Europe 2022 day #13. “Another Day in Heaven” Budapest, Hungary 10/19/2022

Last night we had another wonderful dinner. This time it was at a restaurant recommended by our tour guide, Rézkakas Bistro Easy Terasz (Budapest, Sas u 3, 1051).  We had a great table close to the in-house music.  Check out this short 14-second video. 

Question of the day: What is the name of the instrument that is being played closest to the camera?

Breakfast at the hotel was amazing as expected. Patrice had an omelet (how boring) while I had the best eggs Benedict of my life. Sorry, no picture but I’ll try to get one tomorrow. The hotel continues to impress. The elevator requires your key to take you to your assigned room. No need to remove the card key from your wallet to get it to work. It also unlocks your room door by passing the key over a sensor close to the wall. All you need to do is to push the door open.

After breakfast, we met our guide, Julia, for a tour of the city. For those of you who are not aware, Budapest is a twin city. The cities of Buda and Pest are divided by the Danube River. It is often referred to as the Blue Danube but it didn’t look very blue to me. If you want to see blue go to Crater Lake in Oregon. Julia explained there are two types of people who live in Budapest, there are those who live in Buda and those who wished they lived in Buda. Yesterday, Julia took us on a 4-hour walking tour of Buda. We started with a boat ride on the Danube exiting on the Buda side. Buda is very hilly with lots of glorious views.

On Buda, we explored the Buda Castle, Royal Palace, Matyas church, and other beautiful sites. We saw a couple taking wedding pictures but they were already married. We also saw another couple taking wedding pictures who looked like it will be a miracle if they actually get married.

Today Julia took us around Pest (pronounce “pesht” not “pest” like having me around you). We went to the Museum of Terror which was not very terrifying nor was it very interesting. The Pest Synagogue, actually there are about 23 synagogues in Pest, the one we went to was the Dohány Street Synagogue. It is one of the biggest in the world but it looked more like a church. I suppose since it was designed by a non-Jew in the 1800s this is not a surprise.

I am told there is almost an exact copy of this synagogue in New York. Next time we are in Manhattan I will have to check out the Central Synagogue. I saw the sign below upon exiting that made me think the NYC synagogue and this one might be the same.

Not sure if this will help but here is a better picture of the instrument I asked you to identify. A hint, it is associated with Hungary and I am not referring to the two violins on top, or the bass on the side.

Viszontlátásra (Once again that means goodbye and it is not the name of the instrument)