On the first day of this trip, we took the fast train from Zaragoza to Madrid, and then a taxi to the airport.
We flew to Prague with Iberia. We were served some decent lunch items on the plane. The trip was just under 3 hours, so per their rules, I was concerned we wouldn’t be given a meal, but we were (for a fee of course). The flight there had some beautiful views, as seen in the photo below. This was taken by my oldest son.
A View of the Amazing Swiss Apps on the Way to Prague
Once we arrived at the airport, we followed the pathway that have on the floor to the taxi area.
Once we got to that area, we bought transportation passes. We got two 72 hours passes, because kids travel free. This was about the only family friendly thing I can credit the city with.
Transportation:
We got the 72 hr public transportation pass before leaving the airport. We validated it every time we got on the bus or before we entered the metro…maybe we were just supposed to do it the first time though, because the dates stamped over each other every time we put the tickets into the machine. After the first three times, the date/time was not legible. I have a feeling we were supposed to only validate it once, and then stop using it 72 hours after the stamped date/time.
Our first ticket validation was immediately prior to getting on the bus from the airport.
We then validated it again when we entered the metro. There were machines there with signs that said you must validate your ticket before entering. I am not sure though if this rule applies to the 72 hours pass. It might be that you only stamp it once.
Hotel
Once arriving in Prague, we took the metro to Royal Court Legerova an Aparthotel and checked in. Below is my review of the hotel and a video of the room layout and features.
The Aparthotel Royal Court Legerova was accessible via the metro. It was a little bit out from the main area of the city, so it had a lower cost. Their front desk was friendly and spoke english. The building is not accessible. There were four stairs, with no ramp, so if you need accessibility, I would choose another place. The trip from the elevator to the room door also required the use of stairs. I do not know if they may have accessible rooms available or not, but there was no obvious accessible entrance to the front door of the building either way, so I don’t think it’s a good fit for people who would struggle with the stairs. It is attached to a coffee shop/breakfast place, where a discount is offered to guest. However, we still found their menu to be a little bit over priced for daily eating. We instead walked a few blocks every morning and had breakfast at Bageterie Boulevard. The beds were of a good size, and there were plenty of them for us but we did find the mattresses to be hard, with over stuffed, large, “soft” pillows. The combination left us with neck aches. One of the rooms had air conditioning, but the other one did not.
We were cool enough in August as long as we set the air conditioning in one room to a very low temperature, and then left both doors open. This meant the people sleeping in the room with the A/C were a bit cold, and if you shut the door, then the people in the second bedroom were too hot. The windows did not open entirely, so you could not get much of the cooler outside air. The street was also noisy. We travel with white noise, but it was not much help until a few hours after midnight. Overall, I would recommend the hotel, unless you like really comfortable beds, in which case I would suggest you go somewhere else. Grocery stores were shockingly not that conveniently located to the hotel, especially not with ready made food in them. Compared to what we are used to, we had to walk quite far to get to a grocery store with easy to prepare or ready to eat foods (one of our travel hacks to reducing cost). There were some convenience stores located nearby, but nothing that carried the types of foods we were looking for. This is the place we ultimately ended up walking back and forth to for ready made meals (Tesco).
One day one, we arrived late in the evening, so we checked-in and had baths. One parent stayed at the hotel to get the crew ready for bed, while the other went out to pick up food from wherever it was available. It was pretty late. We ate and then slept :). In this case, day 1 was a full travel day, without much site seeing, unless you count the walk to the hotel from the metro :).
Day 2 (Sunday):
We ate breakfast regularly at Bageterie Boulevard. We would definitely recommend it. They have meals available at every price point, and they were open early enough in the morning to get breakfast before going out for the day. They were also open for lunch and dinner. They had good service, and the menus are on screens, with a language selection. There are many locations throughout the city, so look for them as an affordable eating option for the whole family.
After breakfast, we took the tram to Charles Bridge for our first stop in Prague. We then walked to the Astronomical Clock, followed by the Jewish Quarter.
