel (Manu) Kasper is a frenchman who been living in Vienna for a few years already. He had a very nice apartment with his roommate, wood flooring and large living room. He's a computer programmer and a reggae player.

Pic: A very nice restaurant, Bierteufl.

He took us to a nearby pub/restaurant, Bierteufl where we ordered a very nice, sweet plate of crepes but it was too much that we're having a difficult time to finish it. The pub/restaurant is very beautiful which log ceiling and wooden chairs. Before we when out, we notice that Beethoven used to live at the top apartment from the restaurant and he finish composed one of his symphony there. It's a very cool thing because everywhere you walked in Vienna, you can see this kind of plate showing famous composers living there or composing there. I also seen one of Mozart apartment in Venice. It's incredible to think that they live all over Europe and been composing everywhere.

Pic: A plate showing Beethoven lives here.