Warsaw

 After a slight kerfuffle at the Budapest airport for our flight to Warsaw, which we thankfully managed to sort out with little difficulty, we had an uneventful one-ish hour flight back to Warsaw. We arrived mid evening and made our way to our hotel which was conveniently located in the old part of Warsaw. As we arrived in the old town we noticed a heavy police presence and tried to figure out whether it was just normal for a Friday night. We stayed at Hotel Verte, a boutique hotel set within the historic walls of a restored baroque palace with over 250 years of history. We had a very beautifully appointed, and spacious room facing the inner courtyard. We only had a short time in Warsaw, so we tried to make the most of it. The evening of our arrival, we found a lovely restaurant nearby that had only been open for about a year and we enjoyed a lovely Italian meal. After supper we decided to explore the old town a bit taking in the beauty of the "old" buildings and evening light. As we were walking around, we stumbled across a large crowd and what appeared to be a protest, which then made the heavy police presence make more sense. I was a bit hesitant to get too close, Z on the other hand was very curious and felt it was peaceful enough for us to approach the gathering. Given we don't speak Polish we really didn't understand what was being said or going on for that matter, but it all felt very important. We learned later it was a demonstration and remembrance of an international incident with another country where several politicians and their spouses were killed in an airplane crash with the offending country not allowing access to the crash site or remains. Turns out the leader of the political opposition party was speaking at this demonstration and that his brother was one of the deceased. It really was a peaceful demonstration marking a very terrible tragedy. 

The following morning, we joined walking tour that led us through the streets of the old town and we learned that Warsaw was pretty much wiped out during WWII and the "old" buildings we saw in the old town were reconstructed and only 40-50 years old but made to look like the original. We also learned about the 1944 uprising, Polish culture and cuisine. It was a very informative tour and afterwards we stopped in at Bar Mleczny, one of Poland's most popular and best milk bars for a traditional Polish lunch. Milk bars are known for their low cost, no frills traditional Polish dishes. We dined on a few different dishes and very thoroughly satisfied and full afterwards. It was a great way to end our trip in Poland. After lunch we were off to the airport to head home. 

All in all, while this was a quick trip, we managed to pack in a lot seeing not only Krakow, but also making it to Budapest and back to finish in Warsaw. We learned so much of the rich history of both countries, including the atrocities of WWII. We enjoyed the beautiful architecture in all three cities, dined on way to much good food and discovered some really good wines. What a great opportunity we had to experience this adventure. 

Until next time... to live is to travel... life is good! 

Budapest

Budapest wasn't originally in the plan, but after some pondering of what we wanted to do and seeing Budapest featured in a stop of the Amazing Race, we quickly decided to figure out how to incorporate it into our trip. We had a couple options on getting there, an 8-hour train - not the most efficient use of our short time, or a 1-hour flight back to Warsaw and then another 1 hour 15 min flight to Budapest. So plane it was. Our flight into Budapest landed later afternoon, which turned out to be great as there was an international delegation that arrived in the morning that shut down the airport and several metro lines for a few hours. Thankfully we missed all that and landed with no issues. And because we were flying within Europe didn't have to clear immigration. We made our way to the airport/city bus station and managed to just catch the bus that was leaving. The Budapest Go app we discovered gave us access to buses and the metro and using this method of transport was cheaper than using a cab or Uber. The airport/city bus took us directly to the metro line which would stop a short walk from our hotel. 

We stayed at the Dorothea Hotel situated a couple blocks from the Danube River and in a vibrant part of downtown Budapest. We found the location to be perfect for our few days in Budapest because we could walk to many of the sites such as St. Stephen's Basilica and the Parliament buildings. There were plenty of restaurant options and shopping close by, along with easy access to the metro. The hotel was fairly recently renovated and provided a very contemporary, yet elegant atmosphere. We had a very nicely appointed, large modern room with a seating area that was elevated behind the sleeping area accessible by a couple of stairs. We had a lovely stay here, with an expansive buffet breakfast included each morning. The hotel also had a great spa with a swimming pool, sauna and steam rooms, along with an impressively well equipped gym.

Our time in Budapest was short, only three days, so we packed as much as we could in that time. We ended up doing two different walking tours; one on the Pest side and one on the Buda side. Both were very informative on Budapest's history, including stories about WWII and the Cold War, everyday current life, the current political state - particularly given the pending election, and the general economic condition of the country. We discovered that Hungary has a fairly large wine industry, but that they do not export their products so we decided to do an evening wine tasting at the Tasting Table, a quaint wine shop. We learned about the 22 diverse wine regions and got to taste seven different wines and snack on some locally produced cheeses and charcuterie. We found that, similar to Polish wines, we really enjoyed Hungarian wines as well; really wished they exported. We had a lovely experience and afterwards made our way to Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar a short walk away. Visiting Budapest's ruin bars is an experience in itself. The concept of ruin bars is that these bars take over buildings falling in ruin, decorate them with found eclectic items, artwork and spray paint and turn them into a gathering place operating as a bar. Given the state of the buildings, it's best to do research on the safety before visiting a particular ruin bar. Szimpla is one of the original ruin bars in Budapest and also the most touristy. It used to be an apartment building and comprises of two floors. Each room has a unique theme and it's fascinating walking throughout the building to see the eclectic decor. We found live music in one packed room so we stood just outside the doorway enjoying the tunes. The walls were all graffitied with people leaving their mark to commemorate their visit. So we added our names to the wall marking the date of our visit. Perhaps one day we'll go back to see if it's still there and we can find our marking. On a different evening we enjoyed a cruise down the Danube and enjoyed seeing the lights of the city's buildings. 

Budapest is known as the spa capital of the world. While we originally weren't sure whether we'd have time to fit in a visit to the spa, we ended up booking a 4-hour visit at the iconic Szechenyi Thermal Bath - one of the largest spas in Europe with 15 indoor baths, saunas and steam rooms, and 3 large outdoor pools. Our visit was right at opening so the pools were not that busy to begin, but got busy quickly as the morning progressed. Our visit included a private room where we could change and relax along with a 30 minute massage. It made for a very relaxing start to the day and was definitely worth the experience. 

One of the other highlights of our visit was the Parliament tour we did. We did have to reschedule our tour due to that international delegation that we did not know at the time of booking would be there. Thankfully it all worked out, however we had to pay a change fee so that was a bit annoying given the reason for the change was outside our control. The parliament building is an impressive building located on the Danube River. The interior is equally impressive with intricate and ornate finishings, frescoes on the ceiling, and a grand ornamental stairway. It remains an active government building though the presidential palace, Sandor Palace is actually located on the Buda side of the Danube located by the Buda Castle in the ancient castle district - this area was covered on one of our walking tours. Thankfully parliament was not in session during our visit seeing as the election was to be held 2 days later, and so we were able to view the parliamentary chambers. 

We found Budapest to be a lovely city, fairly walkable in the downtown centre and with good public transportation options for further away sites like the general market where we bought a few different types of paprika. The vibe of the city was lively with a optimism in the air. We enjoyed the really great food scene in the city as well. Our visit was well worth rejigging our itinerary on this trip so we could make this visit happen. I think it's safe to say that if we can, we'll be back one day. 

From Budapest we flew back to Warsaw as we came to an end of our Central Europe adventure.