The basilica
I started the day with a visit to St Stephen’s (Istvan) Basilica at 1000 with E whom I met yesterday. We visited the co-cathedral at ground level first. It was quite a weird layout in that it’s not very deep from the entrance to the altar but quite wide.
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- Inside the basilica.
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- Inside the basilica.
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- The dome of the basilica.
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- Hand/fist of St Stephen.
From there, we climbed the stairs to the lookout at the base of the dome, making a stop at the Treasury. The monstrances captivated me briefly but there was little else that held my interest.
Continuing to dome, I realised that the exterior of the dome and the interior dome ceiling had quite a separation between them. The former was very high while the latter flattish, leaving a huge empty space in between.
At the lookout, the light was just right, illuminating the clock tower and Pest. We went around slowly a couple of times, absorbing the scenery from all angles before heading down. All in all, we spent probably 1h15 in total at the basilica.
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- Stairwell to the dome.
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- Monstrance in the treasury.
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- Another monstrance in the treasury.
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- Internal dome (ceiling) and external dome.
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- View from the lookout.
Gellert Baths
With time to kill until my 1900 bus this evening, I thought of visiting one of Budapest’s fancier baths. In my visits so far, I’ve only visited simpler ones like the Palatinus, Kiraly and day before yesterday Rudas.
It was a toss-up between Gellert and Szechenyi, both of which were very pricey compared to all other baths in the city. As I wanted to walk through Buda Palace afterwards, Gellert was the logical choice as it was kinda in the same area.
E was happy with the plan and we went together. After paying, we descended downstairs to find the locker room. It was down and up and then around through cramped crowded areas. People didn’t take their outdoor shoes off in the damp changing areas and the floor was quite dirty.
After changing into my speedos and having a wash, we tried out the external hot pools to enjoy some sunshine.
When we were done there, I dipped my toes into the large outdoor swimming pool and found it too cold for me. I then got thoroughly put off when I saw all the green moss growing the far end of the pool. By the way, swimcaps are required for the proper swimming pools but not for the hot pools.
Heading indoors, it was another rabbit-warren experience to find the main indoor pool, which was for proper swims. There was a small hot pool at one end of the main pool but we decided to continue out rabbit experience to find the two side areas which had two small hot pools each.
I tried all four of the pools in the two side areas, going up the temperature range and then back down.
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- Gellert Hotel is temporarily closed but the baths are open.
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- Lobby of Gellert Baths.
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- Gellert Baths indoor swimming pool.
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- Hot baths at Gellert Baths.
Total spent in the complex probably came to two hours but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience, when one factors in the fact that this is about double the price of the other pools, eg. the small historic Rudas or large modern Palatinus.
Gellert is big but I’ve learnt that bigger isn’t better. I didn’t enjoy being with the crowd, getting lost in the rabbit-warren every time I wanted to go from one part to another. In fact, the experience made me feel that Szechenyi won’t be on the agenda on my next visit.
Buda Palace
From Gellert pools, we took a tram along the riverbank north slightly. We disembarked and walked up a ramp at the south end of the Buda Palace area. We made our way north on foot, zig-zagging in-and-out to cover both the side looking down at the river and the more inland area.
One thing that struck me was the reconstruction (from scratch) of some of the historic buildings that used to be here. I’m not sure if they will look Disneyesque!
I had no interest in any of the museums and continued until reaching St Mathias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion where it was horribly crowded.
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- Super long barge on the Danube.
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- View of the Danube from Buda Castle.
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- Uniformed horsemen at Buda Castle.
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- Fisherman’s Bastion was awfully crowded.
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- Fisherman’s Bastion was awfully crowded.
Getting ready to go
It was around 1600 and nearly time for me to head back, eat dinner and go to the bus station. I said goodbye to E and walked downhill to the riverbank and took a metro, then walked to Frici Papa. The chicken paprikash wasn’t as tasty as I had expected so it was fortunate I brought my own sachets of chilli sauce!
Back at my accommodation, I had a cup of coffee before leaving on the tram and metro to Nepliget bus station for my ride across the border to Serbia. I got to the station about an hour before the 1900 departure.