Boat trip, Heroe Square and Szécheneyi Bath
Good morning... or should I say Good late morning? LOL... We woke up at 9.30 am ! WTF? I had slept for more then 12 hours.. guess I was tired, huh? And so were the others it seemed, since they too had slept for a long time.
Gudny and I got up and got dressed. Then we rushed over to a Supermarket we had seen the night before. We needed to get something to eat for the next days, and also for breakfast. After shopping groceries, milk and stuff, we walked back. The kids were up, but not completely ready. We let them shower and get ready first and made them breakfast. Or to be completely honest, Gudny made them breakfast... lol I just made my own.
After everyone had eaten, showered and gotten ready, we walked up to the metro station called Nuygati, and purchased a 3 days public transportation ticket for all of us.
We took the metro down to the Deák Ference station. From there we walked down to the river and shot some pics along the way. Think we stopped and got some icecream too. We went on to Pier 8, and waited for the boat to come and take us the rivercruise. It was a wonderful, sunny day and we just chilled in the sun.
As the time get close to 4pm and the boat were arriving, we got a bit dissapointed. It looked more like an old fishing boat, then a cruiseboat. And compared to the other boats we saw, it was.. well, an old piece of junk... lol. Anyway, we got on, and for a while we started to believe that the 4 of us and a couple were the only people joining.
We started on our river cruise, and it was quite interesting to see the city from this view and also listen to the guide telling some of Budapests history. She told us that the tallest buildings on the Pest side is no taller then 96m. This is because they don't want to ruin the view from the Buda side. :o) She asked the quiestion; why not 95m or 97m? But couldn't really answer that herself... lol. She also said that Hungary is just the English name for the country, but their own name is Major, or something like that. Not sure how they spell it. There are about 120 - 130 hotsprings in Budapest, and they are mostly located at the Buda side. There's only one thermal bath on the Pest side, the Schéchenyi Baths. The most famous one is the Gellért, located close to the river on the Buda side.
The boat cruise took about an hour, and despite the boat we were on, it was a good cruise. We also found that the longest word in Hungarian contains 40 letters. Our guide said the word, but no one could repeat it... hahaha.
After the river cruise, we went and took the metro back to Nuygati and walked to the apartment. Cooked some dinner and relaxed for a while.
We discovered that there were a metro station even closer to the apartment, called Oktogón. As we were going to the Schéchenyi Baths, we took the metro from Oktogón and got off at Kodály Körönd and walked over to see Heroes Square. Pretty amazing.
After that, we went back to the metro station and got off at the next station, called Bajza Utca, and headed over to the Baths.
We got it, paid the fee and found our way to the changing rooms. Pretty darn big this building... lol. As we got out and into the pool... wow, it was so warm. The thermal pool held 38c, or about 100F. It was soooooo good just laying in the water and relax. It was good for both body and soul. The kids had a lot of fun splashing around and follow the waterstream in the middle circle. The stream there were so fast you could barely get out again. I thought it was pretty darn fun myself. And yeah.. I'm just like a kid sometimes.. hahaha...
After little over an hour we decided we had enough and finished up there.
Then we went and took the metro downtown again. We wanted to see the city with all the lights turned on. It's really a sight to see. And it gets somewhat "magical". It totally transforms from what you see in daylight. And I really liked the city by lights. :o)
We had planned on taking the metro back up, but found that by 11pm, it had stopped running, so we had to walk. It wasn't that hard after soaking in the hot water at the thermal bath... :o)
We went to bed almost right away. Tired after yet another long day. Looking forward to another day of exploring tomorrow...
The premises have fantastic arcitecture, and the water was so warm (38degrees Centigrades). Simply wonderful to just lie there and relax. They also have a more swimmingpool like pool too, but we stayed in the hot, relaxing water of the smaller pool.
The kids had a great time there as this pool had a buble bath and also a cirular thing in the middle where the water went so fast round that you had a hard time keeping up. But it sure was fun. There were stairs around the entire pool, which made it ideal for us to sit there and watch both the kids and our belongings.
It's open (obviously) to both men and women, and you get back anywhere from 200 - 800 HUF on your deposit if you leave within 2 - 4 hours before 3pm and 300/600 HUF if you leave withinh 2 - 3 hours after 3pm.
This is well worth a visit and I think we all wished we had gone back here, instead of trying out Gellert.
PS. We were told not to shot pics here. Not that we could understand why, since a lot of people did. But maybe we stood out with our NIKON cams... LOL
(We grabed our cellphones after that, so I will upload some of those pics, as soon as I can fine the usb cord.)
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