Tag: budapest travel

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Foreign Grocery Friday: The Hyper Chocolate Bar of Hungary

February 10, 2012 at 4:15 PM | by | Comments (0)

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

From just two days in Budapest the other week, it seems like we could fill six months worth of Foreign Grocery Friday features. Offensive, weird, funny-sounding...who knew snacks and candy could be so odd?

The best of the bunch, though, was the Hyper chocolate bar—or, as the packet has it: "The wafer for big people."

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Where to Take a Proper Bath in Budapest

February 1, 2012 at 3:41 PM | by | Comments (0)

You already know that hitting the bath is a must-do activity in Budapest. But which to choose?

On our recent trip, we decided to go with the Gellert baths, since a Hungarian friend had told us they were the most beautiful. Had it been summer, though, we might have chosen the Szechenyi baths; they’re bigger, and a large portion of them is outdoors. And another time, we’d also go for the newly refurbished Rudas baths, which we were told on our last day we should hit up.

Anyway, back to the Gellert. The baths are indeed beautiful—a gorgeous main art deco pool, and lavish thermal sections off either side of it. The main pool is just a swimming pool, and is co-ed; people mainly swim seriously or do aqua aerobics and stuff in here. At the foot of it is a small, separate thermal section. This is also co-ed.

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A Night at the Opera in Budapest is Cheaper Than a Tour of the Opera House

January 30, 2012 at 4:10 PM | by | Comments (0)

A night at the opera is normally one of the most expensive, OTT things you can do. Not so much in Budapest, though. A tour of the incredible opera house costs 2900 HUF ($13) per person, but show tickets start at just 300HUF—that’s right, $1.33. We know which we’d prefer.

On our recent trip, the cheapest opera ticket we could buy on the day was 4400HUF ($19.50) for a seat in a box. Luckily, we decided to shell out. Luckily because even though we’re not opera buffs, it was one of the most incredible productions we’ve ever seen (Mephistopheles, since you ask).

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Budapest Certainly Knows How to Mix History with, um, Popular Culture

January 25, 2012 at 4:00 PM | by | Comment (1)

There's nothing quite like the mixture of the old and new in Budapest. Art Nouveau and Communist architecture. Medieval cobbled streets, and fast-moving dual carriageway thoroughfares. Cutting-edge modern opera staged in a beautiful 19th century theater.

And a sex shop in a gloriously frothy old building.

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Wish You Were Here: Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest

January 24, 2012 at 12:05 PM | by | Comments (0)

Budapest in winter: somewhere we've always wanted to go, but somewhere we've never quite dared—the snow! The biting cold! Could the beauty of winter really be worth getting frostbite for?

This year, we bit the bullet and booked. The good news: we didn't get frostbite. The bad: there was no snow! We found ourselves in a January so mild it was unheard of.

On the plus side, we got to cut our Budapest teeth without freezing, with barely any other tourists, and with that stunning stark winter sun lighting up our photos. Like this one from the Fisherman's Bastion next to the Matthias church in hilly Buda, looking down at the Hungarian parliament.

Now there's a sight that beats Capitol Hill.

[Photo: juliab]

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Angelina Jolie's Having Trouble Making Herself at Home in Sarajevo

October 18, 2010 at 12:58 PM | by | Comments (0)

Angelina Jolie may be one of the most beautiful and influential women in the world, but even she had a hard time convincing Bosnian officials to let her film in their country.

Angie recently started shooting her directorial debut, a love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman that is set in Bosnia during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. But she's not actually filming in Bosnia. Instead most of the movie is being made in Budapest, with only a few weeks of filming planned to take place in Sarajevo next month.

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Bosnia Bans Angelina Jolie from the Country, Fearing She Could Cause a War

October 15, 2010 at 8:32 AM | by | Comments (0)

Uh oh, it looks like other countries are finally getting sick and tired of letting US actresses do with them what they will. Japan recently kicked out Paris Hilton due to her pending drug charges back in the States, and now Angelina Jolie has been denied entrance to Bosnia...but because of a matter far more delicate than drug charges.

Where is Angelina Jolie now? She's filming that movie already, just in Budapest, Hungary. It's the film that's got Bosnia worried, as it's about a "Bosnian muslim woman who falls for the Serbian soldier who rapes her during the bitter Balkans war." Women's groups, Muslim groups and war victims groups are all outraged that someone would want to film this in their country while the people who experienced the trauma are still very much around. Plus, to have A-lister Jolie throwing her weight behind such a project? Yea, Bosnia is mad. The Daily Mail even quoted a Bosnian official as saying, "With one film, Angelina Jolie is in danger of restarting the war all over again all by herself."

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In Pursuit of Free WiFi, an Outlet, and a Cushioned Bench at Budapest Airport

January 13, 2010 at 3:23 PM | by | Comment (1)

There are three things we care about in airports, alcohol obviously excepted. They are, in genuinely no particular order: a working electrical outlet, free airport wifi, and a comfortable chair. At any given time in Budapest's terminal 2B¡the half of the international terminal that serves EU countries—you can get two out of the three. Never all three. Sometimes only one. Usually two out of three. But never all three.

We were actually pretty psyched to roll into the airport recently, where Jaunted's Airport WiFi Map correctly promised we would get free wireless. It turns out that using the wireless can be a challenge because the signal is sometimes uneven inside the terminal and, of course, because computer batteries only last so long. The root of the problem lies in BUD's decor, which is this kind of haphazard and postmodern "maybe we'll put cushions on our uncomfortable metal benches and maybe we won't" arrangement.

Benches are molded four seats at a time, with accompanying green cushions glued in - or not - in seemingly random order. Where there are no cushions the seats are painfully uncomfortable. When there are cushions there are almost never four in a row, which makes using the benches as makeshift overnight beds impossible. Take a look:

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