There is a tradition of putting locks on different things as tourist, but we don’t participate in this type of tourist pollution :). You can google to find out what the locals think about it. Here is an example of this tradition. Obviously, they cut the locks off routinely, which is why it’s not covered with them.
A Picture from the Jewish Quarter.
As I have written about before, you should always carry loose coins with you when traveling in Europe, due to the fact that many places will make you pay to use the bathroom, and they don’t all take cards. As you can see in the picture below, it was very common for shops to accept euros in Prague, but we did receive our change back in the local currency.
The Jewish Cemetery is something you can pay to get a tour of. We did not pay to take any tours on this trip, however I did get a picture through the gates of an old door.
At the Memorial of the Second Resistance Movement, you can find will apple trees, which the locals told my kids they could eat from. They loved doing that!
After the Jewish Quarter, we took the tram back across the bridge to Letna Park.
We walked the whole park, from one end to the next basically. We stopped for ice cream at this cute ice cream truck.
We had lunch at a local place that was kind of off to the side, and had an old playground with it. The people spoke almost no english, but we managed to grab a bit of local food, which was fun.
We saw lots of interesting signs on this trip. This is one we found at the cafe we stopped at.
Just past the ice cream truck was a vista point, so we stopped there, ate our ice cream, and took a bunch of pictures. This park was a great place to take in nature, amazing views, a sweet treat, get some local food, and exercise. It’s a must do on your trip to Prague.
Vibe of Prague:
Lots of nature, lots of people, quite hot, much hotter than we expected or desired, not stroller friendly, missing ramps in many places and the trams were not accessible, people not the kindest, seemed annoyed by kids.
Day 3 (Monday):
On day 3 we had breakfast at the same place for the sake of simplicity, and then took the bus across the river to Petrin Park. At Petrin Park you have two choices. One, take the inclined railway to the top or hike to the top. We chose to hike to the top. If we had it to do over again, we would definitely have taken the inclined railway. We had heard on youtube that it was a tourist trap, and there was a long line at the bottom (not at the top), but the hike itself was very intense and it took us over a week to recover, which is not okay when you are trying to walk around difference cities and see stuff. I would advice you to see if you can find a bus to take you to the top, and then take the incline railway down from the top. The trip down did not have a long line. There is a lot to do at the top of the hill, and I am sure they have public transportation that goes there, but at the time, I wasn’t aware of it.
The views going up were amazing, but I hated myself for this choice in the aftermath. lol
My kids were not to happy either, but I will say it was fairly accessible, although there were still plenty of stairs…you can carry an empty stroller up them, or just skip it altogether (my vote!) and take the incline railway or find a bus/taxi to get. you around to the top.
Midway up we found a cool playground with nice slides an little trampolines. They also have a small storage building with toys you can use and put back. The existence of this playground is when I realized there must have been another way up, but it was too late at this point to turn back.
While at the playground, I discovered that there was an Observatory near by, so of course we had to go. Before I even get started on how it went, I have to take this opportunity to tell you that this is a MUST DO. Keep reading to find out why. The Observatory is located at the top of the hill. I am sure we could have taken a bus directly there (oops).
Upon reaching the top of the hill, we saw this sign, which directed us towards to Observatory.
We walked a short distance to this Botanical Garden, and then around it to the Observatory.
The Botanical Garden Outside of the Observatory
We first took a much needed break and cooled off with ice cream and lemonade. It was the worst lemonade I’ve ever had, but at least it was cold and cute.
Immediately upon entering the museum, we will have the opportunity to buy tickets. We bought the family tickets, which were about 11 euros for all four of us. This was one of the few places that we paid to enter, and it was WORTH IT for the once in a lifetime opportunity we had while there.
Once again, it is not stroller friendly, so you can park your stroller wherever it’s convenient. We did this and didn’t have any problems. No one messed with it (they never do, no matter where we are).
The first cool, but “can do this somewhere else to maybe” experience was that they kids got to look through a real telescope. The young man there giving a talk about the telescope was very motivated and informative. You could tell he loved his job and the topic he was teaching about.
