Wandering Around Budapest

October 17^th, 2026

I lucked out with another gorgeous, sunny mid-October day so I decided to take advantage of it.  To start the day, I decided to walk to the Heroe’s Square, one of the major squares in Budapest.  It is located on the border of a large city park, and its main feature is the Millenium Monument, with statues featuring the Seven chieftains of the Magyars and other important Hungarian monarchs and national leaders.  The horse mounted chieftains were some menacing looking dudes, that’s for sure.

Walking through the streets of Budapest.

It’s a semi-circular feature with a column in the middle that normally has a 4.8 meter tall statue of the Archangel Gabriel, holding the Holy Crown of Hungary and the Apostolic Double Cross.  However, Gabe is currently missing.  It was recently deemed that he was a little precarious up there so there are working on fixing that problem, so for now, it’s just a column.

What it's supposed to look like with the Archangel.

The Seven Chieftains.

The other important guys...

I continued walking into the park which was quite busy as it was a Sunday.  I passed by a large, flat concrete area with a few buildings on the periphery, and I wondered what it was for.  I looked online, and in the winter it’s a big skating rink…cool.

The skating rink area.

Not sure what this Disney castle-like area was about, but I went for a short jaunt through it.

I just kept seeing the red and white balloon...like it was calling my name.

It was a pretty park.

Just like yesterday, I spotted another newlywed couple doing their photoshoot.

At first, I thought I’d just get a closer look at it for some photos and check out how it worked.  But then I thought, “Why not take a ride?”.  I walked up to the ticket booth, and the wait was about 40-50 minutes, but there was a spot by the entrance with a café and some tables outside.  I could enjoy a beer and do some blogging while I waited.  Perfect.

Called “Balloon Fly”, the massive sphere is filled with non-flammable, non-toxic helium gas that provides continuous, eco-friendly lifting power.  Rather than floating freely, it is securely anchored to the ground by a heavy-duty steel wire. It functions like an open-air lift, ascending straight up to a maximum altitude of 150 meters and returning along the same vertical line.  The basket below the balloon, well, it really isn’t a basket per se, but a circular, metal ring that could hold about 20 people.

Watching the balloon take off.

The balloon at its max altitude of 150 meters.

About to hop on.

Once we climbed onboard, the pilot made sure that we spaced out evenly so that the metallic donut would sit level below the balloon.  After a few minutes at altitude, the pilot told us to slowly walk around in the same direction, maintaining our distance to one another, so that everyone could soak in the views in all directions.

Houston, we have lift-off.

A happy passenger.

Check out the views!

Looking down at our takeoff spot.

Heroe's Square.

Scanning the horizon.

Budapest has many thermal pools, and this is one of the most famous ones called Széchenyi Baths.  Naomi suggested that I should visit it, but I knew I'd be bored after 10 minutes and it cost $45 CAD to enter so I decided to skip it.  She said it had a real 50s feel to it, which you can see by the building (maybe even an earlier era).  The pools range from 27°C–38°C.

Looking to the west.

That's the Biodome of the Budapest Zoo.

Yup, it was a good choice Dave!

It was definitely something different, and I knew that I didn’t need to go up the dome of the basilica as Balloon Fly took me more than twice as high.  Afterwards, I wandered through the park a bit but then found the metro station.  It was a tiny station with a tiny subway, but researching it later, this is the first subway line in Budapest.  It was actually constructed for the Millenium Celebration in 1896…no wonder it’s small.  The other three metro lines are more modern and the stations and trains are bigger.

Exiting at the St. Stephen’s Basilica stop, it was a two-minute walk to the cathedral, which was impressive, but I wasn’t bothered to pay to go inside. 

The square in front of the basilica.

Instead, a specific restaurant caught my eye, and it was already 2 pm and I hadn’t had lunch yet.  The place was called “Lángos”, which is actually a Hungarian specialty that Naomi told me I should try.  A lángos was historically made of the last bits of the bread dough and baked at the front of a brick or clay oven, to be served hot as the breakfast of the bread-baking day.  Now they are a common staple served up with a variety of toppings like sour cream and cheese, or in my case, I ordered one with Bolognese sauce and cheese.

My lángos...it was bigger than I expected.

This woman with her dog caught my eye as I was eating...

...I mean look at this poor canine.  Having to put up with a photo in front of the basilica while where his Gucci jacket and matching booties!

For the rest of the afternoon, I walked down to the Hungarian Parliament to get a closer look at its ornate exterior.

The Budapest Ferrari dealership I just happened to pass by.

That's a nice ride!

This was the Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation.

And across the park from the previous memorial is the Soviet War Memorial.

Looks like a good time to be had at the end of January!

Before I even got close to this statue, I guessed it was Ronald Reagan.  Even though he never visited Budapest, but the Hungarian people credit his administration's hardline stance against the Soviet Union, economic pressure, and Cold War diplomacy with helping end Soviet communist rule and the Iron Curtain in Central and Eastern Europe.

There's the goal, the Hungarian Parliament.

Not sure what the monument is, I just liked the look of the buildings behind it.

The backside of the parliament.

This is known as Kossuth Square, named after Lajos Kossuth who was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman, revolutionist and governor-president of the Hungarian State during the war of independence of 1848–1849.

Looking in the other direction from the parliament building.

It is an impressive building.

A 360 view of Kossuth Square.

The guy in the middle is Mr. Kossuth himself.

Some statue by the side of the parliament.

The front of the Hungarian Parliament.

There's no way to capture it all in one photo as the Danube is right beside it.

And another statue on the other end of the parliament.

Cute little car...looks like it would be fun to drive, but I'm guessing that it doesn't go very fast.

By the time I’d circumnavigated the biggest building in Hungary, it was time to head back to my place as it had been a long day.  Tomorrow morning, I hop on a train to Győr, a small city only an hour and a half northwest of Budapest.