Weekend Walks- Rózsadomb and Bits of the Second District

This was a walk we took in the weekend prior to becoming 100% involved with Sziget, so that is my grand excuse for posting them only now, but let’s say they are still relevant for a possible August 20th festive walk away from the celebratory throngs.

We started off from Moszkva square- where the newly opened Zing Burger establishment proudly sports the real name of the place. While we’ll grumble about the renaming till the end of the time, we must give it to the urban planners involved in the renewal project that fresh life was injected into a place which was looking ever more grimy and depressed.

From there we wandered into the mostly unknown, namely the sleepy residential areas of Rézmál and Rózsadomb- although there be no dragons here,  at least not at first sight, we found some pretty castle-ish edifices peering out defiantly from the greenery. We also startled some lizards and at least one cat, for the residents of the area themselves seemed to have retreated to the privacy of their hillside dungeons and mercifully taken their dogs too.

Although not all those who wander are lost, we most definitely were, and went full circle around Gül Baba’s türbe instead of taking the straight road to it- the türbe itself is sadly still closed to the public, but at last we could indulge in the somewhat startling presence of Gül Baba street, which has a decidedly Istanbul vibe. A few streets onwards, however, we felt as if we stepped into Paris, and here I will come to the point where I muse on how part of Budapest’s charm is that it has so many things going on within it, sometimes almost side by side.

After some caffeination in Törökméz, which, in spite of them name does not serve Turkish coffee, but pretty good Italian one, we descended towards more familiar grounds and went cloud hunting along Fő street, which is always a welcome alternative when you feel a bit overwhelmed by the sights of the Danube promenade on its left.