Budapest Day 4 - Central Market, Liberty Bridge, and Sampling Goulash

Morning Walk 

Our days are starting to follow a familiar trend: a good morning walk to see the sights, followed by lunch and a relaxed afternoon. It’s suiting us well so far, and it's similar to the approach we took in Cambodia and Thailand. You could spend all day out and cram six days into three, but that’s not what this lifestyle is all about. We could also be using the underground metro system here to avoid the walking, but then you don’t see as much.

This morning, we headed to the Budapest Central Market via the Jewish Quarter and the Budapest Museum. The Central Market is a very large and beautiful building filled with street stalls. The main level is mostly meats, fruit, and veges, but also has some clothes, bags, and other items. One level up are touristy trinket-type shops—reasonably good quality, though not cheap—along with some tasty-looking food stalls. If it had been lunchtime, we would have been tempted, but it was only 9am! Below ground, there’s an Aldi supermarket, along with several small shops selling fish, preserves, and pickles.

We spent the princely sum of 1 Euro on a fridge magnet and took a few photos before heading back out to the street. We then crossed the Liberty Bridge to Buda. We could see the castle we visited yesterday upstream and were surprised at how far along the river we had come this morning.

The Buda side featured a large thermal bathhouse, a cave (which required payment to enter), and some interesting buildings built into the rock.

We retraced our steps across the bridge and returned to our home base via a different route, which took us past many beautiful, large, and old residential buildings.

Back home, we grabbed a few morning tea snacks to go with our coffee and then retired to the couch to rest our feet. An 8 km circuit this morning. 

Shenghen Days

Before I forget I should probably tell you about the Shenghen, and Shenghen Days, because a lot of people don't know about this. Shenghen is a town in Luxembourg and "The Shenghen" is a group of 29 countries in Europe that share a visa entry system. As New Zealanders we are allowed to enter the Shenghen zone without a visa. But you may only stay for 90 days in a 180 day period. 

Therefore, given we are away for 6 months or around 180 days we cannot spend all of our time in the Shenghen. We will need to "get out of Dodge", at some stage, so to speak. At least for some of our time. Don't worry we have a plan! But it's a flexible one. The clock is ticking but we are watching it and because we have a rough plan it's not something we have to stress about too much. But you do need to be very aware and keep track of your days. There's an app for that! Of course there is. 

Dinner Out Tonight

We decided to go out somewhere nice for dinner tonight. Mainly because we wanted to try Hungarian goulash. There was a local restaurant called Menza with good reviews. It was very nice and we got in without a reservation which is not always possible according to Google. Sarah had the Menza red wine and I tried their beer. Both were very nice. A merlot blend wine and a lager style beer. For mains we had the goulash soup which was a cross between a soup and a stew. Very tasty and tender beef in it. We also had the pork schnitzel with new potatoes. Yummy. Total cost was just over $60 NZD. Expensive for this trip but reasonable by any New Zealand comparison.