The travels of Tim and Megan: Budapest, Hungary

Sunday

On Sunday morning we grabbed some breakfast at Costas (muffin, pastries and coffee) and then walked to the Great Synagogue (also known as the Dohany Street synagogue). The Great Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second-largest in the world, after one in New York. It seats 3,000 people.

It was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, based on Moorish models from North Africa and Spain. The original synagogue was bombed by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in 1939. Used as a base for German Radio and also as a stable during WWII, the building suffered severe damage from aerial raids during the Nazi Occupation but especially during the Siege of Budapest. During the Communist era the damaged structure again became a prayer house for the much-diminished Jewish community. Its restoration only started in 1991. Around 75% of Hungarians are Christians, with most of the rest either 'of no religion' or 'did not specify'. Only 0.1% of the population is Jewish, although the proportion used to be much higher.

We had a half-hour tour of the inside of the synagogue, which was beautiful, and our guide was very informative. Interestingly, the synagogue was shaped and designed a lot like a Christian church as opposed to a traditional synagogue – which has not been entirely popular with many of its members.

We also toured the outdoor yard behind the synagogue. Down one side of the synagogue is a Jewish cemetery, which is very rare. According to Jewish traditions, cemeteries can not be on the premises of the house of prayer and mass graves are not permitted. This graveyard is the result of tragic historical events during WWII. In 1944, the Great Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto for the city Jews and served as shelter for a lot of people. Over 2,000 of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during the winter are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue. This break with tradition was simply for practical reasons - that they had so many bodies and they could not carry them across the city to the proper cemeteries, as the fighting in Budapest was still raging on around them.

In the rear courtyard behind the synagogue is the Raoul Wallenberg memory park. It holds the “Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs” (at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis), which resembles a weeping willow whose leaves bear inscriptions with the names of victims.

Next up was a planned tour of the beautiful Hungarian parliament. However, by the time we got there, the tours for the day had all been sold out. This is a regular occurrence, as they only offer three tours in English per day and it is not possible to pre-book tickets online. You basically have to show up at parliament on the day you want to tour and hope that tour groups have not snapped up all of the tickets.

Instead, we had a lovely walk along the river in front of the parliament building and back towards the Chain Bridge. Along the way, we happened across the “Shoes on the Danube Promenade” memorial, which gives remembrance to the people shot into the Danube during the time of the Arrow Cross terror during WWII. The sculptor created sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes out of iron. The shoes are attached to the stone embankment. It is such a moving memorial.

Our walk took us along the river as far as the Chain Bridge and then we carried on through central Pest to St Stephen’s Basilica. Tim had a quick look inside and it was a beautiful basilica, with stunning ceiling decorations, in particular. Then we continued, hitting Andrassy Street (the “Champs-Elysees of Budapest”). Andrassy Street is a wide, straight avenue full of cafes and shops, just like its Parisian namesake, which leads from the centre city all the way down to the Heroes Square in the east of the city. It is also home to the magnificent Hungarian State Opera House, where we would be attending the opera later that night!

But for now, we grabbed some lunch from a supermarket and then continued down Andrassy Street to the House of Terror! The House of Terror is a museum located at the former premises of both the Hungarian Nazis and the Communist terror organisations (the AVO and later the AVH) and it contains exhibits related to the fascist and communist dictatorial regimes in 20th century Hungary. It is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building itself. The museum opened on February 24, 2002.

We both really enjoyed our visit - the museum was superbly put together, with excellent detailed information conveyed through a variety of media. It was quite a moving experience actually being in the very building where so much of this terror was planned and carried out. The basement of the building was especially spooky - this is where the horrendous prison cells and torture rooms were housed.

Once out of the Terror House, we strolled back along Andrassy Street and, in the process, we bought a book on Budapest and some postcards and we also acquired the two tallest ice-creams you have ever seen (photo below). The snow freeze ice-cream was seriously taller than the length of the cone that it was perched on. This required great balance and skill! Next, we wandered down the famous Vaci Street (Budapest’s best-known shopping street) and checked out a few shops, before doing what the Budapesters do - buying a couple of cans of beer and lying on the grass in Erzsebet square, enjoying the sun. This little park has an underground nightclub beneath it. There is a decorative pond/pool with a glass bottom in the middle of the park and (when the pond water is clean) you can see down through the water and glass base into the nightclub!