Now this brings me to the once in a lifetime chance to do something really cool! While we were walking around the center, I noticed that we had not done the one activity I had seen in the reviews about this place, but really wanted to do while there. There were no signs directing us to it, but I saw a door which was closed, but there was no sign about not entering, and people were occasionally coming in and out of the door. I opened it up and found a set of stairs that I was immediately sure must lead us to what I was looking for! 🙂
One of two eye pieces that we looked through to see the sun and it’s atomosphere.
And it did! With this telescope, we were able to LOOK AT THE SUN! There were two telescopes to look through. Once showed the atmosphere of the sun, and the other showed the actual surface of the sun, where you could also see the hot spots. to the left of the user, there was a white paper, which showed the “shadow” of the sun, also with the hotspots (the dots on the circle of the sun). See below for reference (and the one picture above).
The second eye piece.The “shadow” of the sun, with the hotspots showing (the dark dots).
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this was a highlight of the trip for me! It was nowhere on my radar while planning the trip. This is something I found on google maps while browsing different things to do around the park we were hiking. This came about because of the flexibility that we build into our daily routine while we travel, which I have discussed more about here.
After the Observatory, we started to head back “down hill”. As I have already said, Prague is not stroller friendly. The trams are crammed, narrow, and there are lots of stairs throughout the whole city. I want to reiterate that with the picture below, so plan accordingly. Our youngest is 4, so the stroller was not a requirement, but more of a convenience to rest his legs or to take a nap if needed, but if we had a baby, this trip would have been a bit of a regret. (yikes).
Once we got down these stairs, we followed the path and ended up at the Mirror Museum. For me, it is a “do if you want to” thing. I didn’t find it life altering or anything. It was short and sweet. The kids like it, but we could have also done without it.
One the way down Petrin Hill, we found many fruit trees. They seemed to be planted in an organized way, but I have no idea if they actually belonged to someone or not. There were worn paths through the trees, so we took those paths all the way down.
Recap, because this was an intense day, so I am going to include that here. IT WAS INTENSE: why? Because we did not use the incline train to go up, or the bus. That made the day so much harder. It was also an amazing day, because we saw the surface of the sun and the sun’s atmosphere. Please, don’t hike to the top, unless you are very very prepared, especially not in the heat and with kids and in a skirt.
26 flights, but less than 10k steps. That’s telling you something about the amount of climbing.
Day 4:
Prague Castle (Tuesday): On Tuesday we took the tram back across the river to see the Prague Castle and the Cathedral. We only went to sight see. We did not pay for any tours or visits inside. You could stay there all day going in and out of the different exhibits they had, but this is not how we wanted to spend our money on this trip.
The Cathedral within the Courtyard of the Prague Castle
We walked around the inner court of the castle, took pictures, browsed some shops, bought and sent a post card, and then went to look for trdelnik.
The Cathedral and the CourtyardMailing a Postcard from the Courtyard. There was a Post Office there, too.
Trdelniks are very common pastries in Prague, which can be eaten alone or stuffed with a sweet, like ice cream of cooked fruit. We went to one of the highest rated shops in Prague to have them, which was called Trdelník & Coffee, and is located in the Jewish Quarter. We ordered ours with cinnamon. They were absolutely delicious!!
We used this time to explore the Jewish Quarter a bit more, and then went back to the hotel to rest. We were still pretty exhausted from the intense hike we had taken the previous day and really wanted to recover a bit more before our travel day the next day and our first day in Vienna.
A Tourist Map of Prague: I used it as a general guide to make sure we covered the main areas in the time that we had to spead there. I think we did a pretty good job of doing that.
Day 5 (Wednesday):
We checked out of our hotel in Prague and took the metro to the train station, then took a train south to Vienna, city #2 of 4 of this trip. We were happy to find a Subway in the Prague Train Station, so we happily bought subs and saved them for the long train ride.
This was our first ever longer train ride. It was sort of an experiment to see if we and the kids could handle a trip longer than 3 hours…our normal cap. It went fine, we survived, so we will probably have more of these longer trips in our future.
