As sad as we are to leave end our Iceland adventure, it’s time to continue Tour de Rempala. We arrive at the airport in Iceland. Budapest, here we come!

We board the plane and there are a surprising amount of groups on the plane with us. We’re flying a budget airline–Wizz Air–which offers absolutely no amenities, not even a seat that reclines. This means all beverages and food must be purchased. They also have a kitschy magazine that offers on-board purchases of things like Calvin Klein watches and Hugo Boss cologne.

After chatting with my seat mate, I understand nearly everyone on board are Icelanders headed for vacation to Budapest, not Hungarians going home. I guess after I spent a week falling in love with Iceland, I couldn’t fathom anyone wanting to leave. But, I quickly learn that when you live in a country where a “cheap” sandwich costs $15, you feel like a king pretty much anywhere else.

Assumably a little overexcited about their new found instawealth, the Icelandic passengers buy the entire plane out of everything. Literally everything. Wine, sandwiches, chips, the kitschy Calvin Klein watches and Hugo Boss colognes that are for sale in the inflight magazine. When wine costs you $17 a glass in your country, of course you’re going to lose control.

Stephen is seated across the aisle from me amongst a boisterous group of Icelanders. This group of eight or so people drank 5-7 wines each, two of which got spilled all over Stephen. This wasn’t the best flight we’ve ever had, but we do make it to Budapest in one piece, albeit smelling like booze.

Ruins pubs

Our AirBNB is located in the Jewish Quarter neighborhood, which has a healthy mix of bars, restaurants, street food and people.

Rick Steves doesn’t have an audio tour for Budapest, so we take our chances and download a random tour. Unfortunately, it was a complete bust so we quit about halfway through and branch off into our own walking tour of the Jewish Quarter bar persuasion.

The first place we stop is Yellow Zebra, which is recommended to us by our friend Kim. After a beer, we walk across the street to a little zone called Street Food Karavan. There are so many cool trucks to choose from. We settle on burritos and sit down at a communal table to enjoy it. As we people watch and get familiar with our surroundings, we realize that Karavan is right next to the original ruins pub – Szimpla kert.

As we firmed up our travel cities for after we got back from Kansas City, all of our recommendations for Budapest included going to Ruins pubs. The story goes that in the early 2000s, a few friends were searching for a place to hangout. They set up a makeshift bar among the buildings of Budapest’s Jewish Quarter, which was left completely devastated by the destruction of WWII and the Holocaust. Of course, because they were broke, they slowly started to fill their space with upcycled furniture procured from dumpsters and attics. The trend picked up and now there are ruins pubs throughout the whole neighborhood.

We end up going to Szimpla another day because by the time we finished our dinner, the line to get in was nearly around the block. Here are the Ruins bars we visited while in Budapest:

Instant – This was much more of a club than what we were anticipating. We walk into an open air courtyard between two buildings. Lights are wrapped around trees that grow up through the dance floor and Motown music plays from a DJ booth at the far end of the space. There are doors and hallways and stairs all along the buildings, and at first we are unsure where we’re allowed to go. We order a drink and then cautiously start to explore. And I’ll tell you, if there is a door and it’s open (sometimes if it’s just unlocked), you can go there. There are themed rooms, more bars than we can count, bands and DJs, and bizarre things everywhere. It was really cool and definitely worth a visit.

Füge Udvar – This Ruins bar has a dive bar feel. It’s also located in an alley between two buildings. It mostly serves the Hungarian equivalent of PBR. We play a few games of foosball, observe a group who has just completed a scavenger hunt, and feel “sort of” like locals.

Szimpla – Though not as sprawling as Instant, what it lacks in mazes, it makes up for in decor. This place is bizarre and on another level of weird. One room is covered in old TVs that just play snow on the screens. Mannequins hang from ceilings. We came here for a beer around happy hour time, and we quickly realize it’s full of tourists. People gawk and take photos. The drinks are a little more expensive than the other two ruins pubs, but the atmosphere is so quirky and cool, that it’s worth the visit.

Budapest baths

Beneath most of the country of Hungary flows hot, natural springs. For centuries, the people of Hungary have harnessed this natural resource and it became a pillar of Hungarian culture in the form of public bathing.

The famous Budapest baths are used for relaxing, health and socializing. We do a little research and decide to try the Rudas Baths. It sits on the Buda side along the cliffs of the Danube river. It has a rooftop pool that boasts a fantastic view of Pest, so we head there in the early evening with hopes to catch the sunset.

