Baths

The Baths

This is E writing.

We've had beautiful, hot weather in Budapest so we decided to spend an afternoon at the baths. Unfortunately kids aren't allowed unless they are potty trained, and L is doing great but isn't there yet, so A stayed home with the littles while R, S & I went to the pool. 

Budapest is a beautiful city, filled with interesting architecture, fountains and statues (less so of famous people and more like museum pieces of Greek gods, etc).  The baths were no exception.

Outside there were 3 pools. One large one was for laps but it was cold and required a swimming cap so we didn't go in. The other two were almost mirror images of each other and were very warm (31 C) and hot (35 C). I've never been in a pool that was hot tub temperature (almost), but it was pretty relaxing. Some people were playing chess in the water, others were just relaxing. We spent most of our time in the other pool which had a lazy river and some water massage stations.  It was fun.

Afterwards we swung back by the apartment and picked up A & the littles and went to a giant ferris wheel in the middle of town (the Budapest Eye).  It's not quite as large as the London Eye but it does have a good view. T decided he didn't need to go on so he and A played in the park underneath while the rest of us went around. L loved it, calling out "There's my T, there's my mama!" every time they came into view. We also went for ice cream again.

Pickle people

Every kind of paprika and paprika souvenir!

We are in Budapest now! We arrived Thursday morning and were able to check into our apartment right away, which was very nice. Also nice, our apartment is pretty much next door to a very popular tourist destination - the market hall. We went there to get something for lunch. The market hall is interesting because it is a huge old iron building and the stalls are all in sort of permanent booths. Because of that there are lots more meat stands than usual, which made the girls unhappy. The market is so big that there is an Aldi's grocery store in the basement. Because the littles were hungry E and R brought them back to the apartment while S and I went to Aldi's for some yogurt and drinks. However, the market is so big that once we got to the basement we had a hard time finding the Aldi's. First we had to pass many fish stands (I had smelled fish upstairs and couldn't figure out why. I was glad to see I wasn't crazy, or that the meat upstairs hadn't gone terribly bad, which seemed like the other possibility.) And there were pickle people everywhere! Here is the conversation you would have with S if you were here:

S: Name a vegetable!

You: (Your answer here)

S: Pickled! They pickled everything.

Some of the friendlier looking pickle people

Krakow Jewish quarter

The Schindler factory

After packing up and storing all our stuff at the train station, we spent our last day in Krakow in the Jewish quarter. We walked through the Kazimierz neighborhood and went to the Old Synagogue where there is a good museum which gave excellent explanations of the lesser known Jewish holidays. Finally I understand Shavuot. T loved taking pictures of the museum displays.

Puppets in a wedding scene

Purim rattles and scrolls, children's amulets

Water park, Polish style

This is R again!

We are adding pictures to the older posts, but we didn't take any pictures this day, so this will just be words. On Tuesday we went to a big indoor water park that was really really cool. From the minute we walked in we could see many things that we really wanted to do. I instantly grabbed S and dragged her over to a rock climbing wall that was in one of the pools. Then we noticed that there was a volleyball court and some balls around, so I went to ask Mama to play since she used to play. She, S, and I had a really fun game complete with Mama bumping the ball out of the volleyball pool, over the walkway, and into the kiddie area. While I went to retrieve the ball, S and Mama were worrying about the possibility of the ball landing on some poor kid's head. Luckily, no kids were hurt.

Salt mine

Wieliczka Salt Mine

This is E writing. About half an hour SE of Krakow is the 

Wieliczka Salt Mine. The mine was opened in the 13th century and operated continuously until 2007. 

A little exercise to start the tour

The tour of the mine starts with a long walk down almost 400 steps (over 50 7-step flights) to get to the first level of the mine. When the miners were working here these were narrow, slick steps (made of salt).  Now they are wood -- not so bad, but still a lot of walking, especially carrying L & T.