Cruising down the Danube into Budapest

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So here we are now in Hungary, a rare new location for me. And what a change after a couple of weeks in Russia. Not that the latter was not interesting and enjoyable, but for all the recent changes, it is still not a carefree and happy place. Not too many smiles, no great willingness to help, with attitudes sometimes as cold as the weather. Whereas in Budapest, you feel as though the veil has been lifted. Almost summer weather again, a vibrance about the place, and greetings, smiles and offers to help from everyone.

But first things first. To get there, we had to first fly from St Petersburg to Vienna, where we stayed overnight, and then we took a 6 hour hydrofoil trip down the Danube to Budapest, via Slovakia. Getting out of Russia proved to be more of a hassle than getting into it, mainly due to the stringent attitude of the officials, but we finally got out without being arrested! No dramas on the flight to Vienna, where we took the super modern Airport Express train into the city and our hotel. A bit of a shock to get back to western prices in Vienna again, especially with the Euro now getting close to 2 Aussie dollars - it certainly curbs your appetite for drinking. The hydrofoil down the Danube was interesting, not so much for the scenary, but for the fact that the passenger list comprised almost totally Hungarians, who saw a need to drink away the boredom of the trip, thus providing quite lively company despite the fact we couldn't understand a word each other said! We did however manage to get some feel of the history of the region through sightings of a number of castles and old churches in Slovakia and the early part of Hungary.

A little bit of history for you. Hungary took a heavy toll in WWII. After an uneasy alliance with Germany, this ended in early 1944 when German troops occupied Hungary. These were eventually pushed out a year later by Russian troops, but by this time, they had lost over half a million people and three-quarters of the buildings had been demolished. Hungary continued under Soviet rule for 8 years, with brutal repression and forced public displays of loyalty, until finally in October 1956, 50,000 students and workers marched on parliament and toppled a statue of Stalin in Heroes Square. This protest snowballed into a popular uprising, which eventuated in the Red Army bringing in the tanks and crushing the resistance. Over 200,000 residents fled the country, including one of my old teachers, who escaped in the undercarriage of a train, with only the clothes he wore. The Soviets installed their own leader, but surprisingly, he proved an agent for liberalisation, which began slowly but finally progessed to where they are today, a democratic republic, and member of NATO and the EU.

Budapest is really a combination of two cities, Buda and Pest (pronounced 'Pesht'), which are divided by the Danube. The former is the historical region and contains the Old Town, while the latter is more the commercial centre and contains most hotels, offices, banks etc. We found that it was much more of a city for strolling around, just taking in the atmosphere and the fantastic old buildings, than visiting specific tourist attractions, as we did mainly in Moscow and St Petersburg. Or maybe we are just a bit museumed and churched out (are these real words?) after Russia. That is not to say it doesn't have its prime attractions, but the terrain is flat apart from the Citadel and Castle Hill and once again we were fortunate to have sunny, but not too hot, weather. The former of these was constructed by the Austrians after the Revolution of 1848 as a lookout point to the adjacent Castle Hill, but it has now been renovated and contains a tall Liberation Monument that looks down over the entire city. Castle Hill, on the other hand, is not as high but a much greater area, and contains the impressive former Royal Palace (where the original Buda Castle once stood), which looks down over the Danube onto Pest. We figured the best way to see the city was to take one of the city tours that allowed "hop on, hop off", that gave us great coverage without wearing out several pairs of shoes. The attached piccies give some idea of the ground we covered in our all too short three days here.

Sadly, we lost our travel companions in Budapest. For personal reasons, Joy and Peter had to return suddenly to Sydney, so we will have to do our long awaited visit to the Adriatic without them. They were great company for us during our Russian visit and we look forward to the chance to do something similar down the line.

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