The travels of Tim and Megan: Budapest, Hungary

Friday

On Friday night after work, we met on the underground and headed out to the shiny, new Terminal 5 at Heathrow, which is quickly becoming our favourite terminal ever. Aside from being shiny and new, there are no queues, plenty of staff…it’s almost “efficient”! The 2.5 hour flight to Budapest was fairly painless, aside from Megan again getting stuck next to Mr Elbows – seems he’s always going on holiday where we’re going! We got a shuttle from the Budapest airport into the city and arrived at our hotel, the Mercure Budapest Museum, at around 1am Hungarian time.

Saturday

We were a little slow getting going on Saturday morning. We had booked in for a walking tour of the city, which started at 10.30am, so we left the hotel about 9.45am and wandered towards the Vorosmarty square, grabbing some breakfast from a café on the way. Our hotel was in a perfect location in central Pest (east side of the river), very close to metro stations, close to the Jewish quarter, where there are plenty of good bars and restaurants, and close to loads of attractions.

The walking tour was really good. We had a large group, but there were three tour guides and they interchanged quite well, taking turns to talk about different things. Budapest is a beautiful city, similar to Prague in that it has a river running through the middle of it and it has beautiful buildings and bridges.

Vorosmarty square was a good place to start the tour, as it features all of the different styles of architecture in Budapest. There were a couple of beautiful old “Baroque/classical” style buildings in the square, separated by an ugly communist era building and there was a modern style building from the last 15 years as well. So we got a snapshot of the contrasting styles of architecture all in the one place. Then we were off – to another little square by the river, where we heard a bit about the history of Budapest and Hungary.

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe, bordered by Austria and Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south and Slovenia to the west. Its capital is Budapest - Buda is the part of the city on the western side of the Danube River and Pest is the part on the eastern side. Hungary became a member of the EU in 2004, although it still has its own currency, the Hungarian Forint. The official language is Hungarian, which is part of the Finno-Urgic family of languages, thus one of the four official languages of the EU that are not of Indo-European origin, and extremely difficult to learn!

In the 1st century AD, the Romans conquered the area as their province of Pannonia and soon established the settlement of Aquincum. For the next 800 years, the area was ruled at different times by the Huns, the Goths, the Longobards and the Avars. In 896 AD the Magyars swept into the region and laid claim to what would later become the Hungarian state. In 1000 AD, Istvan I (St Stephen) accepted Christianity for his people and was crowned king with a crown sent from Rome by the pope. Following the Battle of Mohacs, the Ottoman Turks ruled for nearly 150 years, after which there was a period of Habsburg rule. From the 15th to 18th century, development of the region entered a new age of prosperity. The 19th century was dominated by the Hungarians' struggle for independence and modernisation. The national insurrection against the Habsburgs began in the Hungarian capital in 1848 and was defeated a little more than a year later. In 1867 the Reconciliation brought about the birth of Austria-Hungary.

World War I brought the Golden Age to an end. In 1918 Austria-Hungary lost the war and collapsed; Hungary declared itself an independent republic. In 1920 the Treaty of Trianon finalised the country's partition, and as a result, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory and inhabitants. In 1944, towards the end of WWII, Budapest was partly destroyed by British and American air raids. Budapest suffered major damage caused by the attacking Soviet troops and the defending German and Hungarian troops. More than 38,000 civilians lost their lives during the conflict.

In 1956, peaceful demonstrations in Budapest led to the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution. The Leadership collapsed after mass demonstrations, but Soviet tanks entered Budapest to crush the revolt. From the 1960s to the late 1980s Hungary was often satirically referred to as "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern bloc, and much of the wartime damage to the city was finally repaired. In 1989, the Communists were ousted and Hungary at last regained control of its own affairs.

After some background information on Hungary’s history, we strolled along the edge of the river, where we could see the massive Royal Palace sitting proudly in the Castle District and the Liberty Monument on top of Gellert Hill, on the Buda side of the river.

We also got a close-up view of one of Budapest’s most famous statues (the city is rammed full of statues and monuments), the “Little Princess”. The Little Princess statue was made by Marton Laszlo in 1989 and it sits on a fence next to the tram line that runs along the river front. It looks like a little boy, but it is actually a girl wearing boys’ clothes. We were told that it is good luck to rub the princess’s knees – we were told all sorts of strange things about touching various statues throughout the city! But we rubbed her knees – so good luck is coming our way!

The walking tour continued through the pretty streets of Pest and we saw a number of interesting statues, fountains, buildings and monuments, including the “padlock tree” (see photo below). There is a small tree in one of the squares with a triangular metal frame around its trunk and, over the years, a tradition has built up, whereby people in love attach a padlock to the frame and then walk down to the river and throw the key into the water, such that their padlock is locked to the tree frame forever, as a symbol of their eternal love! There were literally hundreds and hundreds of padlocks, many with names or initials of people carved into them! Very funny.

