Vajdahunyad Castle in Varosliget Park
Excerpt from the book Single White Female Backpacker from the Teresa the Traveler Series. As I continued on my way, the weather started to turn and by the time I reached Vajdhunyad Castle it was pouring rain. The Vajdahunyad Castle was built between 1896 and 1908 partly as a copy of the Vajdahunyad Castle in Transylvania, Romania.
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It was originally built out of cardboard and wood for the 1896 millennial exhibition but was replaced with a stone and brick version thanks to its popularity. The castle now houses the Agricultural Museum which I decided to visit rather than get soaked in the rain.
Learning about the history of Hungarian agriculture wasn’t how I imagined spending my time in Budapest but it was slightly better than walking in the rain. After an hour, the sky cleared up enough for me to go outside and take some pictures of the magnificent gothic–style church across from the castle. The Jak Chapel was styled after a Benedictine church found in the town of Jak near the Austrian border. Next I wandered over to the statue of Anonymous which symbolizes the unknown author who wrote the first books on ancient Hungarian history. A local superstition states that touching his pen will bring you good luck so I did just that and it must have worked because the sky finally cleared and I was able to continue my tour of the city. I pulled out my map and tried to make my way to the Chain Bridge where I planned to cross the river and visit the palace. It looked pretty straight forward, all I had to do was walk in a straight line and I would reach the river. How I ended up back at the train station was an absolute mystery to me. Perhaps when I took the underground pedestrian walkway across a busy intersection I popped out in the wrong place. How could I have ignored such obvious clues? The fact that I passed the same McDonalds twice should have tipped me off. How the heck do I manage to travel all over the world without any sense of direction? There is a 90% chance that the thing I am looking for is in exactly the opposite direction of where I choose to walk. When I got back to the train station, I bought a book on Budapest to learn a little bit about the city while I regrouped. The three cities of Buda, Pest and Óbuda (Old Buda) unified in 1973 to form Budapest, the capital city of Hungary which occupies both banks of the Danube River. Nicknamed the Pearl of the Danube, it is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe attracting over 20 million visitors a year. It also has the world’s largest thermal cave system; a discovery made in 2008. For tips on visiting Hungary CLICK HERE
For tips on visiting Europe CLICK HERE For general travel tips on what to pack and how to plan ahead CLICK HERE For tips on travelling on a budget CLICK HERE |
Vajdahunyad Castle
Jak Chapel
Chain Bridge
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How to Get There - Fly into Budapest and do a walking tour of the city
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