A weekend in Budapest

Wes and I had our first trip together in September, when we went to Budapest. We had (and have) quite a bit of trouble coming up with places to visit and literally decided to go here on a whim. This was the first trip that we planned together and out of this came our first travel rule: Look for where the sites are and book a hotel there. We had a lovely hotel in Budapest, on the Buda side in the hills - but most of what we wanted to see was on the other side so that meant at the end of the night, we were hiking up the hill in the dark to our hotel. Not the best plan, but it did mean we slept well each evening.

We arrived on Friday night and took a taxi from the airport to our hotel. One thing about Budapest - it is completely lit up at night. All of the grand buildings - it was the second capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, after Vienna - blaze at night. So we got a great view of the city on our way in to the hotel.

The next morning we visited the castle complex, since we were on the Buda side and it was on the way to everything else. We were quite lucky as we happened to be in Budapest on the weekend that all the museums were free!

This was in the basement of the Budapest History museum.

I really LOVE this style of pictures.

View from the castle

Cafe at the castle complex

We had dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend from PwC (Thanks Van!) right near St. Stephen's Basilica - ordered Beef tenderloin "Goulash" with red wine and croquettes and roast turkey breast with roquefort cheese sauce.

The desserts were interesting - the first was chestnut puree with home-made sour cherries in rum and the below was poppy seed croissants in custard.

I don't have any pictures of this, but Wes found a Hungarian folk dance festival, which had traditional music and dancing. This video isn't from when we were there but it's pretty similar to the dancing we saw. It was really cool to see people of all ages enjoying themselves!

Since we were on the Pest side for our meal, we had to cross the bridges to get back to the hotel. Everything is lit up wonderfully.

The next day we hit another museum, the Hungarian National museum.

Wes loved it because it was made of wood!

I really enjoyed the war propaganda exhibit!

We ran to take a tour of the Opera house and I'm really glad we made it. The opera house was only allowed to be the 2nd best, the best one being in Vienna in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I haven't been to the one in Austria but this one was amazing.

The prime minister's box, which can only be used if the prime minister is in the building...seems silly since it's the best seat in the house.

We paid a bit extra to hear two arias by one of the opera singers. Power of her voice was unbelievable!

We had some ice cream...Wes was sad that his cone wasn't appropriately filled...

We visited the Jewish monument on the Pest Bank of the river, near the Parliament. It honors the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

The Parliament building was also architecturally impressive.

This evening we took a dinner cruise and enjoyed some local wine and the views of the banks of the river.

Before we left, we found another local restaurant (Wes' obsession) and enjoyed a meal of yummy spinach soup and cutlets.

I really enjoyed this, on the Pest side of the river, the sidewalk showed the path of the river and the places along it.

A weekend in Reims...continued

Wes had found a deal for our hotel that included dinner and a tour to a champagne house, so we got up the next morning and walked over to go to the tour.

Everyone knows that only wine made from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France can be called "champagne", but we learned that the even towns that grow grapes get ranked based on their potential ability to grow grapes. While the Échelle des Crus rating system was originally a 100 point scale, in practice, the lowest rated villages are rated at 80%. Premier crus villages are rated between 90 and 99 percent while the highest rated villages, with 100% ratings are Grand crus. The map below shows where the vineyards are in the champagne region. All of the grand cru vineyards are located in the Marne department.

I took this as we were moving through the cellars, it's a picture of where the grapes used to be stored. They were stored by cru, so that the makers could blend appropriately.

The cellars had some "art" pieces in them.

 The champagne is aged in the cellars in huge hallways.

An example of how the barrels for aging the wine used to be made.

Looks like a giant barrel, but really just art.

More art.

 Our guide.

And a finished bottle. Of course there was a tasting after the tour, but we decided not to buy anything.

 

Instead we drove out to Ludes, one of the villages that produces wine and visited a house that was located there. We drove out of town on the "Champagne Route", which is a road that winds through many of the grape-producing villages in the region. The house, Canard-Duchene, was founded in 1868 by Victor Canard and Léonie Duchêne. The two-headed eagle is the coat of arms of the Russian Imperial family.

Of course we didn't realize until we arrived that they were actually harvesting! It was August, so it was quite early in the year for this. All the harvesting is done by hand, as you can see.

Our guide for this tour!

The sword was added to the eagle as a sword is sometimes used to open the bottles. We didn't see this, but I'm sure it's cool.

The cellars used to lead to a castle, but the castle isn't around any more. Here was the original steps up from the cellar.

  A view from the house:

After this we headed back to the city. But on the way out of the house, we immediately got pulled over by the police. Probably because of the Dutch plates on the car. But they asked Wes if he spoke french, he said "a little bit", then asked him if had had anything drinking, he said "a little bit". And then out came the breathalyzer. I really wish that I had taken out my camera at that point, but being that it was police I didn't...of course Wes blew a 0.00 and we were then quickly on our way.

We went back to the city and back to the cathedral, now that I had my other camera lens. =)

After dinner, which a set menu at a local restaurant, we headed back to the hotel and then back to Amsterdam the next morning! A great first trip!