Ten Days in Budapest

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The past ten days that I've spent in Budapest are best described as a holiday within my trip: a lot more time was spent playing card games in the hostel's courtyard than was spent actually doing anything noteworthy. Nonetheless, I'll try my best to sum my stay up into an interesting blog entry.
Hungary made no great first impression upon me as I crossed the border from Croatia: its landscape is unremarkable and flat - not dissimilar from that of northern Croatia - and the train passed only through small, bleak-looking villages. Eventually we reached Lake Balaton, which is the largest lake in Central Europe. The lake is sausage shaped, long and thin, and the railway runs parallel to it, so from the train one could see that it was not far to the other side, but it took what felt like hours until we had passed it (only emphasized by the train's plodding pace and frequent stops). Approaching Budapest I was greeted by unattractive Communist-era high-rise apartment blocks, a sight now familiar to me, similar to the outskirts of Sarajevo and Zagreb. However the centre of the city is generally very attractive, littered with historic buildings. Conveniently, the city centre is also very compact, with everything that a visitor needs to see within walking distance. Nonetheless, upon leaving my train I did manage to get quite lost, and I quickly learned that English is not widely spoken by Hungarians: asking people in the street for directions bore little fruit (23% of the population of Hungary speak English, less than any other country in the EU). Of course, in the end I found my hostel, which was staffed by two Irishmen, a Scot and an Australian, meaning that language barriers were nonexistant.
One of the first things we did was climb up Castle Hill, which is (unsurprisingly) a hill with a castle on top; the castle itself is not especially interesting, but the hill provides a great view over the Danube and the city. Particularly impressive is the Országház, the Hungarian parliament building, which is apparently the second biggest parliament building in Europe (after the UK's Houses of Parliament) and is strikingly beautiful overlooking the river and facing Castle Hill. We also visited St. Stephen's Basilica, a very attractive Roman Catholic cathedral which interestingly looks more Orthodox than Catholic due to its dome and décor. The focal point of the Basilica is the mummified hand of its namesake: Stephen I of Hungary, who in 1000CE became the first person to hold the title "King of Hungary" and in 1083 (50 years after his death) was declared by the Vatican to have been a saint. Another impressive and important historic building to be found in Budapest is the Dohány Street Synagogue, which is today the second-biggest synagogue in the world (the largest being in New York). The building dates back to the 1850s and it was damaged but not destroyed by the Nazis, so although it has had a lot of restoration work carried out since, it is still the original building. Next door to the synagogue is the house in which Theodor Herzl (a journalist and writer who is widely seen as the founder of modern Zionism and thus indirectly the State of Israel) was born; this building now houses the Jewish Museum.
One of my favourite parts of Budapest is Városliget (City Park), a 302-acre park to the north of the city centre. This park incongruously plays host to a fairytale-style castle, Vajdahunyad-vár, which was originally constructed in 1896 out of cardboard and wood as a sort of art exhibition, but proved so popular that it was reconstructed out of stone and brick as a real castle. Scattered throughout the spacious, wooded park are also several sculptures, statues and works of modern art. By the entrance to the City Park is Heroes' Square (Hősök tere), a wide open square containing a huge monument; the first time that we went there a group of uniformed Hungarian soldiers were marching there, which was interesting to see. Another pleasant park is located on Margaret Island, a 225-acre island in the middle of the Danube. This park notably contains a "music fountain": this fountain has hidden speakers playing classical music, and somehow the water springs out according to the music, with huge bursts during climactic crescendos and just small trickles during quieter reprises.
One of the most bizarre things that I've done on this trip so far was my visit to Aquaworld, a waterpark on the outskirts of Budapest. Although it is a fairly standard waterpark, with various flumes, diving boards and different pools, the strange thing was that we arrived at around 22.00 and that it did not close until the early hours of the morning (we only stayed a couple of hours, but other people from our hostel stayed much longer). It was pretty odd, a waterpark being open and packed full of people in the middle of the night, with the lights dimmed and loud music playing everywhere. One might expect such an event to be attended chiefly by tourists attracted by the novelty factor, like I was, but surprisingly the vast majority of people there seemed to be locals! I suppose it's a perfectly valid way to spend ones Friday night!
However I would have to say that the best thing that we did in Budapest was visit the Citadella (a fortress built in the 1850s) atop Gellért Hill, which is located slightly upstream from Castle Hill but is significantly higher, providing fantastic panoramic views over the city. Before climbing Gellért Hill I considered Budapest to be a very small city, but from this vantage point I realized that although everything of interest to the average visitor is located within the compact city centre, the urban area sprawls out for miles. I should be able to upload a few photos of the view from here at some point over the next few days.

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