The Steve’s guide to Clueless Traveling

“Our deepest regrets are for the things we did not do, not the things we did.” Said the wise man. Saturday was looking bad. It was suppose to rain all weekend in Vienna. Even though I usually look forward to the weekends they’ve been rather long and depressing sitting round by myself. This weekend looked no different. I’d also written a controversial blog at BBC and I knew myself well enough that I would just sit around in the apartment following the comments and clicking the refresh button for hours on end. So Friday night about 10pm I decided that Saturday I would go to Budapest, Hungary! Why not it’s only three hours away by train and, although it was forecast to be overcast, it was not supposed to rain in Budapest.

So I looked at the train schedule saw a train leaving early Saturday from Wien to Budapest, ripped out the Hungary section from my Lonely Planet Guide to Europe (I hate carrying the book when I only need a small section), set out my passport and went to bed. In the morning I grabbed everything a flew out the door as I was running late.

I arrived at the Westbohnhof (train station) bought a ticket to Budapest, changed some Euros for Hungarian Forints, boarded the train and I left rainy Wien behind. And my blog and my computer and all my worries. I took only my Atlantic Monthly and a notebook and camera. I was a new man. I was going to travel light!



Except I forgot my map and guide book which I planned to read. I knew nothing about Hungary and Budapest and I had planned to learn about them from the torn out section of my guide on the train there. There is something exhilarating about arriving in a foreign land, not speaking the language, not knowing anything about the city, and not even having a map of the city. I’ve actually decided this is my new philosophy for traveling. By not having a guide book I was sort of left to wander around and find interesting things in likely spots, but more than that, without a guidebook I had not formed a long list of the things I just had to see and so, unlike Prague, I was not running from place to place that I just had to see and to make sure I saw everything I was supposed to. Aslo, when I had the guide book in Prague I had to prioritize and there was a way longer list of the things I could not see than the list of things I could, so I felt more like I was just missing a bunch of cool stuff rather than I was seeing stuff and enjoying that.

Not so in Budapest! I didn’t know what I was supposed to see! I didn’t know what I was missing by choosing one thing over another. So I just wandered pleasantly around.

The Journey started with my arrival at the train station. Where I was able to grab a map of Budapest at a tourist office. She was much friendlier than a tourist person in Vienna would have been, but did not want to chat because there was a long line of people buying tickets to things like concerts and plays.



Next item on the agenda for the clueless to figure out public transportation. I found the subway got my ticket and was on my way. I’m not the only clueless traveler though and cluelessness seems to have a range of cluelessness from sort of clueless to completely clueless. The woman in front of me was an American. Student. Big backpack. She handed the woman who was selling tickets some Euros and the ticket lady said, ‘We can’t take these. You have to change them to Froints’ The student huffed, really rude, and sad loudly “I can’t believe this!” and stormed away. At least I knew to get Froints. I was feeling better already.

So the Subway was mastered!



Then I just strolled through the city. I happened on a fashion show coming out of an exclusive shop. Those were real models walking in and out of the front door.



You’d never find this kind of thing in a mad dash from site to site. There were all kinds of cool shops like this Christmas Shop.



I was roaming around Pest it turns out. The modern happening part of Budapest, but I saw castles and cool palaces across the Danube in Buda and decided to head up there. The first picture in this post is taken from the Chain Bridge looking at Buda from Pest. This is on the bridge looking back at Pest.



I climbed up the hill (to cheep to pay the 8 Euros equivalent for a tram ride up).

The view of Pest from Buda was spectacular!





I visited the Matyas church. The inside was gorgeous. This is one the Orthodox branches of Christianity.





Up near the church I stumbled onto the best find of all and it was not in my guide book (I checked when I got back)! The Marzipan Museum. Yes, if you like Marzipan the way I do, this was indeed the high point of the trip. The statute of Princess Elizabet (Murdered Hapsburg princess in the late 19th century universally worshiped in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) was full size! Al of this is made of Marzipan.





The Marzipan was delicious too! (except I ate too much and felt a little queasy after).

Then I went to a restaurant call TARNOK for an authentic Hungarian meal.



The waitress spoke a little English so I told her I wanted something traditional Hungarian. She suggested the Paprika chicken with dumplings. Done and done. Well, she brought out my dinner. The chicken leg was set in a piping hot dumpling sauce. Fresh bread in a basket, a bowl of universally known, wasabe hot, hot sauce and a coke light (only it was in one of those darned 6oz European glass bottles that only gives you a taste). It looked scrumptious. So I dug in. Except the chicken was stone cold. By this I don’t mean it wasn’t warm like it had cooled off. I mean it was refrigerator cold. Ice cold. And tough as only cold chicken can be. I figured this was a nice enough restaurant that they must know their business. So I dug in. It was good. In fact, it might be how I would have served it myself if I had heated up some dumpling goulash and then at the last moment remembered I had some chicken in the fridge so just dropped it into my bowl too lazy to heat it up. But it was not what I expected. Here it is half way through the meal.



Mostly after I wandered around shops. I picked up a genuine Eastern Orthodox Icon (hand painted) for me and got Lori a Christmas doily thing.






Then home. From now on I only travel cluelessly. It’s so much more relaxing


Some random pictures of Budapest for your enjoyment.