It took us about nine hours by night-train to Budapest, Hungary from Prague. Since the train passed through Slovakia during the night we were woken up innumerous times for passport control. In Budapest we temporarily abandoned budget travelling and checked in at Hotel Gellert, an Art Nouveau spa from 1918 (see the amazing interiors among the photos).
Budapest's orientation is similar to Prague's: both cities are divided in two by a river with the old city on a hill on the left bank, but where as Prague's Vltava River is small and quaint like the rest of the city, the Danube is as wide as Budapest's avenues. This is a large and cosmopolitan city and it is difficult to understand that only 15 years ago this place was hidden far behind the Iron Curtain. The communist monuments have now been moved to a museum / cemetery south of the city and globalization is flourishing (for the good and the bad). It is somewhat frightening to see how fast mobile phones, Britney Spears and Burger King can take over the world. It erases national identity with generic and bland results.
Nothing has touched the thermal baths however. We spent many hours floating in 38-degree waters bubbling with sulfur and calcium. Going to the baths is a ritual where you move from pool to pool with different temperatures, from steambaths so hot you cough when you breathe to ice cold baths and then onto the sauna. Since Magyar is not an Indo-European language it is difficult to know where to go and what to do. To get into the baths you pay a refundable deposit for your towel (a bedsheet) and receive several slips of paper that then must be changed for a token or be stamped at another desk. Your changing cabin has one number, your key another number and the guard will also lock your cabin with a master key for which he will give you a security control number. Confusing? We got lost too. |
