Wednesday, May 9
We woke up to some distressing news this morning. The booking for our apartment in Prague had been cancelled. This seemed inconceivable to us. We had requested to book the apartment at the advertised price, the host had accepted and we had paid in full. How could this happen?
We learned the hard way that AirBNB will allow a host to cancel a reservation at any time. The host pays a small penalty and we received a small amount of money in compensation. The problem was that we knew that Prague was very popular in the summertime – that was why we had booked over two months in advance. We checked back on the website and sure enough there were very few apartments available and those that were available cost a lot more that we had originally paid. I phoned AirBNB and told them that under the circumstances their pitiful compensation was insufficient and that they were responsible for making things right. They did not agree. We had to make some decisions.
We thought about staying in Hungary longer. We also thought about going to another city. The problem was that we had our hearts set of going to Prague. We’ve wanted to visit it for a long time and really didn’t want to put it off for the indefinite future and so in the end we bit the bullet and booked another apartment. It’s a nice apartment in a good location but it is also a five floor walkup and it cost one third more that we were expecting to pay. While we were at it we changed our booking for Warsaw. We’d heard from several sources that if we were to go to one place in Poland it should definitely be to Krakow. Since we had booked two weeks in Warsaw we decided to split it into one week in Krakow and one in Warsaw.
On the positive side we did some research that we got from Andrea’s friend Balazs. He informed us that there are several countries that are neither EU nor Schengen (we can only stay in the Schengen area for three months out of every six months). We’d overlooked these when we did our own research . Now we have many more possibilities where we can spend our non-Schengen time.
After all that we got a bit of a late start but we still managed to get out of the apartment by 11:00 am. Peter had suggested that we checkout Pozsonyi Street and his sister, Andrea, had suggested that we checkout a restaurant on that same street called Pozsonyi Kisvendéglő. Like brother like sister. We decided to kill two birds with one stone. The street is just a few minutes walk from our apartment and is one block from the river.
It’s a very pretty street where many of the houses are older and have interesting facades. We also found a myriad of restaurants, coffee houses, pastry shops and speciality food stores. Andrea had told us that the restaurant was well known for good food, huge portions and reasonable prices. She also said that it was often very crowded and that we might have trouble getting a table. We walked in at 12:30 pm expecting to wait. The outside tables were all full but we found several empty tables inside and seated ourselves near a window overlooking the street.
The menu had some fantastically interesting choices. We opted for a dish of boiled beef with sour cherry sauce that came with a side of potatoes and a deep fried pork cutlet breaded with sliced potatoes and garlic that was smothered in sour cream and cheese. As promised the portion sizes were huge. We ate half and took the rest home. Was it good? Did you hear me mention that it was pork smothered in sour cream?!!!
(Beef with Sour Cherry Sauce / Fried Pork with Sour Cream & Cheese)
Afterwards we stopped by a place called the Donut Library. As you may suspect the interior is designed to resemble a library – even down to the goose neck lamps at the tables. Their donuts were beautifully decorated and they had some very innovative choices. We ordered one topped with powdered sugar that was filled with Nutella and one topped with a caramel glaze filled with a caramel sauce. They were good but looked a lot better than they tasted. At about $2.00 a piece they were also a little overpriced.
We also stopped by a specialty food shop. The owner was eager to please and was happy to let us sample anything we wanted. He even opened a bottle of wine for us to taste. We walked away with two different cheeses and a bottle of wine. He also had some amazing looking sausages that we plan to try the next time we’re down that way.
Distance walked: 3.2 miles
Thursday, May 10
We had a full agenda planned. Our first stop was the Hungarian National Opera House. We bought tickets for the 3:00 pm tour. Next we stopped at a store called, “Sugar”. It’s a very popular place for cakes, candies and ice cream. It reminded us a lot of Dylan’s in New York City. Somehow we managed to walk away without buying anything.
Next was the Liszt Ferenc (Franz Liszt) Academy of Music often referred to simply as the Zeneakadémia. It was founded by the composer and is the most prestigious music school in Hungary. It also contains a concert hall where students and professionals frequently perform. As you might imagine it’s a beautiful facility where free tours are offered every afternoon. More on the academy after we take the tour.