This was also our first trip using a headphone splitter for the iPad. It worked very well, until the 4 year old broke his headphones, and then we couldn’t use it again. It is definitely a device we would recommend, especially if you only travel with one iPad. This allows more than one person to listen to a movie or an audiobook, or whatever you want to listen to.
The headphone splitter is the white device attached to the bottom left of the iPad.
Vienna
Upon our arrive to Vienna, we immediately purchased two 72 hours public transportation passes on this machine. One kid per parent travels free in Vienna during the summer and on school holidays. At other times of the year, they travel with a discount. Since it was summer, the kids were free. This is something I suggest you research in advance, always.
The 72 hour pass is already time stamped at purchase, so you don’t have to validate it. It’s quite large, so it doesn’t fit into the validation machines anyway. Someone helped us with this issue while we were trying o figure how out to validate it. He showed us the dates on the pass, which meant validation was not required or possible.
In order to get to our hotel, we had to leave the train station and find the bus or the metro.
We arrived in Vienna to our hostel, The Meininger, and got some ready made food from a local grocery store to eat for dinner. It may not look like much, but it was pretty good. This is also one of our cost saving tips- eat food from the grocery store. If you don’t have a kitchen or time to cook, then buy the ready made meals. There is usually a decent variety, so everyone can find something they like, and you only need a microwave to warm it up.
Hotel
You can see my pro/con review of the hotel on google here, but I’ve included a few more details below:
Hotel: Meininger Hotel Wien Downtown Franz. The one we stayed at was not as nice as the location we had stay in previously in Brussels, Belgium. They do have another location in Vienna though, which is a little bit more expensive, and likely in a better location with better amenities, but that is just a guess! Our room had no black out blinds. The curtains hanging on the window did not cover the whole window because they weren’t fulling hanging on it. As in, they were broken off the hooks on the curtain rod, so the 5am summer sunrise came in strong and hot. There was a wall which seemed to be “under construction” with pictures drawn on it. The cleanliness of the room could have been better. The shared kitchen as quite small, especially compared to our first Meininger experience the previous year. The washing machine was a washer/dryer combo. It was functional, but it was not even in sellable condition. Some parts were missing from the face of it. We saw one person go over their time because their clothes were not dry, and they got charged an extra fee, for a total of (I believe) 25euros for one load. Whereas, we went on a 15 train ride to the nearest laundry mat, which was really nice, had a separate washer and dryer, and cost 15 euros. Everything came out clean and dry. The breakfast was overpriced. Kids were not free.
Day 6 (Thursday):
Thursday was a travel day, but since our train arrived early enough in the day, we were able to go out and do some basic sight seeing. One of my priorities for Vienna, was to visit the House of Music. Obviously Vienna is a hotspot for musical history.
We went there from our hotel via tram, which allowed us to do a little sightseeing from the tram itself.
House of Music
The House of Music is an interactive museum, that is child friendly, and if you enjoy taking your kids to educational places, you will want to make sure this makes the top of your list.
Once again, we bought the family ticket. Any time one is offered, that’s the option we choose. I don’t think it’s worth it for just one paying kid, but once you have two adults and two paying kids, it becomes advantageous.
From the House of Music we decided to walk to some different stops. I used the Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour Map as my guide of places to “make sure” we saw. It helped us to visit Vienna in sections. This section one day, this one the next, so that we covered a lot of area each day, but with plenty of pauses for beauty and rest.
The first thing we noticed about Vienna is that it is absolutely beautiful. They have everything here.. I am always looking for other places that we could live, just in case we wanted to…and this city definitely gave me that vibe. It reminded me of Madrid, in that there was so much to do, so much to see, but even on a larger scale. There were also parks and lots of nature opportunities as well. We loved this city and would definitely return to it. We had time to see the main things, but with more days, you could take in even more of the city and all it has to offer.
There were a lot of interesting monuments. There is so much to see just by walking around the city, you don’t even have to pay to go in anywhere to have a fully enjoyable time.
I took so many pictures of amazing things, but I think you should go see most of it for yourself.
