Budapest 22nd - 26th

Our first impression of Budapest civilians was slightly tainted after an altercation with our Hungarian ticket checking lady on the train. Nevertheless it makes a good story. The 100pound woman, who looked like a bulldog, decided she was Hitler and we were the Jews. We knew there was a problem when she hesitated reading Joel’s Eurail Train Pass, she then got out her black biro and started to cross out the dates and change them. Sarah who had read the Eurail booklet inside out immediately jumped up and said to Joel ‘don’t let her write on that it’s a legal document and it makes it invalid’. Unfortunately it was too late, the damage had been done, she then asks to see Sarah and my Eurail passes, well we were not about to hand them over without a fight. You see the problem was that she thought 2010 was written as 2030, which to any normal person does not make sense; otherwise we would be travelling in the future. So picture this; Big angry Hungarian lady yelling in a foreign language something about ‘give me the tickets OR ELSE…” and Sarah and I having a tug war fight with the ticket saying “I don’t give you permission to write on this”. Well she was not about to back down she grabbed the tickets, wrote all over them and then gave us a big fine each. We were furious, but powerless to do anything. So the rest of the afternoon, which should have been site seeing, was spent trying to replace our Eurail Passes and cancel the fines. The lady we were dealing with in the main support office laughed and couldn’t work out why we were fined and was extremely apologetic for the trouble it caused us.

So we reached our hostel finally, and it really was a great place, centre of the city. That night we went for a long walk around the river and the city looked amazing with all the lights shining brightly on the monuments.

(Chain Bridge)

(Parliament house)

Excited about our new destination we planned to do a walking tour the following day. We met our tour guide out the front of the Opera house and she began telling us about the history of Hungary and Budapest. I was in shock as she told us that there have been many wars in the last century and Democracy was only achieved in 1990. The Hungarian people have suffered immensely and were victims of the Nazis’ and communism which lead so many innocent people to their death.

We learnt that the cities of Buda and Pest were unified with the erection of Szechenyi Lanchid (the Chain Bridge as it was nicknamed) in AD 1111. They are sharply divided by lifestyles and place of same. Buda owns the leafy hills, Castle area, Thermal Baths and roaming nature trails. Pest is mostly described as down town heaving with traffic and modern motion. On our tour we explored the Pest side and ventured towards Hero’s Square.

(Hero’s Square)

We were introduced to the Art Novae style that is used on a lot of the buildings, and the famous Thermal Baths. We met Mr. Anonymous (unknown person who wrote a lot of stories about the history of the city) and found ourselves watching him, while he watched us in the central courtyard of this representative castle of Hungarian architectural styles through its many fads.

(Mr. Anonymous)

(Thermal Bath)

(Representative castle)

The following morning Sarah and I went for a long walk up to the Citadella on top of the Gellert Hill. It had the most amazing view of the entire city (once you climbed a million steps to the top, it was worth it though!). We then went to visit the Great Market hall at the Pest end of Liberty Bridge to combine shopping with site seeing. It was built in 1897 and was a three story hall that had everything from fresh food to traditional clothing stalls.

In the afternoon we went to the "Terror House". Having survived two terror regimes, it was felt that the time had come for Hungary to erect a fitting memorial to the victims, and at the same time to present a picture of what life was like for Hungarians in those times. The House of Terror Museum - the only one of its kind - is a monument to the memory of those held captive, tortured and killed in this building. The Museum, while presenting the horrors in a tangible way, also intends to make people understand that the sacrifice for freedom was not in vain. Ultimately, the fight against the two cruellest systems of the 20th century ended with the victory of the forces of freedom and independence

(Hanging room)

(Basement)

(One of the amazing interactive rooms in the Museum)

The next day we went to visit Buda Castle, it also had amazing views and some great architecture.

We continued our journey through to Fisherman’s Bostion another main landmark and viewed the Mathias Church with was a beautiful building.

On our last day we just strolled around the city absorbing the sites and tasting local Hungarian cuisine. We found they like to cook everything with ‘croquettes’ or any other variety of potato dishes. Overall I really liked Budapest, the river dividing the two parts of the city made it very picturesque. We did not have any more bad encounters with Hungarian people, in fact they were all really lovely and helpful. Due to their odd currency we felt rich and literally spent millions (1€ = 270), its funny how we have entered a couple of countries that are part of the UN and do not use euro’s. It worked out ok, and kept our brains working as we constantly did currency calculations. All in all I would definitely recommend adding this city as a travel destination, as there is so much to do and see.