Today we took the tram across Margaret Bridge to explore Margaret Island—or Margit-sziget, if you’re feeling Hungarian.
Before we even made it there, Remy spotted a bright blue sports car parked beside the bus stop. So naturally, our first sightseeing stop of the day was whatever kind of car this is:
Once we convinced him to leave the car, we hopped on the street car, crossed the Danube, and found another gorgeous view of Parliament on the bridge to Margaret Island. I have now taken roughly 600 pictures of this building from every possible angle, but LOOK AT IT:
Margaret Island is a big, mostly car-free island in the middle of the Danube with gardens, fountains, a waterslide park (sadly we didn’t know this before arrival *tears*), playgrounds, old ruins, animals and miles of paths. Basically, it has way more than I expected when we made the last minute decision to go there earlier that morning.
We started in the gardens, where the kids took off running through the grass and around the flower beds.
Then we found a playground, where both kids immediately took off their shoes because apparently playground rules are different in Hungary. They played barefoot for a while and added several new rocks to their growing collection.
We are now carrying rocks from multiple countries around Europe by the way. We packed our entire lives into 2 suitcases for a year of travel, but apparently we have plenty of room for gravel.
From there, we wandered through the ruins of a 13th-century Dominican convent. I could tell you about the history, or I could tell you that the kids mostly enjoyed running through the old stone walls and pretending they had their own castle maze.
We also found a Japanese garden with a fish pond where Remy almost instanly dropped his entire bag of goldfish. “They just wanted to be with their friends I guess?” – Olenna
The island also had a little wildlife park with birds, deer and an extremely tiny spotted fawn that looked approximately six minutes old.
Naturally, this was adorable enough to hold everyone’s attention for several minutes—but we had to keep it moving!
Margaret Island is large, and by this point we had been walking for a while. One of the great things about this island is that they have the option to rent a surrey – a four-person pedal bike – so we could “take a break from walking.” Before you ask, yes ours had a roof, but unfortunately no fringe on top as I was expecting – thanks for the false expectations, Oklahoma!
The kids climbed in and happily enjoyed their chauffeured island tour while Javier and I pedaled. They occasionally helped by turning the steering wheel in unpredictable directions and ringing the bike bell at times that were not always correct.
The surrey was actually a great way to see more of the island, although it was less “leisurely family bike ride” and more “surprise couples workout in the Hungarian heat.”
Still, we looked cute:
After returning the bike, we headed back toward our apartment and stopped at Time Out Market Budapest for dinner. We stopped there because we had a great experience at the Time Out Market Porto in Portugal a few years ago, but I have to sadly admit, this one wasn’t spectacular. I didn’t take a photo of the kids’ pizza, but it was basically sauce with a big glob of mozzarella in the middle – not even covering the full pie. Javi and I had traditional Hungarian dishes that were over salted….beers were 10/10 though, so it wasn’t all a loss. We’re trying to limit the number of times we eat at restaurants during this trip, so unfortunately the fact that it wasn’t great did kind of sting.
By the time we made it home, we assumed everyone would be exhausted, but the kids responded by putting on backpacks, attaching their “leashes” and crawling around the apartment pretending to be puppies. Always keeping us on our toes!
So, in sum, Margaret Island really does have it all—gardens, playgrounds, ruins, water slides, history, flowers, animals and family bikes. Everything except, apparently, a pretend puppy park park and fringe.
