Grandma

Isabel,

I live near Gracie Mansion in the Big Apple. You REALLY did a thorough tour of our city. My feet hurt just looking thru the photos -

Again... I'm going to be spending hours looking at everything. Love the shot of St. Chappelle.

isabel

Grandma - thanks for answering, I'm always curious when people say I shot a photo right near where they live. Obviously all those NYC photos were shot over several years (since I got my first digital camera in 2001). I'm a New Yorker, though I live in New England now, but I have friends/relatives in NY so I'm down there all the time. Although I love Europe more, I have to save NYC is a great place for a photographer.

As soon as I get home from work I'll do the Budapest part of my report.

isabel

Here's the last part of my report.

Budapest – Definitely an interesting city. It has some absolutely stunning architecture, some of which is in beautiful condition, but next to it will be an equally stunning building but covered in more soot than I’ve seen in any other European city, and next to that will be an ugly concrete boxy building, and next to that a
brand next modern shiny glass building. So you don’t get that sense of overwhelming beauty that you get in Paris or Vienna or some other cities. There also don’t seem to be “districts” like there are in some cities, everything is mixed. There will be a five star hotel next to a strip club, with a used clothing store in a rundown building across the street from government buildings, etc. It has some great sites – the Parliament, the Chain Bridge, the castle, etc, The views of the Danube, especially at night are awesome. The castle district is atmospheric. But Budapest really has not grasped the concept of vehicle free areas (with the exception of the Vaci Utca, the main pedestrian shopping street), there are cars driving and parking everywhere and a lot of it is still pretty rundown and grungy (actually more gritty than dirty). There is construction everywhere, both street and building.

It’s perfectly tourist friendly, but not a very touristy city. For example, cities that are heavily touristed have lots of street performers, etc and there were less of them in Budapest. People who interact with tourists speak enough English for you to get by without knowing Hungarian. There were not hoards of tour groups everywhere.

The transportation system is wonderful, a combination of metro and trams (and buses). I got a 7 day pass that was worth way more than it cost. Budapest is rather spread out, not even counting the suburbs, so it was nice to hop the metro or a tram to get from place to place. The old line of the metro, the oldest on the European continent (not counting London which technically is not on the “continent”) was recently redone and is beautiful. But even the other lines are extremely clean, and more efficient than just about any other metro I can think of. Trains run every 3 or 4 minutes. And the trams, besides being a great way to get around are just plain fun. There are charming old rickety trams, and sleek modern trams.

The main “street food” (although I didn’t actually see it sold ON any streets) is Langos, which is really just fried dough but is excellent and comes with about 50 combinations of fillings/toppings. “Classic” is with sour cream, ham and grated hard cheese and garlic juice. Yum. Also have sweet varieties. There’s also a Turkish/Greek restaurant, Szerja on Szent Istvan korut, which is a buffet style with decent food and the best baklava I’ve ever had. The best Langos was at the Central Market. There were more Burger Kings and McDonalds than it seems there are even in US cities, and while I didn’t eat in either of them, supposedly the world’s largest Burger King and fanciest McDonalds are in Budapest (Oktagon and Eastern Train Station respectively). I did peak inside them and they were huge and fancy.

Since I was there an entire week, I got to some areas people on a shorter stay probably wouldn’t get to, like the Kerepesi Cemetary which is pretty interesting especially if you like weeping angles and art nouveau sculpture.

I’m not sure I had any “favorite” places in Budapest, I walked miles and miles and covered most of the central part of the city. There are lots of great courtyards in the centers of buildings. You’ll be just walking along a street and look through a doorway/archway and there’s a courtyard, some with shops, some beautiful in great condition, some very run down. One of the prettiest was in the Pest County Hall. The New York Palace Hotel, a beautiful five star hotel, has what looks like a huge covered courtyard as its lobby. There are many incredible art nouveau buildings, and most of the older buildings have incredible sculptures decorating the doorways and rooftops. The Chain Bridge and the banks of the Danube really are wonderful. On weekends in summer the Chain Bridge is closed to traffic and has craft booths, food and music.

One of the most moving memorials I’ve ever seen is the shoe memorial to the holocaust victims on the banks of the Danube near the Parliament.

A day trip to Szentendre is also very worthwhile if you have more than a few days, but while I found it rather picturesque and very pleasant, it didn’t have that charm that lots of small villages all over Spain, France and Italy have. But it is easy, inexpensive and only about 45 minutes from central Budapest.

Most people who don’t have a specific reason for visiting Budapest don’t spend 7 days there, but I had no trouble finding things to do and am very glad I gave it that amount of time. You could certainly see the highlights in two or three days, but the city has a lot more to offer. I can’t say that I feel the same way about Budapest that I do about Paris and London, cities I keep returning to again and again and can’t seem to get enough of, but it definitely is an interesting place that I’m very glad I went to.

kenav

It's funny to me to read about how spread out Budapest is. I'm from NYC and I've been to Budapest with my husband. We didn't find Budapest spread out (whatever that means). You take the underground a few stops and voila, there you are, wherever you want to be! The underground is so small (as far as distance is concerned). Trams are pretty easy. And, of course, you can just walk. Spread out? --- It's a city, after all. Everything can't all be on one place.

So, I'm not sure what others are experiencing, but coming from NYC where you can travel 5 or 45 or 60 minutes to get from one neighborhood to another, Budapest, in comparison, was a breeze.

P.S. We had a great time there and loved the fact that it wasn't all pristine.

nrosebrock

Hi isabel,

Your pics are truly amazing! I'm in the middle of planning a 3 month trip throughout Europe, and I get more and more excited by looking at your pictures.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what kind of camera do you use? I'm thinking about getting a good camera for this trip, and your advice would be greatly appreciated! In this case, the skill definitely lies in the photographer, but the pictures themselves are so defined and clear!

I have really enjoyed looking at your pictures. Thanks for sharing!!

tcreath

Your pictures are amazing! I'm supposed to be working but I have just spent the last half an hour browsing through your photos. I am envious; I seem to lack the ability to take a really good picture.

Thank you so much for posting!
Tracy

Grandma

Whew! My feet feel better. I was wondering how much time you spent in NYC -

isabel

kenav- when i said I though Budapest was "spread out" I think I was comparing it to Prague or Vienna, or similar cities. They are all between 1 and 2 million people, so "small" cities in my mind, as opposed to NYC with 8-13 million (depending on what stats you use). I'm originally from NYC and don't really consider most other cities to be comparable. But Prague and Vienna, for example, have very distinct centers (Old Town Square and Stephansplatz respectively, and very concentrated historic districts. That's not true of Budapest which has many wonderful places, but they are several blocks/minutes walk from one to the next. I walked everywhere in Prague, and only used the metro a couple times in Vienna (to get to Schonnbrunn for example) but in Budapest I took the metro or trams several times most days.

nrosebrock - the camera I used this summer is a Panasonic Lumix FX 18. I've used about five "major" cameras since I went digital seven years ago, including a digital SLR and several "SLR -like" cameras (Canon, Nikon, Minolta) and this one is by far my favorite. It's extremely light weight which is important to me and takes the best pics of all the ones I've used (including the SLR). Remarkably, it's also the least expensive. I also have a tiny Canon SD870 which is my "back up" camera, it takes pretty good shots too.