2014, what a year!

2014 was a busy but great year!
It was a year of lots of traveling:

• New York - every year must include a trip to the Big Apple, where we had the chance to go to a football game, ate dumplings in Chinatown's oldest tea house, had a pretentious dinner in the Meatpacking district, jumped on the tramway to Roosevelt Island and walked though the High Line in the cold.
  

• Shanghai - finally visited Asia! and it was a very interesting trip, cuturally and gastronomically, from beautiful temples to gardens, not forgetting the super modern skyscrapers and the ancient towns. We even had a coffee at a replica of Friends' Central Perk bar!
  

• Hong Kong - The second part of the Asian trip, and probably my new favorite city: dim sum, a beautiful skyline, dim sum, gardens, dim sum, temples, dim sum, boat rides, dim sum, etc - and a quick visit to Las Vegas of the East, Macau.
  

• Andalucia - a hot road trip in one of my favorite places in Spain after a stop in Cordoba to visit the breathtaking Mosque, we headed to Seville and found a nice shadow under the trees at the Real Alcazar gardens and the Plaza de España arches - and oh, the food!
  

• A quick stop in Copenhagen to finally visit the famous Carlsberg brewery
  

• A second visit to Budapest, where we discovered fantastic restaurants, bathed in thermal baths night and day and also visited some cultural and touching sights.. and drank lots of Tokaji :)
  

• I still have to write about a weekend we spent at the beach in Rimini, another one in Barcelona, Hamburg, our first visit to the Snails Festival in Cherasco and also about a Mexican Paradise... so stay tuned for 2015!

2014 was also a year with lots of food:

• Michelin-star restaurants, like the new location of Alice inside Eataly Smeraldo in Milan, the yummy (and cheap) dim sum from Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong and the newly appointed Borkonyha in Budapest.
  

• Street food and markets everywhere! From the Milanese taco bar experiment and the street food temple, the festive atmosphere at a Hong Kong market restaurant, the lobster rolls palce under the Plaza hotel in NYC, the food markets in Cordoba and Seville and the cool street food island in Copenhagen.
  

• also Bars, from the funky ones like Szimpla Kert in Budapest and Garlochi in Seville, to the cool views of Shanghai's Hyatt Vue Bar, not forgetting the fine wine bars like Cultivini in Budapest and N'Ombra de Vin in Milan
  

And lets not forget the hotels like the Buddha Bar in Budapest and the toilet we won't forget :), the views of Seville's rooftops from the Hotel Fontecruz,  the modern Eurostars Palace in Cordoba, the comfortable 99 Bonham in Hong Kong, the Swissotel Shanghai and the weird gas mask in the drawer and even the nearby (but great if you have an early flight) Sheraton Malpensa.

But mostly, I will remember 2014 because the blog has finally started to be featured in other websites, newspapers and guides, and I couldn't be happier about this! There were the interviews with ExpatsBlog and Cheryl Howard's blog, my tips on the Radisson Blu Milan's blog, the feature on Die Zeit's Milan guide and my first article published on Matador Network (also in Spanish)! 

Happy holidays and a great start of 2015 to you all!

Hugs,

M.

Snapshots of Budapest

Random photos of cool places in this cool city.

St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest

No visit to Budapest is complete without seeing the famous St. Stephen's Basilica.

Pesti Diszno, Budapest

Cute bistro nearby Budapest's opera house specializing in Hungarian classics and pork dishes.

New York Café, Budapest

The fanciest place for a coffee in Budapest.

Thermal bathing experience in Budapest

Trying the thermal baths in Budapest should be in everyone's to-do list while visiting the city.

As you might recall from this post from a couple of years ago, we were positively surprised by the thermal baths in Budapest, we thought the experience was going to be difficult and probably meh, but we found ourselves back home still thinking about how nice it was so as soon as we booked our tickets to go back to the city for some days, my research about the baths began.

Borkonyha Wine Kitchen, Budapest

I already knew there was good food in Budapest, but we were pleasantly surprised it turned out to be really good, I mean, Michelin-star good, so of course a visit to the recently awarded Borkonyha Wine Kitchen was mandatory.

Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest

An interesting tour of the largest synagogue in Europe and one of the world's largest.

Szimpla Kert, Budapest

Why is Szimpla Kert one of the coolest bars we've ever been to? Keep reading and watch the photos!

CultiVini, Budapest

This cool wine shop/bar/gallery kept us coming back for more everyday durnig our stay in Budapest, with great Hungarian wines and an interesting concept.

Borbíróság, Budapest

Surprisingly good meal right by Budapest's Grand Market Hall.

Borbíróság is a cute restaurant in a quiet square just next to the bustling Market Hall - that's where their ingredients mainly come from.

Buddha Bar Klotild Palace, Budapest

A great stay in this modern hotel hosted inside a beautiful historic building.

