Heviz, Criminal Children, and Budapest

On Monday we took a short bus ride to Heviz. The bus terminated within feet of the thermal lake, which is really the only reason that the town is on the map. We hiked around most of the lake, and stopped in the ticket center (an admission fee is required to actually swim in the lake) where we learned that this particular lake is the second largest thermal lake in the world. We will probably return to the charming little town in the near future, and perhaps even pay to enter the healing (and reportedly radioactive) waters.

That same day, as we were strolling up the main walking street in Keszthely, we were assaulted by two girls and a boy, none of which could have been any older than eight. They first approached us, speaking Hungarian, then German, apparently trying to sell us some yellow tree branches that they had surely ripped off some nearby tree. We politely indicated that we were not interested. Then, two of the kids dropped their branches as the three continued to follow us closely. As they started to grab at us, we said no more firmly. At this point the oldest girl started trying to steel things out of Larissas backpack. We both turned around in defense, demanded that they stop, and then turned around and continued walking. At this point, the oldest girl used her branches to hit Larissa's back, and the little boy drove his fist into my back. None of this was painful, but we were startled. As they ran off, the little boy smiling and laughing, we were extremely tempted to round them up and give them individual spankings. At the same moment; however, we realized how it might look for foreigners to be off in some alley beating on some poor innocent kids. The language barrier would undoubtedly make things even worse. We were glad to see some locals scold them a bit, but were saddened by the kids' attitude towards tourists, and what they would resort to for some cash.

We woke up yesterday morning to the sound of raindrops outside. Since we already had our train tickets to Budapest, we didn't have the option of staying in our room. We felt sorry for ourselves as we hiked in the cold rainy weather to the train station, even before it was light outside.

For the first couple of hours we travelled along the shores of Lake Balaton. I counted pheasants between naps, and Larissa read most of the way. After just over three hours, we arrived at the Budapest Deli station. We had a map that showed many of the main tourist sights in town. They looked like they were just close enough to the train station, and close enough together, that we wouldn't have to rely on public transportation to see them. It was still cold and rainy as we made our way through a beautiful park en route to the Buda Castle district. Budapest used to be two cities, separated by the Danube river. We started our exploration on the Buda side. The Buda Castle is a large walled-in compound atop a hill. It includes three churches, several museums, hotels, many historical buildings, and even some private residences. The first main sight we came to was the Matthias Church. I guess Matthias was a former king. The church was beautiful, but apparently undergoing repairs as it was covered in scaffolding. On the river side of the church stands the Fisherman's Bastion, seven towers built atop medieval walls.

The view from the towers was amazing, even though visibility was not good.

The most impressive building sitting on the Pest side of the river is the Parliament, built in a neo-gothic style.

The high vantage point helped us get some perspective on distances, and also confirmed some of the places that we wanted to visit. We hiked down the castle hill to the Danube river, and the historic Chain Bridge.

Its' construction was originally completed in 1849, but it had to be rebuilt in 1949 after being destroyed in WWII.

We decided to walk along the Danube up to the next bridge, and then use the Chain bridge to return in the afternoon. It was obvious that the river was far higher than usual, and there were indications that it had, within the past few days, been much higher. We noticed several docks that had been damaged by debri, and riverside shrubs and trees that had been destroyed by the high water. Since we had never seen the place before; however, it was hard to guage exactly how much damage had been done. Later that day we read in the paper that water levels in Hungary, just a couple of days prior, had been higher than ever had been recorded. There was flooding in Budapest in 2002, and as a result the containment walls were made taller. This flood breeched even the new walls, and is reported to have caused millions of dollars in damage. The river levels must be expected to go down rather than up, as riverside streets are open to traffic, and riverside parking spaces are occupied by cars; all of this while the water level is only inches below the containment walls.

This is the river-level view of Parliament, one side of which was covered in yellow scaffolding. I tried to cover it up with Larissa's head as much as possible.

By the time we made it to the other bridge, I was really needing to find a bathrooms somewhere. It was probably due to watching all of that gushing water. The vast majority of bathrooms around here require a small payment before entering. I am not sure what this money goes towards, as they bathrooms certainly don't show signs of being well maintained or cleaned. For some reason I really don't like going to the pay-per-pee bathrooms, which may have been another reason why I was needing one rather urgently. Across the bridge was a huge McDonalds sign. I have come to associate McDonalds not only with reliably good french fries and cheap ice cream cones, but also with free and relatively clean bathrooms. This McDonalds even offered internet access.

After our stop at McDonalds, we made our way up the Pest side of the river for a closer look at the Parliament. It is a very unique structure. We wanted to take a tour of the inside, but we were feeling too strapped on time and cash. Instead we started walking up the historic (a UNESCO world heritage sight, as well as the Parliament and the Castle District) Andrassy avenue. We could tell that this street was were the money was, both now and in the past. It is lined with beautiful stone buildings with elaborate facades. On our way to finding a pizza place we enjoyed visiting St. Stephens Basillica and the Opera house.

After pizza we continued up Andrassy avenue all the way to a park at its' end.

There stands the Vajdahayad Castle. I had mixed feelings about the place. It was a charming structure, though it had sections rebuilt in different styles, but I was annoyed that much of the former moat and castle-side pond had been drained. As far as we could tell, the drained portion was being transformed into tennis courts. We couldn't understand who would prefer tennis courts to a castl moat. We chose the side of the castle still protected by some water for our photos. On the other side of the street from the castle are the Syechenyi Spa Baths.

We had been excited about visiting them because of the beautiful building that housed them, and their unique setting. There is no photography allowed inside the courtyard, which houses the outdoor pools, so we cannot show you the place. For the same reason, there are few photos of the place on the internet. I did find a couple, but trying to figure out how to get them into the blog proved to be challenging as the menus are in Hungarian. We thoroughly enjoyed the bath experience, which somewhat surprised me. There were several pools, one of which featured several chess boards. What could be better than playing chess in the hot tub? There was also a whirlpool. There was a center hot tub surrounded by a ring shaped pool. The jets were on the outer wall, and all pointed to one side. Larissa was convinced that she was an expert at catching the jets of water. She actually informed me that she had become too good at letting the jets accelerate here, as she was starting to swallow too much water. She wanted to race me to prove that she was a faster whirlpooler. I agreed, but just as we started our race the jets turned off.

When we were finished at the baths, it was getting to be late afternoon, and we needed to start heading back to the train station. We thought it might be nice to take the subway to the train station, but after the ticket machine would not accept our bills, we decided to walk.

We arrived back in Keszthely at around 11:00pm, and once again felt sorry for ourselves as we had to run home in some really cold wind and rain.

The whether is not much better today, so we will split our time between our room, the grocery store, the hot tub, sauna, and the internet cafe.