Paprika, sour cream and a couple of Forints make Budapest

Some impromptu decisions in life, end up in beautiful memories. This is how Budapest happened to me. This city is as tiny, precious and as beautiful as a pearl.

Buda and Pest make two sides of the city separated by the Danube river and ever gorgeous series of bridges. Pest boasts the beautiful St. Stephen's Basilica to begin with. Now as magnificent as this beauty is, one of the most interesting facts about this Basilica is that alongside the body of St. Stephen (The founder of the Hungarian state) this place resides the body of Ferenc Puskás one of the most famous footballers of all times. YES! The happy people of this country think he deserves this honour, the happy people of this country, as much as they love football, can't play it and hence with their one and only starred player to go down in history resides with his remains in this Basilica.

The grandeur of this place lies in the rich Neo-Renaissance buildings all over the city. Strolling through the city and walking towards Buda we reached the iconic chain bridge, which adds an exuberant aura to this place. If you have the eye for it, you are likely to spot something visibly strange in the lions on this bridge.

The killer cold of January does not even remotely overshadow the beauty of this place. Having walked over to the Buda side, one walks into the most eye-pleasing Gothic Roman Catholic Mathias church. Buda castle is yet another remarkable place around here. Adjacent to the church is the Fisherman’s Bastion, this turreted fortress is extremely satisfying in its symmetry. The view of the city from this place is incredible. The climb was relatively motivating however; a layer of snow greeted us on our way down so much so that we LITERALLY slid our way down. I'd be lying if I say this was a pleasing experience. (OKAY! IT WAS :D)

The most joyful moment of the trip was when I learned this country is indeed paprika friendly with its food. The Indian in me was jumping with joy. Sour cream and paprika is present in most delicacies of this place. We tried some typical Langos and mulled wine to beat the cold that night. A little bit of walking on the Pest side, and we came to Szimpla Kert. This is indeed a special ruin Pub. These are places that were abandoned by the Jewish and people who now own these places decorated it with the most random things you can LITERALLY find on the streets, be it a broken television set, a lamp of no use or computer screens that were ACTUALLY nothing but trash.

The following day we went to the Széchenyi thermal bath, the most famous one in Budapest. This city offers a lot of thermal bath used by locals and they are a good option too. We were lucky to have experienced a light snowfall while enjoying the warm waters. I fall short of words to define this experience. Further in the day we continued walking down the Elisabeth bridge and up towards the liberty monument and the surrounding Gellert hill. This day was exhausting yet special.

Our beautiful trip ended with Kürtőskalács- a typical chimney cake and some take away packs of paprika to remember this place.

PS. I would totally visit this place again for it's cheap food, cheap stay yet the most promising energy that constantly drives the city.