Budapest

We spent a month in this magical city and fell in love with it! The city is divided by the Danube river with Buda being on the left bank and Pest on the right. Buda is dominated by Buda castle spanning the hill overlooking the river. While Pest is the more lively side of the city.

The Jewish Quarter

We stayed in the Jewish quarter in Pest in the centre of all the action. In 1944-45, the Nazis (and their Hungarian counterparts) forced all the Jews into a 1 km neighborhood (ghetto) where 3-4 synagogues were located and built a wall around it. 10,000 people were killed within the ghetto and many, many more were killed in concentration camps (namely Auschwitz).

We stayed in a historic building in the ghetto which was one of the stops on the walking tour. Here are some photos of our building and the surrounding synagogues.

Despite its sad past, the Jewish quarter now is where all the action is – it is absolutely teaming with cafes, bars and restaurants – there are literally hundreds of them!

We had a lot of fun walking around the neighbourhood and meeting up with friends for dinner, coffee and wine.

The Basilica

We were also only a short walk from the basilica – the main cathedral in Budapest. I had the opportunity to attend an amazing organ concert there one night.

Opera

Roeland was given a free ticket by friends to see Carmina Burana at the Opera! Thank you!!

Szechenyi Baths

This was perhaps one of my favourite things in Budapest. Budapest has lots of thermal baths. Some of them weren’t very impressive, the Szechyenyi baths were amazing! They had so many different choices of pools at different temperatures as well as different types of steam rooms and saunas. While relaxing, you can enjoy the atmosphere of looking at the 17th century buildings. Truly magic!

Buda Castle

‘Castle’ is a bit of a misnomer… it is really a palace and has its own small town on top of the hill. This includes current government and presidential buildings and another cathedral. The museums in Budapest were very expensive and so we had to pick and choose which ones we visited. Unfortunately, none of the ones in this area made the list.

Parliament

The Parliament building was very impressive from the outside – apparently also on the inside too but it was too expensive for us to go in.

City Park

The main park in the city is huge and encompasses Hero’s square, a castle, the Szecheny baths, the ethnography museum, the sound museum and several play grounds. We visited the park on several occasions to walk to visit museums and playgrounds.

Hero’s square:

Castle:

Cultural Festival:

Ethnography museum:

Other buildings and scenes from the park:

Worldschool Pop-Up Hub and Prom

We chose our time in Budapest to correspond with the Worldschooling Pop-up hub and Prom. There were approximately 100 families attending the hub (220+ people). About half of the families were also staying an entire month. We spent nearly everyday meeting up with friends at the park, cafe or wine bar, or going sightseeing with them, and there was game night every night at a local gaming bar. At the end of the official Hub week, there was a prom for the teenagers. They took a 3-hour boat cruise up and down the river.

The Cave Church:

This was kind of an interesting church built into a cave on the Buda side of the river.

Margrit Island:

Other photos from Budapest:

Next stop: Romania