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Published: September 10th 2018
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Our last day in Budapest started with a short walk to the Great Synagogue on Dohany Street to start our tour of the Jewish Quarter.
This synagogue, the largest in Europe and second largest in the world, is also significant as a monument to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.
We started the tour at the Jewish Museum, which contains many beautiful donated artifacts, and then moved on to view the synagogue and the grounds which contain the Heroes' Temple, the graveyard, and the Memorial.
We visited the graveyard where over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during 1944-1945 are buried. The names of those who were able to be identified line the mass grave. To the back of it is the Heroes' Temple, which is used for religious services on weekdays and during the winter time.
From there we passed to the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park to view the famous memorial that resembles a weeping willow whose leaves bear the names of victims. We were told that the hollowed out commandment tablets signify that the people who committed these atrocities had no commandments.
The whole
visit was a fresh reminder of how many people died during that time, at least 400,000 in Hungary alone.
The Memorial in the back of the park commemorates Wallenberg and other people who found means to save many Jews.
Afterwards, we left the synagogue and walked around the neighborhood which these days is vibrant and full of life, with many murals decorating old walls, and new pedestrian malls of shops and eateries, as well as the famous ruin pubs.
We walked next to see the Rumbach Street Synagogue. We were not able to enter it because it's undergoing restoration. I was sorry not to see it, the interior is supposed to be exquisitely beautiful, domed and balconied. The outside was impressive enough, even covered in scaffolding. At least it was good to know that it's being renovated and not just left to crumble.
Our last synagogue visit was to the Kazinczy Street Orthodox Synagogue. It may be my favorite! It's also not active and supposedly the second level is in dangerous disrepair, but it was very beautiful, and I hope it will also get a chance to be restored without having to be sold.
We
finished our tour with a visit to a famous Jewish Bakery for a delicious dessert. Yum! I chose chocolate, of course.
Afterwards, we decided to explore the area a little bit and retraced our steps to one of the pedestrian malls we had visited earlier. The weekend market was still going, but it closed not too long afterwards while we enjoyed a refreshing drink.
We used the break to map out a couple of the ruin pubs for a visit, starting with the original and most famous one, Szimpla Kert. It was amazing!
They also had a Sunday Farmers' Market going on until 2 PM but it was mostly cleared by the time we got there, and all the bars in the place were opening for business one by one. The place has several! I never tired of finding new quirky details while seated over a second floor balcony. Every inch of the place is covered with anything and everything that one could get their hands on. Here, the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure is well displayed. I was enchanted by the gnome across from me, amongst disco balls, upside down chairs, lamp shades
and many other miscellaneous junk.
I could have probably spent the entire evening there, but decided to try another one, and we made our way to Grandio Party Hostel.
Being a hostel the crowd was definitely young, but the patio was lovely and shaded and I amused myself trying to figure out if the many shoes hanging from the trees were placed on purpose, or how many attempts some of the attendees might have had to place them there.
The evening ended at a restaurant in the area, with a very good meal and some good wine to go along.
Another tiring but enjoyable day, and I must say I was sad to say goodbye to Budapest the next day, for our next stop: Vienna!
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