Highlights from Hungary
Our last group trip for the semester was to Budapest for four days. Winter happened to hit during that trip so walking through the city was a bit chilly but the sites we saw were beautiful. The city felt more like Prague than Vienna. The indoor market was very neat though, and enormous. The highlights of the trip were visiting Szentendre, a small town outside of Budapest, and the Turkish baths. Szentendre was very quaint and absolutely picturesque. We spent time wandering through the streets and looking at the cottages and then I got langose which was basically fried dough on which you slathered salty water and garlic. It’s a very common traditional snack for good reason. However, I smelled like garlic for hours afterwards. We continued our food tour at a beautiful little café where I had some delicious almond cake and hot chocolate which was basically a cup of melted chocolate chips. I also made a stop at a cute little candy store which had all different shapes of gummy candies and Jelly Bellies.
The next evening we went to the baths. I had never been to any sort of Turkish or Roman bath but I had studied them in art history. After using the changing rooms we ran outside to the first baths which thankfully we were very warm. They basically looked like large beautiful swimming pools enclosed by Renaissance and Baroque architecture. The warm baths were full of people and sometimes it was even difficult to see across the pool because of the steam rising from the surface. We explored the baths inside, which had several different temperatures and mineral contents, as well as the saunas and steam rooms. The outdoor baths were our favorite so we spent most of the time there. It was an incredibly relaxing evening and one of my favorite experiences of the trip.
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