I walked myself Hungary!

Wow, Budapest is amazing!  It's a gorgeous city that has so much history.  It's very old and some places look tired.  It's clear when looking around that Budapest has had a tough life. 


I'm Rich!  Hey big spender!

We arrived yesterday afternoon after an easy train ride from Vienna.  The country was beautiful and looked just like a patchwork quilt.  As soon as we got off the train we were confronted by people selling tour packages, rooms for rent, and taxis.  We headed to the tourist information booth first to get a map and find the nearest ATM.  Even though Hungary is now a part of the EU, it has yet to adopt the Euro.  They still use the Hungarian Forint, which is a little scary to me seeing how one Euro is 284 HUF.  So when I ordered dinner the first night, my meal cost over 3000 HUF which is just a little over 10 Euros.  I've never felt so rich seeing 10,000 bills in my wallet.   

I am the Queen of Maps!


Anyways, we took a cab to our hostel, which has a prime location right in the middle of the city.  After checking into our hostel, we decided to just wander around and orient ourselves with the city.  I'm traveling with two girl friends and we all have a particular job on our trip.  Elizabeth was in charge of booking the hostels, Hannah is on train departure and arrival times including which trains, and I am directions girl once in the cities.  I have an excellent sense of direction and am pretty competent at reading maps.  So far, we have all come through with our tasks. 

So we wandered into what's called Buda which has the old castle and cathedral of the city.  We had to take a mixture between and train and a cable car up the side of the cliff to get to the castle.  It was really pretty and from our vantage point we could see all the city spread out below.  We found a Hungarian restaurant and asked our waiter what the local specialties were.  I learned that Hungary is known for paprika, red cooked cabbage with apples, and potato dumplings that look like gnocchi.  Not to mention a whole list of baked goodies that we will be sure to try out before we leave.


So good!

I had a veal stew over a bed of dumplings and it was so good.  While wandering back to our hostel, we stumbled upon a triathlon in progress.  It turns out that this weekend there is a huge triathlon with athletes from all over the world competing.  We were right in the middle of it and it was fun to be in the crowd hearing everyone cheering for different countries.  Whenever someone from the US ran by, we screamed extra loud. 

Once back at our hostel we met our roommates, a group of guys from Scotland.  It turned out that the hostel had a scheduling error and there wasn't enough beds for everyone.   The guys kindly offered to share our beds, causing us to laugh in response.  We told them that two of us would share a bed and the third would sleep on the couch.  This was actually to our advantage because we then got the night for free.  Before calling it a night, we headed out with our new friends to check out the night life.  Coming in for the night, we were met with a Bachelor party in full swing.  We met some nice locals and laughed the next morning when not all of them remembered meeting us.  Our hostel provides breakfast in the mornings which gave us the opportunity to get some advise on what to do and see while here.


Palace with booths for the Wine Festival

Sunday, we left with the intention of going to the National Hungarian History Museum.  On our way, we not only saw day two of the triathlon, but also a huge international wine festival.  Well, since we're here to experience the local culture, we decided that the wine festival needed our attention.  I tried many good wines and now have a souvenir wine glass.  We found out that this festival was the 90th anniversary.  There was food and live music and the best part was that our admission to the festival included the history museum and the national museum!  It was the perfect day!
 

Me with the Royals

I learned so much in the history museum about Hungary. Hungary was constantly switching leaders and belonging to different empires. It was conquered by the Romans, who built baths at all the thermal springs which still stand today. The Romans were pushed out by Attila the Hun. The name Hungary comes from this era and just stuck with the country. With the death of Attila, the Huns fled and the Franks and Turks started to settle in the area. The Ottoman empire controlled Hungary for the longest time until the Hapsburg of Austria took over in 1686. As part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungary was introduced to western European culture. When Austria was taken over by Prussia, Hungary was as well. Many revolutions were attempted but none were successful. Hungary entered WWI with Austria and Germany. They were declared a republic in 1918 after the end of the war, but were on the losing side of the war and therefore stripped of two thirds of their territory. Wanting to gain this land back and rise in economic power, Hungary joined Germany again in WWII. Hungary was liberated 1945 by the Soviets. Communism ruled Hungary until 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall. It was then declared Republic.



My new home...in my dreams



It was interesting to read all the plaques in the museum. They were in Hungarian, German, and English. It was obvious that they were not written by a native speaker, but instead were translated. Though the words made sense, the sentence structure was very amusing. We found this throughout the entire city. For example, the English version of "open 24 hours a day" is "open non-stop."  And phrases like 'mind the gap' in the subway were 'watch feet'.

Budapest itself was two separate cities, Buda on the west of the Danube and Pest on the east. They decided to join as a center of commerce in 1873. At first the newly joined city was called Pest-Buda. The castle we toured is called the Buda Castle and was a favorite place for Empress Elisabeth of Hapsburg to stay. Her and her husband Josef were crowned in the Saint Matthias Church which is a short walk from the castle. Both buildings were simply stunning. The Church is Gothic in structure but then painted in the baroque fashion. There is a wall surrounding the church called the Fisherman's Bastillon. From here, the view of Pest across the river is amazing. In the market square by the church, we found a shop that specializes in marzipan. I love marzipan and this was the best marzipan I have ever had! It was so good and there were so many different flavors! They also had all these cute figurines made out of marzipan.

Elizabeth and I at the Fisherman's Bastillon

 

Elizabeth striking a pose


 

Me with Hungarian Santa

 Monday, we made our way to the Parliament Building. This building has more spires and towers than the castle across the Danube. Next came the Vajdahunyad Castle. This is known as the schizophrenic castle since the buildings are all in a different style. There is baroque, Tudor, Romanesque, and Gothic all within yards of each other. It was fun to see. There was this huge statue of Anonymous, who was a guy said to be in charge of records. The statue was done all in black and the figure was seated with a book and a pen with a hooded face. We decided he was trying to be Santa so we all sat on his lap and told him what we wanted for Christmas.  In order to get to this park, we had to ride Europe's oldest underground. This train was very old and we were a little surprised it was still working. I think I held my breath the entire ride praying silently that the engineers in 19th century knew what they were doing. Every noise made me wince, but we made it out alive. The train deposits you in Hosok Tere, or Hero's Square for those of us who don't speak Hungarian. This had a huge statue celebrating a conquest, not sure which one.  

In front of Parliament



Hero's Square

Inside the Synagogue

We tried to go to the Terror House museum, but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays. This museum specializes in accounts of spying and atrocities. It follows Hungary's tough times during WWII and under the Communist regime afterwards. Instead, we toured the Opera House and then stopped for some lunch. Afterwards, we headed to the largest synagogue in Europe. The only one bigger is in New York. This synagogue survived the war mostly because it was located in the ghetto of Budapest.  This place was beautiful and breath-taking! The courtyard has been made into a memorial garden. Jewish tradition does not allow the removal of a body once it has been buried, so during WWII those who died in the ghetto were buried in mass graves in the courtyard. They believed that this would keep them safe. Now, the courtyard and garden are full of tombstones of those laid to rest there. It was sad to see the dates and realize how short some lives were. There was a small museum at the back of the synagogue that was dedicated to those Hungarians who had helped the Jews during the war. We ended the day strolling the streets at the market.

Overall, a very successful trip to Budapest. I learned a lot and had a ton of fun. Now, I'm off to Brno in the Czech Republic.