Rudas Baths is also one of the few bath houses in Budapest that still segregates men and women. Luckily, on the weekends both genders are allowed throughout the spa. When we arrive, we’re given a rubber bracelet to wear which gives us access to the areas we’ve payed for. We’re directed to an open locker room and it was a little difficult to figure out who is allowed where. We play it safe and stick to the benches and lockers that we think are in the mixed gender area. After we change in private changing stalls, we grab our towels and follow the signs toward the pools.

To get to the wellness pools, we walk through an olympic sized swimming pool with a few people swimming laps. It’s an elaborately decorated with beautiful tiles that reflect the style of the Ottoman empire, which ruled Hungary for 150 years. In the wellness pool areas, there are five pools labeled by temperature. They range from 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) at the warmest to 19 degrees C (66 degrees F) at the coldest. There is a sign that tells you how to take full advantage of the health benefit of the pools, which includes a ritual of sitting in the 40 degree water for 50 seconds, submerging yourself in the 19 degree water for 10 seconds, repeat, and then head to the 36 degree C shower for 90 seconds. Wait five minutes, and then go for it again.

We do this a few times and it was rejuvenating. I feel 10 years younger! After chilling in the more mellow 34 degree pool for a little bit, we head upstairs to sit in the 360 degree rooftop pool and catch the sunset over the city while sitting in a natural hot tub with 30 strangers.

Budapest monuments

During our walking tour, we come across several monuments that are covered in what is clearly protest signs. This isn’t uncommon as we’ve seen this in other cities, but most of the time the signs are all in the local language and we aren’t sure what the protest is about.

In Budapest, the largest protest we saw had explanations posted in about a dozen languages. The monument was put up by the Hungarian government as a memorial to those who lost their lives during the German occupation of Hungary. The protest is due to the fact that the Hungarian government was the first country to buddy up to Germany and the Nazi party, and in fact, the lives lost that the monument memorializes were actually the lost due to the full cooperation and efforts of the Hungarian government. In addition to the printed explanations, all in front of the monument were the personal belongings of those who were victims of this time.

This is a facet of WWII that I hadn’t been exposed to before, and it really got me thinking and analyzing what life must have been like for the countries who were actually aligned with the German Nazi Party.

Oh, and We Ate Food

Warsaw

Warsaw was a short but worthwhile trip for us. We found a cheap flight from Budapest a few months back and booked it on a whim. As the flight nears, we debate whether we should actually go. At this point, we had made plans with our friend Dayne to meet up in Prague, so we’d only be in Warsaw for about 48 hours and will be leaving Budapest after only a few days. We decide to go ahead with the flight and after a short one and half hour flight we land in Warsaw.

We walk through the city center to our AirBNB and take in the spirit of a city that was practically completely destroyed and 800,000 of its civilians murdered by the Nazis. There’s barely a shred of evidence of this devastation, and we download a free walking audio guide in hopes we get some deeper information. Alas, also another bust that took us around to church after church after church. We also quit this one early and search for food instead.

Every single meal we ate in Poland included pierogis. Pierogis with mushrooms, pierogis with meat, and my personal favorite, pierogis with blueberries. Yum!!

We jump back into the museum scene

To make the most of our short stay in Poland, I was eager to check out the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising. Unfortunately, it was closed both days we’re there, so we decide to check out the Copernicus Science Museum instead.

This museum consists of more than 400 interactive science demonstrations. It was really fun to recall the science classes where I learned all of these theories and laws. Some of our favorites included:

Copernicus Science Museum

This museum was so cool, I couldn’t help but think about how much fun my nieces and nephews would have had. And as someone who’s chosen career path has very little to do scientific theories, I had lots of fun too!

It Was Bound to Happen

We leave Warsaw on a very stressful note…we almost missed our bus to Prague! The bus station was far enough that we needed to take an Uber, which took longer to arrive than we thought.

Our ride to Prague is more than 10 hours and we aren’t sure if we’ll have another bus that will leave that day. We cannot miss this ride. As our Uber approaches the station, Stephen jumps out of the car at a stoplight and runs to try catch the bus. We arrive to the platform at the exact time the bus is supposed to leave, and by some wonderful luck or fortune, our bus is five minutes late. We jump into our seats, swearing up and down that we’ll never cut it this close again.

Prague!!!