That evening, we also made it to the National Library. There is a small fee to access it, but it doesn’t take long to go through, they have an affordable family ticket, and as a book lover raising kids whom I hope to be book lovers, it was a must do on my list.
The library has amazing art and architecture inside. Here is a short video of what you can expect.
After the library, we continued our walk using our feet and public transportation when it made sense. We had the 72 hour bus pass, and while it’s good to walk and see things, it is also good to ride and see things, as well- because REST.
Here we are at a festival in a beautiful park. We had no idea this was going on, so we went in, had some cold drinks, and sat down on a bench to rest our feet and minds. The kids went and played for about 30 minutes under the shade of trees. I am not kidding, this city is incredible.
After the park, we went to do laundry at a place which was about a 15 minute bus/tram ride from the hotel. On this day, we had brought our laundry with us in one of our book bags (under the stroller), so that we could do laundry before going back to the hotel.
The laundry mat was very nice. There was a grocery store across the street, some restaurants on the same block, and they had snack machines on site. The cost was very affordable compared to what the hotel was charging. Once we returned to the hotel, we sent our routine postcard utilizing the hotel’s mailbox. Not all hotels have this feature, but it’s nice when they do.
Day 7 (Friday):
Because we live in Spain, we like to shop at some stores that are in the north of Europe, which are similar to stores in the United States. One of those stores is TK Maxx. TK Maxx is the European version of TJ Maxx, neither of which are in Spain. As such, any time we are traveling to other parts of Europe, I look to see if there is a TK Maxx store in the cities we will be in. In this case, there were 3 in Vienna, so on Friday, we made the trip to the closest one via public transportation.
In TK Maxx stores we look for things that are difficult to find in Spain, like clothing or shoes in our size, for example. There are some stores in Spain that sell clothes and shoes in our sizes, but it comes sometimes be difficult to find variety. Shopping “abroad” of Spain, helps us to find new things that fit us correctly. Large shoes sizes especially and also certain brands that we might like, which aren’t easily found in Spain for affordable prices. TK Maxx was located in a nice shopping area of the city, so it was nice to have gone there to see it. We grabbed sandwiches from a nearby grocery store and found a bench to sit and eat on. Eating like this saves us a lot of money while traveling. We also bought fresh fruit, water, and desert, all at the grocery store next door, which had everything for sell in individual sizes.
Afterwards, we went back to the metro, and took the train back north towards the city.
We decided to use the next part of our day to visit a free museum called Wien Museum.
It was hot, so we first cooled off in the foyer of the museum, which was air conditioned and had lots of places to sit and rest before actually entering the museum.
There is a fee to see some portions of the museum, but there is a full interactive exhibit on the history of Vienna which is free. You just walk in and follow the signs. There was no need for us to sign in or pay for anything.
The museum has excellent reviews and it’s a really nice way to learn more about the history of the city.
After the museum, we went right outside to sit and rest in the shade and to let the kids play and explore a little bit.
While sitting on the benches and resting, refilling our water bottles from the free water fountain (love that about Europe), we noticed that some people had ice cream, so we went for a walk to find it.
Directly across from the ice cream truck was a playground, so after eating the ice cream, we went inside to play.
After the playground, we headed back to the hotel to eat dinner (purchased from the grocery store and eaten at the hotel tables).
Day 8 (Saturday):
On Saturday we decided to go north of the city to see the Danube River to visit a nature park that was on the island there. It was a bit of a hike via the train to get there, but we wanted to explore a different area. Here we saw lots of people out on bikes, water skying, and walking around. However, it was too hot and open for us, and after our long exhausting hike in Prague, we decided not to follow through with this idea. Instead, we got back on the train and went a little further north to a second TK Maxx to see if they had some more products we had bought at the last store.
At this TK Maxx they had lots of other stores to explore, including a massive pet store called Kölli Zoo. Since one of our son’s has a small hobby aquarium, we went to this store to see if they had any “gifts” for his fish. The store was absolutely incredible.
