Old Jaguar in Budapest

 Old Jag in an old city in near perfect condition

The Jaguar

Szentendre shopping

Szentendre is a small quaint town just north of Budapest known for shopping and historic buildings.  Since my grandparents came to visit Kristin and I, and my grandmother loves to shop, we decided to just go straight in to the belly of the beast and go to this tourist shopping mecca on our first full day in Hungary.

Moose Wine!

Moose Wine!

The best thing I never ate

I don't even know what these things are, but good god, why did I not eat them?  The funny thing about going through pictures at the end of each day is that I see stuff that I totally missed out on.  Like these breads topped with heavenly goodness.

Kantin Budapest - Hungarian cuisine

Before hitting up the Opera house in Budapest, we dropped into this simple restaurant called Kantin.  They offered a brilliant 3 course menu with a bunch of great Hungarian options.  We really enjoyed it.

A strange antique shop in Szentendre, Hungary

We stumbled into this great shop in Szentendre, Hungary that had very old things.  Furniture from 1700's France, ornamental ivory swords, strange religious paintings from other worlds, and some kind of tusk from an arctic marine mammal from 1860 (Narwhal?).  It made me appreciate commerce. My favorite stores are the ones where I have no idea what I am going to get.  This place was as weird as it gets.

Arriving in Budapest

HDR - From Buda, looking out at Pest

We finally arrived in Budapest after an uneventful drive from Slovakia.  Truth be told, I do not even remember it.  We scooped up my grandparents at the airport and headed for our hotel in Pest - Hotel Palazzo Zichy.

Exploring the great Bratislava

We landed in Vienna and picked up our wheels at Sixt. Blazing across Austria at 95mph while listening to Old Dirty Bastard, we approached Bratislava.  What is Bratislava?  I really had not thought about it much before.

It ended up being one of the coolest cities we have ever visited.  It is a very quirky place with bizarre statues and people dressed in odd costumes amidst an old town center that fells perfectly preserved.  Several partiers lined the streets of old town.  The town was well stocked in  bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, and drunk goons watching Dortmund-Bayern square off in the Champions League final - on fact, it was as though all of old town was one big party.

This Guy - Slovak edition

I was trying to take a picture of this weird old modern thing, and this guy waked into the frame, slipped a hand into his pocket, and smirked a great Slovak smirk - great photobomb buddy!  He even winked at me afterwards.

Bratislava castle and the best chicken ever

The gates

These guys - Bratislava

Passed out in the park after a rough night

The old Slovakian mining town of Banská Štiavnica

The past whispers of grandeur have faded on the streets of Banska Stiavnica.  Heavily mined since the 3rd century BC, the Slovakian town of was once a hotbed for innovation and mineral wealth.  A massive source of gold and silver for Europe in the middle ages, the mining town was home to  a number of firsts.  It was the first mine to use gunpowder and the town housed the first technical school in the world.  Today, the old town is mined out and exists simply as a perfectly preserved medieval town, left as it was in its heyday.

Granted Unesco status in the early 90's, the old city square surrounds a gigantic plague column that looks like a strange art deco version of the eye of Sauron.  So what to do in such a place?  Wander.  Aimlessly.

We loved exploring this strange town and its surroundings, and, we had some bad pizza while watching 30 seconds to Mars videos in a little pastry/pizza shop.