We had seen the programs for this month and decided to get some tickets. We wanted to see a viola student’s doctoral jury performance but it was sold out. We were really impressed by that – you would never have seen that at Juilliard. The ticket agent said that we should just show up and could probably find seats anyway. Tickets were free. There was another, professional group, doing some medieval choral music but that too was sold out. We walked away with tickets to see a performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto together with Brahms Symphony #4.
All of this back and forth gave us an opportunity to stroll down Andrássy Street. It’s the Fifth Avenue of Budapest with wide boulevard-like streets and lovely high end stores. We’ve visited several Herend Stores since we’ve been here but the nicest we’ve seen so far was the one on Andrássy Street.
Herend is a well known, high end, Porcelain maker based out of the city of Herend, which is about a 1.5 hour drive West of Budapest. They are famous for their hand painted animal figurines and their china. We started collecting Herend some years ago. John, our dealer in Manchester, Vermont, has been supplying our habit for years. One of the things we liked so well about John is that, unlike other dealers we’ve dealt with, he can often get items that are available only in Europe. We’ve seen many patterns in these stores that we’e never seen before. We had some thoughts about traveling to the city of Herend to do a factory tour but it’s unlikely we’ll actually get around to doing that.
Lunch was the glamorous New York Cafe. The cafe is part of the New York Palace Hotel, which was built in 1894 as the head office of the New York Life Insurance Company. Today it is a luxury hotel. The opulent interior is designed in the Italian Renaissance-style. The cafe is hideously expensive.
(The New York Cafe)
The cafe is famous as a coffee house and serves elegant pastries and desserts. The menu also contains breakfast and lunch items which no doubt is a concession to being part of the hotel. We ordered a cappuccino and a coffee drink made with ice cream and whipped cream and we shared a plate of selected meats and cheeses. Ironically, for a famous coffee house, the coffees were simply average. The food plate, which contained two different kinds of sausage, two different kinds of cheese, prosciutto, onion jam and fresh bread and butter, was absolutely delicious. As good as the food is the main reason to go there is just to experience the ambiance and the decor. The cafe also featured live music performed in several styles by piano, violin and clarinet.
(Half Eaten Lunch 😉)
We paid for the meal using a credit card. The waiter asked us if we wanted to charge the amount in Hungarian Forint or US Dollars. This is not an innocent question. You might think it would be better to pay in US Dollars but there is a catch. If you pay in dollars they automatically add a currently conversion fee of about 3%. We’ve run into this several times in our travels. It is always better to pay in the local currency. As an aside, if you’re traveling abroad you should get a credit card that does not charge a foreign transaction fee. That will also save you a lot of money.
We had some time to kill and some lunch to walk off before the Opera House tour so we headed down to the Elizabeth bridge and explored that area for a while. It was fun to meander down different streets and see the shops. We walked into some churches, several art galleries and did quite a bit of window shopping. Eventually it was time for our tour and we headed back to the opera house.
The Hungarian State Opera House was completed in 1884. It’s design encompasses both neo-Renaissance and Baroque elements. The initial funding for the building was given by Emperor Franz Joseph I on the condition that its completed size be smaller than the opera house in his home city of Vienna. When the initial funds ran out additional funding was provided by Hungarian nobility to complete the project.
The opera house is undergoing extensive renovations at present. We were able to tour the entrance area, the bar area outside the first floor seating area and the balcony. We were so very disappointed that we were not able to see the interior of the theater itself.
(Opera House Main Staircase)
At the end of the tour we gathered in the main stairway and were treated to a performance by a soprano and a baritone from the company. They were accompanied by a boom box. They each sang a solo and then they performed two duets. While performing the drinking song from La Traviata they danced with members of the audience. It was all light and fun and their voices sounded wonderful.
Afterwards we started walking down Andrássy Street with the aim of exploring Hero’s Square but we soon tired and decided to tackle that on another day.
Distance walked: 7.9 miles