{"id":3927,"date":"2014-04-15T09:13:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T13:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=3927"},"modified":"2014-04-15T09:23:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T13:23:02","slug":"budapest-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/15\/budapest-hungary\/","title":{"rendered":"Budapest, Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"SONY<\/a>We have taken our girls many places and there are places they remember, a lot that they don\u2019t and a few things they still talk about.\u00a0 One of Honeybun\u2019s favorite things to share about our traveling was the day we saw the \u201cHungry Dancers\u201d\u00a0 (and she still asks if we can go back and see them sometime.)<\/p>\n

Two years ago we spent Easter in Budapest, Hungary.\u00a0 We visited Lithuania <\/a>and Vienna <\/a>before our Hungarian adventure which started with a train ride from Vienna <\/a>to Budapest.\u00a0 The train was quick and easy, speeding through the Hungarian countryside and was the only long-distance train we took while in Europe.\u00a0 We ended up paying for an upgrade to first class after mistakenly ending up there as it was marked handicapped and we had two strollers, car seats and many, many suitcases. The girls enjoyed the journey, playing on the train and watching the landscape go by.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

We arrived in Budapest in a rainstorm and had a 1 km walk to our hotel (about 10 minutes) and due to the rain, we decided to put some of the gear in the one stroller under the rain cover, Sugarplum in the other and decked Honeybun out in her raingear to walk with us.\u00a0 She was not happy and spent the entire walk screaming \u201cI can\u2019t walk!\u00a0 My legs are tired!\u00a0 It\u2019s too far!\u00a0 I can\u2019t walk!\u201d (still one of our most talked about traveling events!)<\/p>\n

We arrived in the evening so just dried off and ate dinner at the Hotel.\u00a0 We again stayed at the Novotel, which we found to be an extremely family friendly branch of hotels with spacious, clean rooms (we also stayed at the Novotel in Leipzig, Germany<\/a>; Vilnius, Lithuania<\/a> and Warsaw, Poland).<\/p>\n

\"SONY\u00a0The next day we decided to head for the public baths, one of the things Budapest is most famous for.\u00a0 Really, it\u2019s large swimming pools that are naturally warmed by nearby hot springs.\u00a0 It was a bit of a chilly day and the baths felt so good!\u00a0 That first day we went to the Szechenyi baths, which are located within the City Park.\u00a0 It is a bit pricey, but they gave both girls free which helped.\u00a0 We had the choice of a locker or a \u201ccabin\u201d and opted for the cabin which was somewhat humorous since it was barely big enough for me and Honeybun to be in there together!\u00a0 We also rented \u201ctowels\u201d which were more like thin white sheets which did little to dry you and even less to warm you up!\u00a0 But we did have a great time swimming, splashing, warming up and taking in the AMAZING architecture.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SONYAfter the baths we wandered through the park and came across a little food hut where we stopped for lunch.\u00a0 The food was amazing and they had an extensive beer and liqueur selection.\u00a0 We were also pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive it was, we spent a few hours there eating, drinking, listening to the live music and letting the girls dance and play and only spent about $20 including tip!<\/p>\n

After lunch we went to the Transit Museum which is also in the City park. It wasn\u2019t very busy so we were able to explore and be a little silly all we wanted.\u00a0 The museum is large with train cars, a model train, cars, bikes, boats and more!<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SONYThe next day was Easter and we went to the Buda Old Towne and Buda Castle where they held a large family Easter day.\u00a0 There was so much to do and see (including the \u201cHungry\u201d dancers) as well as local handicrafts and food.\u00a0 There was a great kids area set up with crafts, a petting farm and toy zone.\u00a0 This is also when we fell in love with kuros kalacs (\u201cChimney bread\u201d), a Hungarian sweet bread that is the most AMAZING treat!<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"SONY<\/a>\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SONYAfter we felt we had seen, done and experienced all the festival had to offer, we headed out in the old town to explore.\u00a0 The castle and old town sit high above the city of Budapest (Buda on one side of the hill, Pest on the other, now Budapest).\u00a0 We were able to witness the Changing of the Guard (something we did in many places and I highly recommend anywhere you go) and check out the amazing architecture.\u00a0 We also picked up many traditional hand painted souvenirs to add to our collection and peeked in on some archaeological work they were doing, revealing part of the OLD Old Town.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

After coming down the hill on the Funicular we headed to another public bath house but ended up not staying since it was a gender separate day meaning hubby would have to go separate from the girls and I.\u00a0 We were also advised bathing suits were optional so we headed back to the hotel and had a great (and cheap!) all-you-can-eat dinner at a local restaurant that had live music which kept the girls pleasantly entertained (and Sugarplum only knocked over her highchair twice!)<\/p>\n

\"SONYThe following day we decided to take the girls to the Zoo in the City Park as I had read there was an Easter Festival there as well.\u00a0 Unfortunately there was no festival but it is a lovely little zoo and we had a great time nonetheless. \u00a0Many of the enclosures are glass and allow you to get right up close for a peek which the girls loved! \u00a0After the Zoo we stopped back by the Szechenyi baths for another relaxing swim.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \u00a0\"SONY<\/a>\"SONY<\/p>\n

\"SONYThe last day we tried another Bath house, The Gellert Baths which feature indoor pools as well as smaller outdoor pools.\u00a0 We found a smaller outdoor pool that had only one other family in it and spent much of our time in there as the girls could splash and be loud without bothering others.\u00a0 At Gellert, I was more interested in the beautiful architecture than I was the bathing!<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \u00a0\"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

We rounded off our visit with a stroll down the busy shopping street of Vaci Utca where we picked up an extra suitcase for all our purchases and treasures (we had been collecting things throughout our journey and found ourselves with not enough room going back!)\u00a0 We had also been to the Arena Plaza mall and were pleasantly surprised with how affordable everything was in Hungary, especially compared to the inflated prices we lived with in Dublin!<\/p>\n

Overall, we loved our trip to Budapest.\u00a0 It is on our short list of places we would like to revisit someday and the memories we made being there on Easter were amazing!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have taken our girls many places and there are places they remember, a lot that they don\u2019t and a few things they still talk about.\u00a0 One of Honeybun\u2019s favorite things to share about our traveling was the day we saw the \u201cHungry Dancers\u201d\u00a0 (and she still asks if we can go back and see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12],"tags":[171,175,172,164,128,173,174,49,63,129],"class_list":["post-3927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-time-to-celebrate","category-tiny-travellers","tag-budapest","tag-easter","tag-hungary","tag-kids","tag-museum","tag-swimming","tag-train","tag-travel","tag-traveling-tuesday","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3927"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3967,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927\/revisions\/3967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}