Harmadik nap - Day 3

Day three was the most interesting so far .... First we went to Heroes' Square. The Heroes’ square is one of the most visited sights of the Hungarian capital, it is situated in front of the City Park. The millenial monument was built in 1896 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the arrival of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin.

"City Park" which is just a few stops from where we are staying is Budapest's version of Central Park but not nearly as big. There is a castle (Vajdahunyad Castle) there that has been turned into a museum but as it was Monday when we were there it was not open - so save it for next time.

Vajdahunyad Castle

We rented a boat and paddled around the little lake surrounding the castle - a fun little diversion.

We then went back to Anna's mom's house for lunch and then back to City Park to go to a traditional Hungarian bath (Szechenyi Bath) - think public swimming pool on steroids. It is the most elaborate pool I have ever seen. The main function of the place was intended as a healing center for all kinds of ailments back in the day. To some extent today it is still used for that purpose but mostly tourists occupy the place now. Natural thermal springs occur below where the bath is and they cool down the water to varying degrees depending on what you are there to fix. The hottest pool was 38 degrees Celsius (roughly 105 Fahrenheit) and the coldest pool was 20 Celsius (about 50 Fahrenheit). The water comes out of the ground at 76 Celsius - you could boil food in that water. So you see why they have to cool it down first. You really have to see the pictures to understand what I am talking about - it is very hard to describe accurately in words.

The bath took up most of the day and by the time we left it was about dinner time so we headed back to the hotel for showers and went out for dinner. We didn't go to many places yesterday but were quite tired by the time we went to bed. That is pretty much it for day three so I will go for now but keep you all posted ...