Three Capital Trip - Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia) Posted on: 26th November 2016 :: Photo Credits: Prayaag, Pabitra, Alap, Hitkarsh ::
Continued from: Day 1: Vienna (Austria)
We checked-in our hostel in Budapest around 9 PM. It was a small establishment with cozy 8-bed dorm rooms. We had the option of going to the pub crawl or getting some rest. Based on our previous experience of the pub crawl (Prague) , we decided to skip it.
Day : 2
Location : Budapest
After a quick breakfast at our hostel, our guided sightseeing tour of Budapest began. Budapest, the capital and largest city of Hungary is actually the combination of two cities Buda and Pest. We started our tour with the Pest part. The first spot was 'Hősök Tere', one of the major squares in Budapest noted for its iconic statue complex featuring the Seven Chieftains of the Magyars and other important national leaders, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The square was flooded with tourists on this Saturday morning.
Then we crossed the Danube river and entered the Buda part of the city. The bus dropped us near the Gellert Hill. We walked up the hill to see the Liberty Statue, a monument that commemorates those who sacrificed their lives for the independence, freedom, and prosperity of Hungary. There were several viewpoints on the hill overlooking the Budapest city spread along both sides of the Danube river.
Near the statue, there were many dealers luring tourists into the famous 'Shell Game'. In this game (or scam!) the dealer puts a ball under one of three cups and then shuffles them. The task is to guess the cup with the ball under it. The dealer was surrounded by his assistants who acted like casual passersby and bet huge amounts (100-200Euros) to guess the right cup. Sometimes they won and sometimes they lost to make the scam game appear real. But whenever an actual tourist made the bet, the light-fingered dealer kept the ball in hand and shuffled the cups. Thus the tourist always lost money. We realized this soon and didn't bet anything. But a few 'blondes' from our tour-group were dumb enough to bet and they lost more than 50Euros.
Our next destination was the Buda Castle Hill. We started the castle tour from Fisherman's Bastion on the northern side of the hill. It was a neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style terrace with fairy tale towers.
To the south of Fisherman's Bastian, there was the Hungarian Presidential Palace called Sándor Palace. It was surrounded by Hungary's flags. Luckily, we got to see the 'Changing of Guard' ceremony, which consisted of the soldiers turning about the rifles, saluting, marching up and down the square, domino-like movements accompanied by drums.
The southern part of the hill offered some breathtaking views of the city and Danube river.
After spending some time on the banks of Danube river, we walked back to our hostel and got ready for the boat party. It was very similar to the one in Prague. The boat which toured us for 2hrs along the Danube river had a dance floor and a deck. We spent most of the time on the deck soaking in the night views of the city.
The boat party was followed by an afterparty in the biggest club of the city Morrisons' 2. It had 6 huge dance floors which were bursting at seems with the young crowd.
Next morning, we checked out of our hostel in Budapest and departed towards the last capital city of our trip: Bratislava.