Budapest

Rule #1 when travelling out of London: Never, ever, ever fly out of Luton airport. According to Wikipedia, it is the fourth largest airport serving London, but considering that London City airport (the fifth airport) is both easy to get to and has amazingly short security lines, there is no reason for anyone to fly out of Luton airport ever again.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about our trip. The reason for our newly discovered hatred for Luton airport is that we managed to miss our flight at 08:05 on Friday morning. Granted, we had started cutting our flights closer and closer in recent trips, so it was bound to happen eventually. But mostly, it's Luton's fault.

In order to get from our flat to the airport, we have to take the tube from Bethnal Green to St. Pancras International (via Liverpool Street). Then we have to catch a train from St. Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway station. THEN, we have to get on a shuttle bus to get to the actual airport. Miserable.

In any case, a series of events (not feeling very rushed as we left the flat, waiting 8 minutes for the tube, waiting 10 minutes for the shuttle to leave the station) caused us to arrive at the check-in desk at 07:28 for our 08:05 flight. No problem. We've only go hand luggage, they've only just started boarding, we'll breeze through security and hop right onboard, right?

Wrong.

"Check-in for WizzAir flights closes 40 minutes before departure."

C'mon, surely that's not the end of it. First, who closes a flight 40 minutes before departure. Second, we're only 3 minutes late, you must be able to do something. Third, why do we keep booking these damn discount airlines? (Answer: because they're sooooo cheap and our memories of the inevitable disaster are magically erased whenever we calculate the price difference to a "real" airline.)

To make a long story only slightly shorter, we missed the flight, resigned ourselves to paying more money to the bastards at WizzAir (to change to the next available flight), further resigned ourselves to never flying WizzAir again, and got on a plane at 2pm that afternoon.

We met our hostel owner (Jim at the August Hostel - highly recommended) and he gave us one of the more informative guides to any city I've ever heard. Sitting around a tourist map at his kitchen table, he proceeded to circle, highlight and label all of the best sights, cross out the ones that were too expensive or too boring, and generally pave the way for our city adventure.

As we were told by Jim many times, "Walking around Budapest is like walking onto the set of a Dracula movie." While we didn't see any caped figures with sharp fangs lurking about, the analogy definitely fits. Check out the pictures.

Budapest at night

The mood of the city is very dark, walking around you see very few people, and the ones you do see aren't all too friendly. Jim's fountain of information also informed us that "nobody comes to Budapest to live. You move to Budapest to write sad poetry for 3 years and then jump off a bridge." When I asked him how long he'd been there, I don't think he saw the humor of his answer of "4 years." Oh well, I guess there's an exception to his 3-year limit if you run a hostel instead of write poetry.

In contrast to the dark feeling, it is a very safe city. We had no issues walking around at night, even if the streets weren't too bright. We walked around the first night along the river that divides the city into the Buda side and the Pest side. The main attractions are all brilliantly lit up at night, as you can see below.

The infamous Chain Bridge, splendidly lit up every night.

The big problem with Budapest (as a result of our missed flight) is that it really is a "3-day city". Some cities you can walk around, hit the main sights, grab some good food, and be done with it in a quick weekend trip. Some cities can even be tackled in a single day. Budapest is not one of those cities. The sights are both beautiful and completely spread out. Bring some comfortable walking shoes, and make sure you get on the earliest flight for your 3-day weekend.

We did manage to see most of what the city had to offer, and also squeezed in a nice 3-4 hour nap on Saturday as well. (What else should a vacation be if not a great excuse to nap in the middle of the afternoon?)

We strolled along the river, wandered inside Saint Stephen's Basilica, saw the mummified Holy Right Hand of King Saint Stephen (he's a pretty big deal), enjoyed the thermal baths that the city is famous for, and went up to see Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.

Saint Stephen's Basilica

Outdoor section of the baths, a very intellectual crowd

It is definitely a city that's been put back on our list to visit (a list which has not stopped growing for the past two years). There is simply too much to see for a two day trip.

Matthias Church & Fishermans Bastion

One thing you can count on: if we do go back, we'll be HOURS early for our flight, and it won't be out of Luton Airport.