The tour was about 40 minutes and honestly didn’t show that much. The coolest part of it was the room where all the congressmen meet and laws and such are decided. We also saw the crown, but weren’t allowed to take pictures of that. The hallways and staircases, as well as the ceilings were very intricate and pretty. The tour actually seemed really quick and soon enough it was over and I was walking back to the hotel.
My friend still wasn’t feeling that great (she skipped the tour) and I was so tired that we laid around for another two hours. I tried to go back to sleep but failed miserably. It did just feel great to just lay in bed though. Finally, we felt ready enough to get out and go. Our first stop was to get a little something to eat. Yesterday we saw someone eating some kind of Hungarian local food with sour cream and cheese on something that looked like fried dough. We had asked where they got it and went to that place, ordered it (it’s called Lángos) and bought one to split. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but was our first real taste of Hungary. It probably would have been a lot better if we had gotten some meat on it, but now we know if we go back.
After eating, we headed to the famous Dohány Street Synagogue. It’s the largest one in Europe and the second largest one in the world. In order to enter, women must cover their shoulders and have the skin above their knees covered as well. I had on shorts and a tank top and had brought a hoodie to drape over my shoulders and some joggers to wear over my pants. It was 92 degrees outside so this was most definitely not pleasant to sit in. Hot would be an understatement. We realized that we should have just worn t-shirts because then our shoulders would be covered, but didn’t even think of that. We got a tour of the Synagogue and I was refreshed on some things that I had forgotten about regarding some laws of Judaism and learned some new information as well. I also realized I retained little to no knowledge from all those years of Sunday school. And have no clue how to read Hebrew after all those years of Hebrew School. I think I just consider myself more culturally Jewish than religious, however I think I probably should brush up on some stuff because it’s mildly embarrassing how little I know. My friend was asking me some questions about Judaism that I should have known the answers to, but didn’t. Eeeek.
The tour concluded outside with a very pretty memorial sculpture to the Hungarian Jews that died during the Holocaust. We also did a lap around the outside of the Synagogue to take in the sheer size and the beautiful architecture.
At this point, we had planned to go back to the hotel and change our clothes so we could go to the Gellèrt Spa bath house, but the thought of sitting in hot pools in such hot weather, with hundreds of other people, didn’t seem that appealing. Having the one almost to ourselves yesterday spoiled us. We laid around a little in the hotel room and it actually started raining, so even though there are indoor pools at the spa, we weren’t too disappointed to have not gone.
We have a busy travel day ahead of us tomorrow and with the heat outside and the lack of sleep last night, we were okay with just relaxing at the hotel for a while. It’s something we haven’t done much of at all and we have seen pretty much everything that was on our self-made itinerary, plus more that we hadn’t even planned so it all worked out.
We grabbed a quick, very casual dinner of Turkish shawarma and then just walked around for a sunset stroll before calling it a very early tonight. Our time in Budapest was really great. Personally I wasn’t sure what to expect from this city, even though it seems it’s becoming a very popular tourist destination. From site-seeing to bathing in a thermal spa to partying our butts off, this city was definitely a really fun one.
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