The next stop was outside St Stephen’s Basilica (named, obviously, after St Stephen, the first king of Hungary, whose right hand (allegedly) is housed in a chapel inside the basilica. It was completed in 1905 after 54 years of construction. Much of this delay can be attributed to the collapse of the dome in 1868 which required demolition of the completed works and rebuilding from the ground up. The basilica is 96 metres tall, exactly the same height as the Hungarian Parliament building (equal tallest buildings in Budapest) to emphasise the equal importance of the church and the state within Hungary.

Just down the street from the basilica is another popular statue, a bronze policeman with a bushy moustache and a big belly (see photo below). Our tour guide told us that if women wanted to get pregnant one day, they should rub the policeman’s belly for “good luck”…

Next up we headed for Buda on the west side of the Danube, via the beautiful Szechenyi Chain Bridge (photos below). The Chain Bridge is a suspension bridge that spans the Danube between Buda and Pest. It was the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Budapest, and was opened in 1849. On the Buda side of the river, we climbed up Castle Hill to the Castle District, which is home to the Royal Palace, the historical castle complex of the Hungarian kings, first completed in 1265. From there, we had magnificent views down across the river and over Pest. The Castle District is famous for its Baroque and 19th century houses and public buildings, many of which are painted in bright colours.

The tour of crazy statues continued in Buda, as we were shown a rather phallic water fountain and then a fairly normal looking statue of a horse, aside from its very shiny balls – caused by initially students, but more recently anyone and everyone, upholding a tradition of climbing up to the base of the statue and touching the horse’s balls for…you guessed it, good luck…

The tour concluded with a quick stop outside the Matthias Church and the Fishermen’s Bastion. Construction of the Matthias Church was started in 1255 in Gothic style. The north tower still preserves some parts of the original church. Under the reign of King Matthias it was enlarged and renewed. The king’s coat of arms with the black raven is still visible on the south tower, which is why the commonly used name of the church is the Matthias Church! For six centuries the church was Hungary’s coronation church. The first king crowned here in 1308 was Charles Robert and the last was Charles IV of Habsburg in 1916. During the Turkish occupation it was converted to a mosque, and after the reconquest of Buda it was reconstructed in baroque style but it still preserves some of its oriental atmosphere.

The Fishermen’s Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic style situated around the Matthias Church. It was designed and built between 1895 and 1902. Its seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled in the area in 896. The Bastion takes its name from the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages.

After the tour, we had lunch at a nice place just along from the Matthias Church. The food was really good and we sat outside on the footpath – it was a lovely hot, sunny day and the pretty cobbled street in the Castle District was so peaceful. However, being one of the major tourist areas, we were treated to tourist prices too! After lunch, we continued to explore the Castle District on our own.

We stopped in at a wine tasting place tucked in behind the Royal Palace. Hungary produces a lot of wine (we were told a few times that Hungary is a wine country, not a beer country!). The quality of wine is actually pretty good, although very little of it is exported; most is consumed by the Hungarians, who enjoy a drink or three! We tasted four different wines – the Sauvignon Blanc and the rose were average, but the red and the dessert wine (Tokaji) were really nice.

We then got a closer look at the huge Royal Palace, which is very impressive from the outside, but apparently not so exciting inside. The palace now houses the Budapest History Museum and the National Art Gallery. Part of the palace has been restored – including the Royal Chapel and Gothic Hall. It was such a nice day and we were pressed for time, so we enjoyed the exterior of the Royal Palace and the views from in front of the palace across the river to Pest, but declined to go inside. We descended Castle Hill and walked along the river to the next hill, Gellert Hill.

Gellert Hill was named after St Gerard who was thrown to death from the hill. It is home to the famous Hotel Gellert and the Gellert thermal baths at the base of the hill and the Gellert Monument, part way up the hill, facing out the river and Pest. We climbed up as far as the Gellert Monument, but that was enough hill-climbing for us for a day!

Back across the Danube to Pest, we picked up a few drinks and headed back to our hotel to rest our weary legs. In the evening we walked down to Raday Street, a fanciful street packed full of bars and restaurants. We had a drink first (Megan tried a Hungarian delight called "palinka" - a blackcurrant flavoured fruit brandy)! We then moved down Raday Street and had a beautiful dinner in one of the restaurants. We had some good Hungarian red wine and the food was fantastic.

To round off a long day in Budapest, we walked along the river bank as far as the Chain Bridge - the bridge and the Royl Palace on the hill across the river were lit up and looked stunning (see photos below). Then we walked back to the hotel for a well-earned sleep.