After a slow start of the day with some research and blogging we would aim to do a bit of shopping today. We started with various chic design shops near Károlyi park pacing towards the Jewish district where Mona had spotted a skirt at Printa earlier. The design focused again much on recycling and many of the shops had bags made out of old bicycle tires, electrical cords, coffee bags or similar materials.

As we got into the Jewish district we paused to look at some weird statue looking like someone falling out of a house and onto the ground. A passerby explained to us it was a monument dedicated to some gentleman who saved a lot of Jews from death camps. The guy was very passionate about the statue and explained he lived in the area. I got a bit guarded and made sure my pockets were out of reach and my camera hard to snatch, he had sort of a disheveled look but who am I to comment on their fashion.

Mona was more at ease with his company and he kept talking and wanted to show us more things, and explained he worked with renovating/architecture and he was indeed well versed in the buildings. He insisted that he should show us various buildings, synagogues and things not mentioned in guidebooks or as he put it he wanted to show us “his Budapest” and since we were in no hurry we joined his “tour”. I guess we spent little more than an hour, including being let into a minimal synagogue where he apparently knew the Rabbi. As we left he asked for a small gift for his recent grandchild which put me off a bit – then again I guess it was fair so we gave him 10 EUR.

I realized that I had neglected my cardigan this day and was a bit cold though, we headed off to Printa where Mona tried the skirt (and bought it) and then came to the conclusion that we needed to eat something but it would be tight for us to visit Kiraly Baths today and then head out to dinner so we settled for a warm chocolate and a toast at Barbar Chocolate. Here we bumped into a Swedish couple we met on the trip from the airport as well as a couple from the Underground tour – they had just got back from a shooting session that they had enjoyed, small world 🙂 The chocolate so thick with dark chocolate it was barely liquid and my chili flavored one had quite the sting but it was a nice place.

When returning to the hotel we rested for a few hours before heading over to the Buda side in order to get dinner at the place Mona had visited earlier, Szatyor. It was cosy, grubby with some DJ playing in the background and I enjoyed a bean goulash while Mona had a lasagna. After a beer we walked home though, admitting we indeed are getting older every day…

It’s funny how easy one get can used to freshly pressed orange juice and instead of being happy for the luxury get annoyed when there is some stupid tourist who takes too long time ahead of you. I guess the comfort is one can get used to not having awesome breakfast as well, at least I hope so. The plan for today was to walk all the way to the Széchenyi Baths, passing Szimpla again since it was a farmers market today.

Szimpla was almost crowded, which is rather impressive given it’s size, with people selling various vegetables, sandwiches, jams, cheese and what not. The smell of mulled wine mixed with sound of some band jamming along and some (well behaved) children laughing made in all a very friendly experience – in the end we didn’t buy anything though but instead continued our walk.

After finally getting to the baths, renting some towels (which looked remarkably like bed covers) and locking in our belongings we huddled through the courtyard into the warm open pool. After getting warm, but not too comfortable we ventured out in the cold again, and headed for what turned out to be the saunas. Széchenyi is huge, there are no maps and the few signs are in a language outside my realm of understanding. It took the lot of my Hi-Potion searching skills to find all baths and saunas on this level to get 100% completion. After close to three hours and with the nice ending of the being in the warm outside pool in light snowfall we called it a day.

The snowfall was beautiful, but not so warm so instead of walking all the way back we went to a nice old school subway station, turns out the line was opened in 1896 and is the 4th oldest one in the world. Instead of going all the way back we decided we would stop in the Jewish district again for some food and then go directly to a classical concert we had booked tickets for.

We grabbed a burrito at El Rapido, a mexican place close to Szimpla – we were told yesterday by the guide that she thought the name was funny because they were everything but fast on service – but that their tequila selection compensated well for the wait. We can only state that empirical tests have shown that indeed slower service has only been found in regions of South Africa in prior travels – it tasted nice and was ridiculously cheap though. We then hurried to pick up our tickets at St Stephen Basilica, turns out we were one hour too early – good that we rushed 🙂

In order to kill an hour we chilled at Costa Coffee nearby. I was impressed by four groups of students “studying” on a Sunday evening – it looked just like in Sweden where youngsters (not myself of course) play with their iThings, flirt, drink chocolate and in general do anything except actual studying. When we left we overheard them speaking Swedish with each other…

The concert was really good, especially the guy playing the organ. The basilica itself impressive but not sufficiently heated for my liking. After an hour and half we headed home in the now rather empty streets. We realized that today we spend more money on coffee than food, or put in another perspective, we ate for about less than 2% of Fridays budget – it’s definitely possible to live cheap here 🙂

After yet another grandiose breakfast, we took a stroll to the Buda side while enjoying the weather. After coffee, a cookie and a few photographs we turned back however, the main activity for today would be the Alternative Budapest tour so we didn’t want to walk too much in one day.

The tour was great fun, we passed lots of nice Street Art, such as above Dancing Girl by Sobr, we came across a replaced cobblestone with an Invader and also some impressive legally painted murals. We were spending most of the time in the Jewish district and were shown various boutiques and ruin bars in addition to the art. Mona fell in love with two clothing hangers from some Russian lady’s garage sale and we also spotted a gift for someone in another store. We were also showed a usb-stick cemented in the wall at one street, this was part of Dead Drops an offline peer 2 peer file sharing system. Perhaps more retro than useful but quite fun idea that seems to have catched on.

In general if you are interested in punk/hippie/recycling/Eco-friendly/underground art this seems the place to be and we’re glad we took the tour early so we can get back to the various sites. We went quickly into Doboz, one of the ruin bars which have gone quite a bit to the posh side but settled for Szimpla Kert. This bar was apparently voted to 3rd best bar in the world by Lonely Planet or similar recently – it has a very nice grubby/crack-den design with a friendly alternative/hippie/punk vibe.

After some mulled wine and getting additional tips on where to go and what to do from the guide we rushed to some Thai food nearby, Kis Parázs, since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Tasted great, quickly prepared and very cheap – I enjoyed a sweet and sour noodle soup while Mona ordered a red curry, got a green one but one can’t be that picky.

As we walked home we passed a well lit tram depicted below. Back home we chilled until Mona got restless (Netflix didn’t work) and she went out for a stroll to a ruin bar on the Budapest side.