They had supplies for every animal that you could imagine. They also had live animals inside of large habitats, like rabbits and such, instead of in small cage.
They had a koi pond as well, with fish food for sell, which we bought and let the kids feed the fish. They loved it! It was a nice unexpected surprise. This was yet another example of why we fit flexibility into our days, especially while traveling.
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to rest for the remaining part of the day, because the next day was another travel day.
Day 9 (Sunday):
Here we had another travel day, however the trip to Bratislava via train is just under one hour, so it was short and we left in the morning, so we had plenty of time left in the day upon our arrival.
Bratislava
Once we made our way to the hotel, we had them hold our luggage, and then we immediately went out to grab something for lunch and to start exploring the city.
This city was very small and charming. They had a few things to do there, but mostly it was an opportunity to be in a historical city, and to also visit another country, in case you like to do things like that. It was only a one hour train ride from Vienna, and then a 3 hour train ride from Budapest, so for us, it was a great “take a rest” stop. We used this city to see new things, but to also have some needed down time.
Hotel
Our hotel was called CityCenter Best Place Apartments and it was fantastic. The family suite had two large rooms, each with a full size bed, a pull out couch, a small couch table, decent curtains, air conditioning, a small kitchenette, and closets. One of the rooms also had a desk. The hotel had a laundry room, with a full kitchen and a room to “rest” in, as well as watch TV while you were doing laundry!
In Bratislava, we had some of the best BBQ that we have had since living in the United States at Smokin’ Bob BBQ. It was right around the corner from our hotel. There were also two grocery stores near our hotel, including a LIDL, as well as a cafe that opened early and served some basic breakfast items and coffee.
Day 10 (Monday):
On the first night that we arrived in Bratislava, I discovered that their town hall website has some tourism suggestions, which include taking 1-2 trams through the city, so the next day, we set out to do that.
It was a very short and affordable trip. Remember that for us this was a rest stop, so we intentionally did not want to over do it. This is also a small, but historical town. I really enjoy visiting places that I have read about in the historical fiction books that I enjoy, & this was one of those stops. We took the tram all the way in one direction without getting off, and then we came back on the other suggested tram, but this time we made stops at some historical landmarks and a playground.
The city is well connected with many major cities in this area of Europe, including Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Berlin. It was family friendly enough, since we had no problems getting around with the stroller, when we took it out.
Day 11 (Tuesday):
On Tuesday, we traveled by train from Bratislava, Slovakia to Budapest, Hungary. In Slovakia, tickets can be bought on the train or at the bus stop, but this is not consistent. Since we had the change to spare, we went ahead and bought the tickets before boarding the bus to the train station.
The train station is old and historically…and poorly staffed early in the morning. Although it was 9am, none of the stores were open, no restaurants, cafes, etc. We had to resort to the coffee machine for coffee.
The train station is fairly small. You either go out to the trains, or down the stairs to more trains. There are only two options.
According to my google search that I did ahead of time, there was supposed to be an elevator- but we never saw one, nor did we see a sign for one.
I booked an inclosed 6 seater “cabin” for us, thinking no one would sit themselves with us, and then it would be an opportunity for the kids to play and not be a distraction to others. This was not the case. For one portion of the trip, a man came in with the seat assigned, and for another portion a couple came if, so for the most part the seats were no as I had envisioned.
This train stop was the border between Hungary and Slovakia.
Our first glimpses of Hungary.
There were many stops before we finally arrived in Budapest.
Budapest
In Budapest, we bought the transportation passes for all of us. The one thing I found confusing was HOW to buy the tickets and where to get them from. I did read up on it online, but when I got there, what I interpreted from the internet was not what was happening on the ground. I never did find out if kids were free or not (it didn’t seem like they were unless they were citizens), so I had to buy tickets for every individual in the family, with no discount for kids.
I did this at the ticket machine at the tram, which was very slow. I believe their is an app to buy tickets that I saw people using, but it’s not something I had figured out how to do in advance, so in the moment, we didn’t do that, but you could look it up and maybe figure it out and be better prepared than we ended up being.