Prague has been on both of our travel lists for a long time, but we’ve been on a bus for the entire day (which after nearly missing it, we are VERY grateful for) and are wiped, so we relax at our AirBNB and prepare for the next few days.

The next day we eagerly head out to explore the city. It’s September, which means fall, right? Sort of. Prague puts in a valiant effort. Fake leaves adorn the market booths. Vendors are starting to serve mulled wine. The only problem is it’s still about 80 degrees outside. I’m desperately craving fall, but the ambiance will have to work for now.

An Unexpected Ancestor

Luckily for us, Rick Steves and his free Audio Europe app are back with a Prague walking tour, so we don’t have to risk getting another crappy one from a random app. Thanks Rick, you da best. We start the walking tour in the morning while we wait for Dayne to arrive.

Who’s Dayne, you ask? Dayne is a friend from Kansas City who recently moved to Stockholm to work for nine months. He’s a traveler too, so when he said he wanted to meet us in Prague, we knew we were in for a fun time.

Our walking tour takes us through the main parts of the city, starting in Wenceslas Square in the New City and working our way down to St. Charles Bridge.

Prague’s most famous landmark has to be it’s astronomical clock. Our friend Sandra has raved about this clock for years. She told us there is nothing else like it in the world. It’s been running constantly for more than 600 years. It displays the moon cycles. There is tons of hype surrounding this magical timepiece.

As I round the corner of the famous city hall to get my first glimpse of the clock, I’m greeted with a blue tarp, chainlink fencing, and a giant sign that says UNDER RENOVATION. The entire clock is completely shrouded from view. This thing has been ticking every second for the past 600 YEARS and the four days I’m in the city, it’s under renovation. My luck.

Next up, time for a little family history lesson. On my mom’s side, my grandpa is Swedish and my grandma is Central/Eastern European. My grandma’s family migrated to Kansas in the late 1800s. We’ve always been told that our heritage is Bohemian, which is a region that is now part of modern day Czech Republic. My grandmother’s family is all very traditional Catholics, and one story that’s been passed around from my mom’s cousins is that one of our ancestors was a priest who was burned at the stake.

Now, back to Rick. As I’m following Rick’s walking directions through the Old Town square, he mentions a name that quickly grabs my attention. He has started giving the history of a monument in the middle of the square that contains a statue of a Czech theologian named John Huss. The reason this name catches my attention is that it’s also the name of my great-grandfather, my grandma’s dad. Turns out the 14th century John Huss from the statue (Jan Hus) is the ancestor my mom’s family talks about. He is considered the first church reformer, and is largely responsible for Protestanism and the Bohemian Reformation. He was in fact burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

Dayne visits

As we wrap up our walking tour, we get a text from Dayne saying he’s on his way. We meet at the AirBNB, spruce up, and head to Lokal for beers and sausages to start of our weekend the proper Czech way.

The three of us eat and drink our way through Prague for the next three days. Here are the highlights:

We try all of the foods. Ham from a spit. Some sort of cabbage potatoes. Mulled wine. Sausages. Goulash. And beer. Lots of beer.

We explore all the nooks and crannies of the city. We hit up the castle, the John Lennon wall, beer halls, cocktail bars, food markets, and hit up most of the items on Atlas Obscura.

Our most notable day was Saturday. I take a few minutes while we’re getting ready for the day to check out what’s going in the city. I don’t find much, but I read about a trendy neighborhood called Vinohrady. This neighborhood usually has something going on during the weekends, so I round up the guys and make our way to a restaurant I picked out to see what the day has in store for us. As most of our great adventures begin, we hear music in the distance. So as we do, we abandon everything and follow it. At first we’re unsure what the festival is for, but we surmise that it’s simply a celebration of the local businesses located in the neighborhood. There is a wide representation of street food, handcrafted goods, live music, adorable dogs, and lots and lots of people. We get some drinks, get an obnoxious spread of foods and post up at a table to people watch. We’re not there long before someone comments on the KC shirts the guys have on. We spend the rest of the afternoon mingling with our new friends, drinking wine, and buying ridiculous jackets (Dayne).

After the festival we start to make our way back to our AirBNB in the Jewish Quarter. A few minutes into our walk and I construct a brilliant plan. We’re going to karaoke. I usher our little trio to the nearest karaoke bar and we spend the rest of the night making new friends and getting our performance on.

Our last day in Prague is spent in the sunshine. Dayne catches his plane back to Stockholm and Stephen and I post up at a park waiting for our bus to our next adventure…Serbia.