Budapest. August 5

Budapest. Who knew you were so hot? Who knew you were so beautiful? Who knew we would love you despite your heat so much?

Last night was struggle town in the sleep department. We mean, srs struggs. It was an awful toss up between, is it worse to sleep literally caked in sweat or with very bright lights and loud noises infiltrating your mind every second of the night? Or maybe, let's just enjoy both of these factors. We are on the fifth floor of an otherwise really cool apartment block, but fifth floor and mid thirties to high twenties degrees overnight doesn't really equate to sleep. Also we are in the centre of the city so leaving the windows open all night on account of no cooling (not even a simple fan) leads to light pouring in all night and partiers walking home at 2am and loud garbage trucks at 5am. We think maybe you get the point. But we won't dwell on this factor because this city is pretty amazing and we actually love it.

Sadly there are no walking tours here so we had to go it alone, wandering through he city in the heat trying to discover Budapest. Well actually Pest because we (and most of the cool things) are on the Pest side of the Danube. We went through the Jewish Quarter, arguably he best area of the city, with the coolest cafes, bars and restaurants. The buildings in this area are at times quite dilapidated but this definitely adds to their charm, making the whole area so intriguing.

We came back to our area to get rose gelato, that is gelato in a cone sculpted into a rose. This was not only so tasty, but amazing, check the pics. After this pit stop we went to St Stephens basilica, our local. We say local because we can see it from our window, a beauty of our view.

Next we wandered down to the river bank, which the incredible, and most impressive we've encountered, parliament lies. This building is insane. All angles are amazing and every detail builds up to the incredible structure that it is. While here we came across a stairway that lead down, underneath the square that the parliament sits on. The square is called Kossuth square and the stairway actually lead to an exhibit, describing and showing images and film about the Kossuth square massacre. We both had no idea what this was and this find below the square really enlightened us on this, and we are both so glad we stumble on the exhibit. On October 25th 1956, thousands of Hungarians were massacred at the square. They were all gathered under the proviso that an important speech regarding their freedom, and peaceful demonstrations were about to happen. Instead what happened was the shooting and murder of so many crowded in the square. We were so fascinated by this major event we'd never even heard about, watching accounts filmed from those who were there and had to witness their young kids, siblings, parents and friends murdered whilst trying to escape the gunfire.

St Stephens Basilica

This pool becomes super busy at night with people dipping their feet in and drinking together

But for now, just Elise, her frappe and some sweaty strangers

Danube

Stormy clouds over Parliament 

After leaving the exhibit we walked further down the Danube and came across the memorial for the murdered Jewish in the holocaust. The memorial were rusting bronze shoes, all placed along a section of the river to symbolise the Hungarian Jews who were forced to strip at this spot and were then massacred. The artist specifically included all types of shoes, in all shapes and sizes to represent all men, women and children. At night the shoes are lit up by candles that a places inside them, which is really beautiful.

At this point we walked back to our apartment because a storm was coming, and we got some Thai noodles from a shop nearby for lunch and then managed to make it to our apartment to watch the storm front come across. It poured and poured, the streets below flooding. The storm broke the heat a little but still, we were only just coping in our fifth floor sweat box. We know you've been cold, but you've go to go with us on this. It was rough.

Fun sculpture at the end of Chain Bridge

Much love,
A&E