I started this morning with a tour out of the city.
But first I started it with a little unplanned adventure. I was admittedly still a little tired this morning. I ate breakfast quickly, to get ready to go for today’s tours. In the hotels I’ve been in so far, they’ve required you to use your key fob in the elevator, before you can select the floor you are going to – this is so that no one can get to upper floors that isn’t a guest. Some American hotels have started doing it too. Anyway, I was the only one in the elevator, I waved my keycard and pressed the button. Elevator went up, and opened. I assumed it was my floor, so I got out, and went to my room.
My room is two doors from elevator so easy to find without looking at numbers on doors. My door has the “do not disturb” tag on the door, just like I left it. I use my key fob and it beeps back red instead of green. I am irritated and think maybe the keycard was too close to my phone and I deactivated in accidentally, and now I’m stressed about being late to get back downstairs.
But then I see that the door is not quite closed. Did I not shut it when I left? Aaaargh. What was I thinking?!? So I push it open and lights are on and the tv is on, which is not how I left my room. I get the door about halfway open and see a person sitting on a chair. The person is definitely not me.
I step back, letting the door close, more out of shock than anything…and see that I am at 330, not 530. Oops.
So then I hurry back to the elevators and press the button 50 times to compel it to come faster, even though I know the number of presses actually means nothing, before anyone come from the room wondering why I was trying to break in. Yet another close brush with Hungarian jail, but no one tracked me down. We’ll see if there is video of me and I get arrested when checking out tomorrow.
For now though, let’s enjoy today!
I got to go along the Danube River, and visited two towns: Szentendre and Visegrád.
Szentendre is known as an artist village. Cobbled squares, colorful old houses, narrow streets, gorgeous churches, nice cafes and a bunch of souvenir/art shops. There were also some interesting museums and galleries with local art, along with a large Herend Porcelain store. Herend is a Hungarian based manufacturer, and started operations in 1826, and is one of the most well known products coming from Hungary. It isn’t cheap – I was very careful in the store.
Many of the shops are operated by the artists themselves. I spent a bunch of time in one woman’s shop. She has had her store since 1982 – she had to get special permission from the (communist) Government to open it at the time.
The long bronze thing is actually a stamp; it is one of her family’s patterns, and that stamp has existed for about 300 years. Like, that actual stamp. The fabric below it is an example of what she produces. It is 100% white cotton. The stamp is dipped in wax, and then stamped on to the fabric. This is repeated over and over, depending on the fabric length and pattern. The white dos you see along the bottom edge of the fabric and marking spots from a stamp, to let you know where to place the next one.
Once you’re done with the wax, you then dye the fabric. Many families also have their own color that they’re known for. Then, once it dries, you peel the wax off – so now, where the wax had been, it is white (the original fabric color). I thought it was really interesting, and the artist was really excited that I wanted to understand, so she also demonstrated a few things for me, and got some things out of the back to show me.
There were tons of different art types – pottery, jewelry, fabric, etc.
In addition to the more tradition art, there was also this place for marzipan art. I thought it would be stupid, but it was actually kind of cool.
This is the second largest Serbian church in the country. It’s fully fenced off, with Ivy growing, so I couldn’t get a good picture. About 300 yeas ago, this area was full of Serbians. However, there was a disease that killed the grapes, and so their jobs as winemakers disappeared. At that point most Serbians left, and eventually artists moved in, because the town was empty and thus cheap. There is still a small Serbian population in the area; Otto said sometimes the service here has 5 people.
And, this is the third largest Serbian church in the country. The other one, lets say 2 blocks away, is too expensive to heat in the winter, so then servies are moved to this one.
We then went to Visegrád, which was once was the capital of Hungary. You get an amazing panorama on the Danube bend from their hill.
In this area, there are only what we’d call hills – they aren’t mountains. In Hungary though, a hill is a small bump, just a few feet high. Everything else is called a mountain, and my guide explained that they refer to these as mountains, “just like the Himalayans.”
At this point, we were running late. There had been a lot of road construction on the way up, and the same on the way back, causing huge delays – which was a bit of an issue, since I had something else starting at 2. I was staying calm, and said if we missed it that was ok, but Otta was 100% committed on getting me there. At one point, he says “let’s do an adventure!” and he basically cut through the hills, sometimes on gravel roads, sometimes on one way streets going the wrong way, and one time I think through someones yard, but he got me there.
We eventually cut back to the main road – and it did save about 45 minutes.
Otto did get me to my next event: caving. I haven’t talked about this plan with anyone, because I thought there were decent odds I’d back out. I read the reviews, and some people said it was amazing and some people said holy crap, unless you do this professionally you shouldn’t even try, it’s too hard. I reached out to the group, told them I had no upper body strength, but they said come anyway.
Caving can be different things to different people. Here, at Budapest’s “Pálvölgyi Caves” you’re physically climbing, crawling, and maneuvering through tight spaces. Like, really tight places. Here is a video they sent to reassure me it would be easy, if you’re interested.
It was not easy. And cell phones in the caves were strongly discouraged, because they’d be so easy to break or fall, so I have minimal proof of the adventure. The caves are the longest in Budapest, and third longest in the country, at around 24,000 feet. Vertically, they go down about 340 feet. The temp stays at about 50 Fahrenheit.
It was INCREDIBLE. Terrifying, but incredible. Of the three hours we were in the caves, about 30 minutes were spent on your stomach, just wiggling through things with an army crawl. Another 30 minutes were lying on your stomach or your side more often, with one arm out in front (he called it the Superman), wiggling forward that way. Maybe another 30 scooting on your butt, and another 30 squatting down and kind of walking like a duck The hour is spent then climbing down ladders to get deep into the caves, or walking in the caves – sometimes sideways through tall narrow passages, some times kind of walking up or down areas if they weren’t too slippery, etc.
One person hit their head and jerked it back down and scraped their chin, and another had some deep scrapes on their knees they discovered once out. I’m going to be bruised tomorrow, but well worth it.
Someone in the group (there were 7 of us) was struggling a bit, so a few times the guide told me where to go and set me off crawling to lead the group, so he could stay with them. I’m not going to lie, that was pretty scary. But based on the fact that I am typing this, I survived (as did my shoes. I was very worried about shoes on this trip, based on the variety of plans I had, and had read some reviews that this tour destroyed some people’s shoes, so I’d been stressing for weeks about what to wear! I only packed three pairs of shoes total!)
After caving, I was tired and hungry. Quick shower in my hotel and then a nice dinner out, including dessert with crackling on top. Crackling is, I think, just animal fat? But really tasty animal fat.
It’s my last night in Budapest! Tomorrow I head to Prague.