Budapest

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We travelled to Budapest from Valtice on Good Friday which, surprisingly, is not a holiday in either the Czech Republic or Hungary. We drove 10 km from Valtice to the larger town of Breclav, handed our hire car over to the man from Hertz and eventually caught the Euro-City train to Budapest. The first hour or so of the trip was standing room only as it appeared that all of the university students from Brno were heading home to Bratislava for the Easter holidays. They eventually departed the train and we were able to find a seat and travel in comfort.

For the first half of the trip the countryside was relatively flat and in places so flat that it reminded me of the Darling Downs, except there weren’t any eucalypts to be seen. Eventually we started to travel through hills before eventually travelling alongside a steep-sided valley with hill/mountain on one side of the train line and the Danube on the other. We followed the Danube for quite a while and at one location we could see old fortresses on the mountain top and a second fortress down by the river – this was near a town called Visegrad about 2 hours from Budapest and close to the Slovak-Hungarian border. We seemed to pass through Budapest suburbs for quite a bit although this was no doubt exaggerated by the fact that our train waited for a good 20 minutes on the outskirts before continuing the journey into the terminus. After travelling through the incredibly clean and tidy (litter-free) Czech Republic I was surprised by the amount of litter lining the train tracks coming into Budapest and it was apparent that some people were living in squatter camps close to the rail line - I should mention though that the bit of Budapest that we’ve seen is extremely clean and litter free. We eventually made it into Budapest Keleti station, found our way to the Metro and then our local station. When we walked up from the underground our first sight was the Danube with the Hungarian House of Parliament on the opposite bank; a 3-minute walk took us to our Budapest home for the next 5 nights on the Buda-side of the river. Directly opposite our apartment is the Calvinist Reform Church which was built in the 1890s and has a roof covered in multi-coloured tiles, similar to the spectacular Matthius Church further up castle hill. The church is in a square/park called Szilagyi Deszo ter, adjacent to that part of the river where Arrow Cross members massacred the city’s Jews and dumped their bodies in the river.

We decided that our first day would be spent exploring this side of the river and so we walked along the river to the Chain Bridge before walking up the Royal Steps to the Royal Palace and other attractions in the Castle district. The Royal Palace is now home to the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum, neither of which we visited, but the views out over the Danube and Pest are magnificent and it was very enjoyable walking around the old streets and people watching. At the other end of the Castle District is the Matthius Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion. By the time that we arrived at the Matthius Church it was closed (we intend to go tomorrow) but the Fisherman’s Bastion was interesting; surprisingly it wasn’t all that old having been built in 1905. It gains its name as it is built on the site of the Middle Ages fish market and because this part of the castle wall was defended by the Fisherman’s Guild. We’re both wondering why the fish market was at the top of the castle hill rather than down by the river, but I guess that it has something to do with taking your produce to where the customers are. On our way home we descended through areas of apartment buildings with a number of small parks and playgrounds built on terraces between the streets.

On Easter Sunday we had a late start as Terry was suffering from “Budapest Belly”. Eventually we made our way across to the Parliament House in the hope that we may fluke getting a guided tour but by the time we arrived they were all sold for that day. We wandered around the large square adjacent to the Parliament, “admired” the various statues/monuments and the War Memorial. Budapest is full of statues of various types, ranging from those commemorating kings and saints to playful ones such as the fairy tale statue in the local park. However, the most moving statue is “Shoes on the Danube”, just along the river from Parliament. This is a memorial to the Jews who were rounded up in the winter of 1944 by the ruling Arrow Cross Party. They were forced to strip naked on the banks of the Danube and face the river; a firing squad then shot the prisoners at close range in the back so that they fell into the river to be washed away.

From Parliament we walked along the river to the Chain Bridge and then walked through the pedestrian area to Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. The cathedral honours King St Stephen who was the chap who founded the state of Hungary in 1000 A.D. and whose right hand is housed in the reliquary. Our first impression on entering the cathedral was “Wow”, followed by “Whoops, Easter Sunday Mass is still happening”. We decided that in the interests of respect we should leave with the view of returning later. From there we walked through other parks and squares, past the heavily fortified US Embassy (no photos allowed) and to the Hungarian State Opera House. The Opera House was built in the late 19^th Century, funded by the city of Budapest and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary.I think they said that it was not allowed to be larger than the Vienna Opera House and so it’s a little smaller, much more beautiful and has wonderful acoustics. On our tour we saw the main foyer and stairway, smoking hallway, Royal Stairs/Entrance, entrance to the Royal Box and the auditorium itself. There is a huge amount of gold-leaf decoration with 7 kg used in the auditorium itself. Following the tour of the Opera House we walked through the Jewish Quarter to the Great Synagogue in the hope that it may still be open. No such luck, so back to St Stephen’s to continue our visit.