Our hotel in Budapest was the B&B Hotel. They do not give our room keys, instead you have to keep up with this code. In Budapest, we stayed at B&B Hotel. It was a great little hotel, perfect for us. The customer service was nice, the breakfast was very good (kids were free). The quality was better than Meininger in Vienna had been. If I could go back, I would probably have tried to book B&B before booking Meininger in Vienna, based on that this is our third B&B Hotel experience, and basically everyone of them has been a good experience. They hadn’t all had the same room sizes or breakfast options, but we have had no major complaints with this chain thus far.
Per our typical routine, we next found food. We went to a well rated pizza place nearby that wasn’t busy, because we were hungry…there had not been much service on the train, so beware.
Afterwards, we made our way to the tram and headed towards the Central Market. Unfortunately, it was closed for three days! As we progressed on with alternative plans, we realized it was a holiday in Budapest.
Because of the holiday, a lot of things were closed, but there were also a lot of locals our celebrating and we got to witness a major cultural holiday and all of the events that were happening, like markets, music, dancing, food, etc
This is the entrance to the festival. They were selling all sorts of arts and crafts, including some Christmas stuff. I bought a couple of essential oil room fresheners to hand up in our home.
Budapest was an absolutely amazing city. It took our breath away! The view from the river is absolutely incredible.
We walked around and saw many amazing things, as well as getting to witness the local community enjoying the festival and a day off of work.
Near the festival, is a memorial called “Shoes on the Danube Bank“. This was another activity that was on the top of our list, so we went ahead and headed that way. It was a bit of a walk, especially because traffic was detoured and roads were closed for the festival.
The memorial was created to remember those killed at the Danube River by the fascist party during World War II.
It is also being utilized as a memorial for current events, in memory of those murdered and tortured in Israel on October 7th, 2023, as seen below.
From here, we walked to grab some food to go, then took the train back to the hotel.
Day 12 (Wednesday):
On Wednesday, we headed out towards the Jewish Quarter to do some sight seeing.
Specifically, we were looking for the Ghetto Memorial Wall, unfortunately there wasn’t too much to see beyond the literal wall. I believe there are tours we could have done, which would have allowed us to enter in behind the wall, but as I have stated in other blog posts, we don’t typically pay for tours on our trips, so this was all we got to see of that.
While in the area, we came across a Kosher Market, so we went inside and bought some snacks. I was also able to buy things here which I have a hard time finding in Spain, like Hanukah candles and matzah ball mix, so I got those too.
We continued walking to a few places I had marked on google maps, including Dohány Street Synagogue, which you can buy a tickets to enter and take a tour of. We would have liked to go to the Holocaust Memorial that was here, but the ticket prices were quite expensive, so we settled for walking around and looking at what we could from the outside.
If you don’t teach our kids history, we are doing them a disservice.
The garden of the synagogue from the outside. It’s on the other side of this walkway.
Here is a portion of it. We were able to read most of the signs and learn about what happened inside the garden, without going in.
More about the design of the garden, as seen through the gate above.
They also had banners to bring awareness to current events.
Below is a series of photos of the original plaque (translation in the plaque above), and the building.
A little further down we found some water for sale and other stores to buy snakes or food in.
I like to take pictures of interesting signs too :).
We made sure to buy some Hungarian Chimney Cake, which we ended up holding on to for a couple of days before eating. It came in a sealed plastic bag, so that was easy to do.
The picture below is why you want to make sure you have an international bank card like Capital One 360, or a Wise or Revolut Account. Don’t waste your time in currency exchange office! That’s for the old days. We have better technology and access now. You will find my recommendations at the very top of the list of the list in my travel tips post.
Budapest is absolutely amazingly beautiful. I do not have enough words to describe it well.
Like Vienna, there is no shortage of things to do and see in Budapest. After the Chimney Cakes we made our way to the Palace. Here is a view from the bus stop..they do have an incline train to take up, but the line was incredibly long. The transportation passes that we had included the regular bus up to the Palace, so we opted to save time and money (my two favorite things), and took the “regular bus” up to the Palace.