The cool Buddha Bar Hotel in Budapest is hosted inside the beautiful Klotild Palace, right off Vaci Utca, Budapest's main shopping street, right outside the Ferenc Ter metro stop and minutes away from the city's main sights.

Bathing in freezing Budapest

Last winter we decided to visit Budapest, a city I've always wanted to see. Whenever we go somewhere we try to do what the locals would, and a local wouldn't get a cab from the airport to the city center if there's (cheap) public transportation. So that what we did, we took a bus from the airport to the nearest metro station and then we took the metro which dropped us on the corner of our hotel. Using public transportation gives you a greater view of a culture. The first glance of Budapest by bus and metro is not as charming as this beautiful city actually is, landscapes are a bit post-communism but it was in no way Milan's subway (people shouting on the phone, pushing, unaware of the fact that they disturb others forced to share that reduced space with them), Budapestians are not loud and they mind their own business.

 The city is beautiful, full of culture, places to see and activities to experience. Divided by the river Danube in Buda (the old town) and the newest Pest, it was one of the most important cities of the Austro-Hungarian empire, full of beautiful monuments, museums and history.
As in every trip-planning, I found an interesting activity for our Budapest stay (apart from the baths): Opera. It's amazing how cheap it is to get a ticket for Budapest opera! I think we paid like 2 Euros for a seat, okay, it was in the highest part of the theater but the acoustics were good and we got a better chance to admire its wonderful ceiling while listening to beautiful music. If you are interested, I got the tickets online from this website.

Opera House

 After the Opera we managed to get a table at Klassz, (Andrassy ut. 41 - no reservations) a nice restaurant just in front of the Opera house in the classy street of Budapest. This restaurant is also a wine bar recommended by the Hungarian wine association, so it was a must for us. Atmosphere was nice, crowded but not noisy, service was just OK. The food was very good: goulash soup, venison and lamb, paired with hungarian pinot noir. The bill was approx 20 euro per person (2 soups, 2 main courses, water and 2 glasses of wine, tip included). We came back the following day to have a glass of Tokaji, Hungary's most famous dessert wine, definitely worth it!
We enjoyed sightseeing, opera, food, wine, our hotel, etc. but the real gem of our trip were the baths! Budapest boasts a long tradition of bathing, in fact there are public baths all over the city, some very luxurious (Gellert), and some very old and authentic like Rudas so that's where we went to! If you want to try the real Bath experience in Budapest you should definitely visit Rudas baths. The whole bathing experience is great: we were there on a Sunday morning (there are days in which both women and men can use the baths together, check before going), the weather outside was freezing (-7°C) and we felt like a hot bath and massage. We got a ticket with a cabin at the entrance and booked a massage. They give you a bracelet (like a Swatch) that contains info of what you paid for (massages, etc.) and is also your cabin key. When you get to the dressing rooms area you put your swatch on a machine which will tell you your cabin number. There are 5 pools with different water temperatures in the main dome (from 28°C to 42°C, I think), showers, a steam bath, a sauna and a relax area. The massage was not that relaxing, they are really strong but after it we felt very relaxed! We enjoyed the experience so much that the following day we visited Szechenyi Baths, one of the largest spa complexes in Europe with outdoor thermal pools and lots of indoors pools, sauna, steam bath and jacuzzis. The place is huge and it was also a great experience (especially taking off your bathrobe at -4°C and then jumping into a 42°C pool - and getting out!) but we somehow liked the starkness of Rudas better.

Szechenyi Baths

 Our hotel was also great, the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus. The hotel is centrally located, near the main attractions on the Pest side of the Danube. Modern building, very professional staff. Rooms are spacious and clean. free Wi-fi connection in rooms and hall, fast. Breakfast was delicious: omelette station, typical products, sparkling wine, fresh fruit, etc. Great spa and indoor pool. Since they had just opened Nobu in the ground floor of the hotel we decided to try a drink after dinner. Drinks and food are OK, service was over-polite; prices are expensive for Hungary, still cheap compared to Nobu in Milan.

view from our hotel room

 The sight I liked the most was the Memorial on the Danube Promenade: it is a series of sculptures of shoes along the Danube bank (near the Parliament), it represents the shoes of the Jews who fell into the river after they were shot by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen during World War II.

Danube Promenade Memorial

 Of course I loved the Parliament, the Castle and the views of the city reflected in the Danube, the market and don't make me mention the Christmas market in Vörösmarty Square and the delicious glühwein (mulled wine)! the all-you-can-eat buffet at Trófea Grill (so cheap!), the tramway rides around town to find the baths, the Vajdahunyad Castle, the Basilica.... I could go on and on.... Beautiful city, great food, history and Tokaji!

Parliament

Great Market Hall

Pest from Buda

St. Stephen's Basilica

Update: check out the folder "My Maps" to see a map of Budapest with all the spots in this post: http://www.tfoodie.com/p/my-maps.html