What a good nights sleep! My mini-apartment has air conditioning! And no one else snoring, or coming in at all hours, or turning lights on in the middle of the night. So it was a peaceful night!
And it’s much cooler today – in the low 60s this morning under partly sunny skies. Makes everything better! So Budapest is growing on me. In the partial sunshine of this morning, and zooming around on a scooter, the city is looking up! Some beautiful buildings, decent bike paths, and the lovely Danube River all combine to make Budapest more of what I expected. Still not Vienna or Prague, but looking up.
Budapest, Hungary’s capital, is bisected by the River Danube. Its 19th-century Chain Bridge connects the hilly Buda district on the west side with the flat Pest area on the east. In 1849, Buda and Pest consolidated to became Budapest.
I took another free walking tour in the morning. Our Guide, Zoli, was interesting — loud (that’s good and bad), funny, flippant, colorful, and swore like a sailor the whole time! The kind of guy you can only tolerate in small doses – and a 2 1/2 hour walking tour is not a tolerable small dose! While the tour and sights were good, Zoli is officially off my list of top tour guys. Saved me some money on a larger tip.
Hungarian is a very difficult language that is dissimilar from almost all others. Hungarian has 14 vowels and 25 consonants! I tried just to keep up with: hello, goodbye, please, and thank you.
We started in a square in the old Jewish Quarter and headed out.
Statue of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Member of the Hungarian House of Wittelsbach. Elisabeth, nicknamed Sisi or Sissi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Famed for her beauty, she was a celebrity of her day who set fashion trends and loved horse riding and travelling.
St. Stephen’s was completed in 1905 after 54 years of construction. It is named in honor of Stephen, the first King of Hungary, whose right hand is housed in the reliquary in the Basilica.
Michael Jackson came to Budapest in 1994 and stayed at the hotel across from the memory tree above. After he died in 2009, fans created this memorial with photos and memorabilia.
In 2014, the Hungarian government built the below “Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation.” It was meant to commemorate the Nazi takeover of Hungary that occurred on March 19, 1944. The memorial shows the archangel Gabriel, representing Hungary, being attacked by a Germanic eagle with the year 1944 on its ankle, set against a backdrop of broken columns.
However, the Hungarian government at the time was complicit with the Nazis and the monument was widely criticized for downplaying the Hungarian role.
An Anti-Monument was created in front of the government monument and tells a different story, pointing out the government’s collusion with the Nazi’s war atrocities.
The typed statements are interesting to read.
Farther along in the same park is a tall obelisk style monument in honor of the Soviet liberating forces in World War II. It’s another monument that was not well received by many after the long occupation and influence of the Soviets over Hungary until 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down.
That monument was eventually surrounded by trees on three sides to make it less visible, and less likely for continued vandalism. By the way, that monument to the Soviets is also less than 100 yards from the American Embassy! And there are life size bronze statues of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush nearby in the park!
A beautiful building that is also the 3rd largest Parliament building in the world after those in Romania and India!
Following the tour I headed down to the river for lunch on a docked river boat.
My short Danube River sightseeing cruise after lunch was enjoyable. Here are some photos.
The building above is the Bálna, meaning “Whale” in Hungarian, and it’s a shopping center, art museum / gallery, meeting space, dining area, and cultural center. It was originally called the CET, an acronym for Central European Time, but the distinct shape led to the rather apropos “Whale” moniker.
They were innumerable day sailing vessels along the river, as well as many formal river cruise ships, including five Viking ships alone!
A big draw in Budapest is Margaret Island, a 1 1/2 mile long island park in the middle of the Danube. One of the city’s bridges takes you there or any number of river cruise boats. Running and walking trails, fitness facilities, shops, restaurants, etc. It is a very popular with the residents and with visitors.
I did not get the chance to visit another of the popular and iconic sites in Budapest – the geothermal pools and bath houses. I’ll have to save them for my next visit.
Tomorrow it’s a 8+ hour train ride to Krakow, Poland.
Words of wisdom, or just to amuse…?
To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.
A Captain’s Adventures 