This series will go country by country through my two-year trip. I plan on sharing some experiences, thoughts, and photos of each country that I visited.

Country by Country 08: Hungary

I had a few days to kill in Budapest, Hungary before my dad arrived from the USA. For the most part, I walked around and took photos. Having read up on the scams in Budapest, I skipped the strip clubs. I did go to a casino one day and lost my gambling money pretty quickly. I went out to ruins bars on several of the nights that I was there.

The ruins bars are unique to Budapest and are my favorite thing there. I love weird shit and the ruins bars a stuffed to the gills with weird shit. I went to the same bar 3 times (called Instant), and each time I discovered whole new dance floors and bars. The places are like labyrinths.

After my dad arrived, we took a train to Croatia the next day. We went to several countries that I'll post about in the next few days. My dad's flight back to the USA was out of Budapest (so was my flight to Greece), so we had to return. On the way to Croatia, the train stopped at a lakeside town named Balatonföldvár. The place looked so picturesque that we decided to spend a night there on our way back to Budapest. I'll include a few of those pictures in this post.

So, without further ado, here are some of my photos from Hungary.

Budapest has some unique architectural styles that can't be found anywhere else. The city is a little run down and it seems poor compared to a place like Vienna. Here you see a beautiful building that has chunks of plaster missing.

I can't get over all of the little faces and creatures that decorate the buildings in Budapest. If you don't like these kinds of detail shots, you might as well move on to the next post. This one's going to be packed with boring photos like this one.

I could spend hours looking at buildings like this.

My favorite church, St. Stephen's Basilica. I'll have some interior shots lower in the post. I'm not really one for churches, but there seemed to be something magical about this place. It's the most impressive church that I visited, and I visited a lot of churches on my trip.

There's something about these guys holding up buildings in Budapest. To me, they're a symbol of the human condition.

A lovely door.

I didn't go into this church due to a wedding. The outside of it was incredible.

I love the way this church was decorated. It looks like it was decorated in lace instead of stone.

Here are some of the wider shots that I took in Hungary.

I spent a lot of time on the bridges in Budapest.

St. Stephen's in the background

Fisherman statue in Balatonföldvár.

Here are some of my photos of the interior of St. Stephen's Basilica. This was one of the few times when I wished I had brought a real camera on my trip. I've got one for my next trip.

I've never seen this style of stained glass before. So cool.

There's something about the style of this church that makes it my favorite. When I did the Vatican tour in Rome, the Map Room was my favorite. There's something about these ceilings that I can't stop appreciating.

Finally, here are some photos of the art and weird shit that saw.

There are other busts next to this bust. But this one has a girl adding laurels. I kept coming back to this area to take pictures of it. Something about piece draws me to it.

I believe this is a door at St. Stephens.

I have way too many photos of street lamps.

Ruins bar art. The bars are so dark that my phone couldn't get many good photos. This post is going too long to include those low-quality photos. You'll just have to take my word that the ruins bars are weird as fuck.

So there ya have it. Hungary! Budapest was a great place to visit. The prices were lower than its western neighbors, and the city is gorgeous.

Stay tuned for the next post when I visit Croatia with my dad.