Sept 28, 2019 – Budapest, Hungary
After a walking tour around Heroes Square, we bought a 24 hour ticket on the metro from the vending machine on the opposite side of the Heroes Square and returned to our Airbnb for lunch. Post lunch, we got into the M1 metro to reach the station called Deak Ferenc Ter.
The M1 (Millennium Metro Underground) was inaugurated on May 2, 1896 and is the oldest underground metro using electric traction. The London underground predates the M1 by six years but it used steam locomotives and shifted to electric traction only in 1906. The M1 is a tiny metro with just a few coaches in bright yellow.
We got off at the Deak Ferenc Ter station and tried walking towards St. Stephens Basilica using google maps. As soon as we got out of the metro station, we found ourselves in a square which had many eateries and a tourist kiosk. We went to our left and reached a sort of traffic junction and while waiting to cross the road we saw stunning buildings all across.
We crossed the traffic signal and walked past a few stunning buildings and managed to find the St. Stephens basilica. Its a grand basilica and many tourists were waiting to go inside. We just soaked it all in standing in the square in front of the basilica.
As we stood seeing the beautiful basilica we were approached by a young Hungarian girl who worked with ISKCON for donations. We were surprised because this was the first time ever that someone from ISKCON had asked us for donations. We did donate because after all its for Krishna :). From the St. Stephens square we walked towards the Danube river through a busy street named Zrinyi utica.
We found the Fat Policeman bronze sculpture as soon as we entered Zrinyi Utca.
Right next to the Costa Coffee shop, we found the Budapest Bakery & Cafe a very inviting place indeed. We ordered a coffee and a bagel with cream cheese and both were just outstanding ! The Zrinyi utca is full of restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops and it has streets perpendicular to it that connect to the main road leading to the Funicular ! We came across a beautiful building called “Danube Palace” – a former casino and the Central European university building as well.
As we crossed over a small park and a main road on the other end of Zrinyi Utca, we saw this massive chain bridge that connected “Buda” to “Pest” :).
We plan to walk across to the Buda side tomorrow and also the Andrassy Avenue. For today, we are done and before returning to our Airbnb we had a milkshake each at the famous milk bar, Cserpes Tejivo near the Deak Ferenc Ter square. Quite delicious !
Great!