We’ve seen a few churches and cathedrals over the years now and this is certainly one of the best. It’s not huge and was built relatively recently, in the mid-late 1800s with completion in 1905 from memory. The cathedral has quite a high dome and the builders/designers had a few problems with its construction as the first dome collapsed while the cathedral was being built. Apparently the dome was also burnt down during WW2 and rebuilt in 1948-49. The interior of the cathedral is pinkish brown marble complimented by brown-grey marble, gold leaf and some pretty impressive artworks in the dome and above the alter. It was after 5:00 when we left the cathedral and so we had an early dinner before walking back home as the lights of Budapest came on. The City lights up the historic buildings and bridges and so the night time views along the river are spectacular.

Easter Monday has been a public holiday in Hungary and so we decided to catch a train to a smallish town called Szentendre which is 19 km north of Budapest and in an area called the Danube Bend. The town used to be an artists’ colony but now is a tourist haunt with wall-to-wall souvenir shops, cafes and a few galleries. The town started out in Roman times, was invaded by Mongols in the 1100s or there-abouts and eventually became home to a community of Serbian Orthodox Christians who fled there to escape Turkish invaders. Consequently there are a few Serbian Orthodox Churches in the town also. We had a pleasant few hours out there walking around the narrow, winding streets, I purchased a few small Hungarian souvenirs and we eventually caught the train back to Budapest late afternoon.

We’ll, it’s now a day since I wrote the above and we’ve had a chance to do a bit more sightseeing. Last night I purchased online tickets so that we could do a guided tour of the Parliament Building. Out tickets were for the 12:00 session so we caught took the train from the Buda side of the river to the Pest side of the river (1 station), exchanged the receipt on my phone for 2 paper tickets and then spent the next hour or so hanging around waiting for the tour. After a coffee we wandered around Kossuth ter, the square that is adjacent to the Parliament Building. The square itself is named after Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the 1848 Revolution against the Habsburgs. However, more poignantly, this is the location of the October 25, 1956 Hungarian Uprising where thousands of peaceful demonstrators were fired upon by snipers from the surrounding buildings while Soviet tanks lined The Square. We spent a bit of time visiting the memorial to the victims of the Uprising before making a dash back to Parliament to join the 12:00 English language tour. We spent a bit of time going through security but once that was completed we climbed 120 stairs to the main floor of the Parliament building. When the building was built Hungary had a bicameral parliamentary (an upper and lower house) system but since the fall of Communism the new Parliament is a unicameral system with just a single house. As part of the tour we managed to see the main staircase, the Dome Hall and Crown Jewels plus the old Upper House. From memory, the building itself was built in the late 1800s and like many other Budapest landmarks was opened/built to commemorate the millennium of Hungary as a nation. The building is the 3^rd largest parliament building in the world (after those in Bucharest and Buenos Aries), is richly decorated in 40 kg of gold leaf and the marble walls are a lovely pink marble that came from the present-day Slovakia which was then a part of the Hungarian Empire.

Once the tour was over we once again walked along the river to the Chain Bridge, crossed that and then walked up the castle walls to the Matthius Church. The church is named because King Matthius Corvinus married 2 wives there. I think MC’s claim to fame in Hungary is that he ran the Ottomans out of the country and he also imprisoned Vlad Dracula for 8 years or so. The church was built in the late 14^th century but received major renovations in the late 19^th century and also in the last decade or so. It is an ornately decorated church and there doesn’t seem to be square centimetre that isn’t covered in some form of motif or frescoe.

We have an early start tomorrow and fly to Bucharest, hopefully arriving there around lunch time. We will meet Terry’s son (Gary), daughter-in-law (Oana) and grandson (Christian) there. Our first 4-5 days will be spent meeting Oana’s family, sightseeing in Bucharest and enjoying an Orthodox Easter with Oana’s family.

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Photos

Calvinist Reform Church and Szilagyi Deszo ter
Our apartment was in one of the old buildings at the back of the church.

Parliament House from Castle Hill, Buda
Taken with a long lens.

Kids playing on a small statue in a local park.
Terry helped their grandmother lift the little boy up onto the statue.

Little Princess Statue - Budapest
Royal Palace is in the background.

Shoes on the Danube sculpture - Budapest
Many of the shoes contain pebbles (as per Jewish tradition), candles and other mementoes.

Szabadsag ter - Budapest
One of the large squares surrounded by various government owned banks, US embassy etc

Comments

[Warren]

Budapest
Great commentary on Budapest Deb. So looking forward to going there!