Long live the goat!

The bus ride through the Tatra mountains in Slovakia was beautiful, I wish I could have stayed and done some hiking.
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OK, at this point i am very far behind in the blogs and the foreign çeyböardÅŸ are not ,t making it any easier.  After arriving in Budapest at night (something I have since stopped doing) Myself and a Kiwi headed out on town to track down a hostel.  Easier said than done at 11pm.  At least we had a map.  Turn out that the hostels don"t advertise on the streets.  or anywhere for that matter.  So after walking in circles around the heart of the city some friendly travelers saw us and pointed us in the direction of a hostel that had some rooms available.  Finally some sleep.

Part of Heroes Square in Budapest, for some reason I didn`t get the whole thing...
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When I get to a new town or city I always try to take the first day and go for a long walk to get my bearings and get a feel for where I am and today was no different.  Budapest is a great city with some fantastic public transportation.  There multitudes of buses, trams, and metros that can take you anywhere you need to go.  The architecture of the buildings in the downtown area is remarkable and only slightly marred by the large neon signs perched on the rooftops.  Its a shame that the communist regime that took over in the 5o´s set this city back so much.  Otherwise Budapest could easily have been on par with Paris or New York as a cultural centre in Europe.

Squeezing our way through that one at a time was a blast, inching along on our bellies

The city baths, I spent many an hour here lounging in the pools
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My sightseeing took me all over the city which is surpisingly walkable if a person is willing.  Not having much of a plan also makes it possible to find other things that aren´t widely advertised in the guidebooks or flyers in the hostels.  My favorite was the large sculpture dedicated to the resistance movement in 1956 during the communist takeover.  I also stumbled across the world´s largest hourglass, standing at 4m high its run time is one year and it gets flipped by a handwheel every Dec 31 at midnight.

The cahin bridge across the Bosphorous that uniited the two cities of Buda and Pest.
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No trip to Budapest would be complete without a trip to at least one of the many public baths in the city.  I only got around to visiting two; the city baths in the large park, which were the largest, and the Gellert baths known for the extensive tilework inside (sorry no pics allowed).  Going to the baths is not like going to your average public pool.  The city baths had over 9 different pools all different temperatures and some with minerals in the water.  There are multiple steam rooms and saunas, plus an outdoor pool with a whirlpool that is strong enough to carry 15-20 people around its edge, making it virtually impossible to fight the current.  Every pool has underwater jets scattered about (although some seemed to have dubious purposes) and the buildings itself was a wonder to behold.  Its quite easy to spend well over four hours in these places moving from pool to pool, from 40C al the way down to 15C and back up again.  My personal favorite route was to work up to the 40C pool, then head to the 65C steamroom for 5-7 minutes (which was all I could take) then a quick dip into the 15C pool and back to the steam.  After a few laps I think my blood pressure drops to about nil and its time go.

In the lobby of the Gellert Baths
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The other must see in Budapest is the caving tours.  Under the city there is a limestone cave system that is absolutely massive.  The tour took us through about 5% of the total system and is not for the claustrophobic.  With our headlamps and coveralls on we dove in to the narrow maze of tunnels and rooms.  Sometimes crawling on our bellies to make it through the tight passages and cracks.  Towards the end we had the option of taking the hard or easy way out and it was a unanimous vote for the difficult way, called the sandwich.  The sandwich is a horizontal crack that slowly heads up at a easy angle but is only a scant 12-13 inches high, barely enough to fit our hard hats through.  Squeezing our way through that one at a time was a blast, inching along on our bellies and listening to the others laughter as we popped out at the end was the highlight of my time in Budapest.

I feel motivated, how about you?
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A minor letdown came when I made the trip to the Communist Statue Park.  When communism fell many cities across eastern Europe saw to the destruction of the monuments and "motivational" statues that it had erected but Budapest decided to keep theirs as a reminder of their history.  The park itself was not that impressive and I had more fun just trying to get there as its quite a way outside of the main city.  When I say I had fun, I mean I got lost.  To my credit the instructions were pretty hazy to begin with and several others from the hostel agreed with me, some had tried and given up.  But I got a great tour of the city out of it plus learned some valuable lessons on public transportation.

Inside St. Estvan Basilica, where his actual mummified hand is kept on display... for a price.
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After a week in Budapest it definitely time to get on with it and head to the next stop: Sighisoara, Romania where a scenic train ride starts and the birthplace of Vlad (The Impaler) Tepes aka Dracula is located.