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Published: January 31st 2008
Leaving Italy we headed to Vienna, Austria to base ourselves for the next several days and the christmas holidays. One of the first things we did when arriving by train in Vienna is book another train to Budapest, Hungary for a day, with our friend Tristan that we were staying with in Vienna. Budapest is actually two cities (Buda and Pest) on either side of the Danube River that were united in 1873 and most of the city sights are on the Pest side where we stayed.
On December 22nd we took an afternoon train to Budapest and after settling ourselves at the Goat Hostel we headed out to explore the city for the night. You all should know that Budapest was freezing at this time of year, we definitely needed our skiing (snowboarding) clothing paraphernalia! First, we headed for the Vörösmarty ter Square (the main square of the city center) where a huge christmas market was going on. It was great to explore the market and check out all the people selling hot wine, sausages (all kinds, hundreds!), and christmas items. We also walked down to the Danube River and everything was all lit up along the water and it
looked really beautiful! After our stroll, we picked out a restaurant to eat at and tried our hands at Goulash! Here is a trivia question for you: Goulash actually comes from the word gulyas in Hungarian and it means cattle herdsman!
The morning of the 23rd we woke up to more freezing weather, so we bundled up to brave the outside! We had breakfast at a little cafe and then headed to Castle Hill on the Buda side of the river. Castle Hill is a small city in itself. We visited the Mary Magdalene tower and then set our sights on getting out of the stinging cold at a cute cafe in the busy main square of Szentharomsag ter. After a sufficient warm up, we went to the Matyas Church which is now a 19th century recreation of the 13th century church that stood there originally. This church has also been a mosque during the Ottoman occupation and it survived the siege of 1686 bringing the Ottoman rule in Hungary to an end. Inside the church was quite beautiful with huge columns and gold leaf in places. The outside unfortunately was covered in scaffolding (there is a pattern here emerging
with churches in Europe)! There was also a large statue of King Stephen riding a horse in the front of the church I guess to remind everyone that it was him who forced the people to be Catholics.
Next, we moved on to the Buda Palace which was built by Bela III after the 13th century Mongol invasion. Since then more grandiose structures have been added and lots of reconstruction had to be done after the bombing of World War II. There was a really beautiful fountain there as well that had hunting scenes in marble in it. To get down the hill from the castle, we took a 19th century funicular or Siklo (a train car that goes up and down a steep gradient) to the bottom.
Back across on the Pest side our second to last stop was St. Stephen´s Basilica which was also beautiful with frescos painted on the dome ceiling. Our last stop before the train back to to Vienna, was the House of Terror. The building at #60 Andrassy üt street used to be the headquarters of the secret police for both the Nazis and the communists and now is a museum or tribute rather
to the victims of these terror regimes. The House of Terror is a sobering place as you see exhibits pertaining to the Nazis and Stalin and the 1956 uprising. You are also able to see the underground cells where "political prisoners" were kept and interrogated (most never left). Now, it was time to head back to Vienna, but Budapest was an awesome place, one we could have spent much more time in.
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Melanie
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So Jealous!
You guys look like you have had such a great time from all the photos and blog entries. Just wanted to send some love from the states and wish the best on the rest of your travels!