The other side of the bus stop.
The incline train option and the line for it (going off the the right).
A view from the bus as we headed up. This is the Schulek Staircase, which we eventually ended up on the opposite side of, after we got off of the us (a little further up to road), and walked around.
Once we got off the bus, we walked across the street and followed the sidewalk to Castle Hill. There was a lot of construction, so we did not get to see as much as we otherwise would have been able to see.
The bridge from down below where the bus stop was:
This spot was also a UNESCO World Heritage Place, along with the banks of the Danube River, as written on the plaque below:
We also ended up being lucky enough to witness the changing of the guard.
And then we ate food:
Outside, in a park, with a lot of other people doing the same thing.
Thank goodness I brought my umbrella for the rain or the shine :).
After a rest and food, we continued walking around the area.
Here we were when we had made it to the back side of that view a from the bus.
I have no shortage of pictures that I could share it, but it would flood the post even more than I already have.
It was seriously just amazing.
Ok, this is the last one from this spot. I will just saw you must go to Budapest!!
There are bathrooms, and once again, they will cost you, so carry change.
We walked a little further down the street, where there was more amazingness to look at, but also a bus stop to take us back down the hill.
The view from the bus stop.
And from the bus:
Once we got off the bus, we took this escalator down to the tram.
We then went back to the hotel to have dinner and rest. I accidentally order a jalapeño pizza. OOPS.
Day 13 (Thursday): On Thursday, the holiday that had been happening was over, so the Central Market (Nagycsarnok) was back open.
We walked around and looked at all of the things they had for sell.
And some food, which included delicious Hungarian sausages.
Afterwards, we did our regular post card sending.
I also found a vintage store, which I enjoyed buying some sewing notions and skirts in.
Some of the trams were interesting because they were old and had not been updated.
Day 14 (Friday):
On the last day, I couldn’t figure out how to buy just a trip to the airport from where our hotel was, so I ended up buying a 24 hour pass…it’s all I could determine from the very basic old machine that they use to sell tickets from. Unfortunately, when I did this, it printed one ticket per hour of a 24 hour day for four people. The tickets were about 2 inches long, by 1/2 inch wide, so I had a lot of little pieces of paper to keep up with. Ultimately, when we got off the train and walked to the bus that went to the airport, they had a different machine there where we could buy a ticket to the airport! Essentially we paid way too much for tickets, and then didn’t or couldn’t get a refund. Supposedly, there was a way to get a refund at the airport, but we were unable to find the office, and it wasn’t well marked. I think the Budapest tourism office could do a better job at explaining how to do things upon arrival. Please learn from us, and only by the one ticket that you need to get to the airport bus, and THEN buy the airport ticket.
Day 15 (Saturday): Wow, if you have actually made it this far, then I am impressed! On Saturday evening we flew back to Madrid from Budapest via Wizz Air. I have no terrible complains about the airline. It’s a budget airline. They did reschedule the flight two times after I purchased it, so that made things a bit inconvenient with getting back to Zaragoza on the same day as our flight. Originally, we had planned this trip while we still lived in Madrid, however, once it came time to actually taking the trip, we were living in Zaragoza. Due to the time change of the flight, we arrived back in Madrid too late to be able to take the train back home. Consequently, we had to spend the night in Madrid, and then get up early the next morning to take the first train that had seats on it back to Zaragoza.
When I bought the train tickets, about a month before the trip, there were only two trains remaining that day with seats on them, so I booked the earliest one, which was to leave at 10:30am. Because of how short we were on time the night we arrived (wanting to make sure we got as much rest as possible before the next day), we took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. It would have been very possible to take the metro, but we saved at least 30-45 mins by not doing that…and at 10pm, that’s a lot of time when you have two kids who need to bathe and get to sleep!
The hotel we stayed in was a great value. There was lots of space and sleeping areas for our family of 4. The breakfast was included with the price and was very thorough with lots of options, food, drinks, coffee, etc. Highly recommend the hotel.
Breakfast at the hotel in Madrid
Until next time, ya’ll!
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