In the evening, Megan had booked us tickets to the opera. We had never seen an opera before, so it was very exciting - we felt rather sophisticated!!! It was also a brilliant opportunity to see inside the beautiful Hungarian State Opera House. The opera was called "La Clemenza di Tito" - it was in Italian and had Hungarian subtitles on a screen above the stage...so we didn't really understand exactly what was going on. But the general gist was that some woman wanted the emperor to marry her, but the emperor wanted to marry her sister instead, so the woman sent someone to kill the emperor, after which she received word that the emperor had changed his mind and did, in fact, want to marry the first woman, and then the woman was devastated...all very dramatic. We, along with dozens of other tourists who really just wanted to see the amazing opera house and get a little taste of seeing an opera, left at the half-time interval, so we cannot tell you what happened in the end. But we believe that the emperor was not actually killed - phew! Anyway, it was a really good experience.

On the way back from the opera house we found a fun little outdoor bar on a quiet side-street. It appeared to be a temporary bar, set up for a few months over summer. It was in an outdoor courtyard and it was designed like a pre-school, with brightly coloured tables and little wooden chairs - slightly odd, but a fun place to drink and very cheap prices!

For dinner, Megan had discovered a little gem on a side-street off Raday Street, called Kaltenberg Etterem. The food was superb - massive servings and delicious - and the prices were really reasonable. For starters, Tim had mini sausages and Megan had fish soup, for mains we both had veal and for dessert we shared a rum sponge cake with chocolate sauce. The place brews its own beer, which was surprisingly good too. The restaurant has a gimmick where they let you roll three dice before you pay the bill and if you roll three 6s, your meal is free. We knew there was a 1-in-216 chance of achieving this, but when the couple at the table next to us rolled two 6s and the third dice spun and spun for an eternity before landing on a 5, we thought it was definitely worth a shot. Sadly we got nowhere near!

Monday

We got cracking earlier on Monday, as we had a fair bit of ground to cover. We checked out of the hotel and wandered down to the Central Market Hall, a massive indoor market selling mainly fresh fruit and veges, meats, cheeses and bakery products, but also souvenirs and hot ready-to-eat food on the upper level. Everything in the market was extremely cheap - when you steer clear of really touristy areas, things are great value in Budapest. We had breakfast at the market (gigantic pain au chocolat, danish pastry, chocolate twirl thing and fresh strawberries) all for about £2-3. Madness. We also bought some pizza bread things to have later for our lunch!

After our excursion to the market, we caught the metro out to the Varosliget (City Park) in the east of Budapest. One of the main attractions of Budapest is its thermal baths/pools, which take advantage of the naturally occurring thermal springs all over Hungary. The city has several thermal bath complexes, the two most famous being the Gellert Baths and the Szechenyi Baths. We decided to visit the Szechenyi Baths complex, which is located in the City Park. It is the largest medicinal bath in Europe and is supplied by two thermal springs. The complex was built in 1913 in Neo-Baroque style. It has an amazingly ornate ceiling in the main lobby (see photo below).

There are three outdoor hot pools as well as dozens of indoor pools, spas, saunas, steam rooms and numerous massage rooms etc. We had to queue up for a long time to buy tickets - no idea how it takes some people 10 minutes or more to buy a ticket to the pool, when it took us about 45 seconds and we don't even speak Hungarian! The pools are very popular with locals - it is one of the Budapesters' favourite things to do. We spent 2-3 hours at the baths, firstly in the outdoor pools and then in a few of the indoor pools and saunas. It was really relaxing.

Right on the edge of the City Park is the Heroes Square, Budapest's memorial to "the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of our people and our national independence". In the centre is the Millennium Memorial and behind that are two matched colonnades, each with seven statues representing great figures of Hungarian history. We checked out the Heroes Square and then ventured into City Park for a walk.

Monday was not as nice as the previous two days, weather wise. It drizzled a couple of times and was overcast all day, but still quite warm. In the City Park, there were plenty of pretty gardens with lots of spring flowers, as well as lots of interesting statues and monuments. Our favourite was the statue of "Anonymous" (see photo below). The Anonymous statue commemorates the unknown author of the "Gesta Hungarorum", which is a record of early Hungarian history. The statue is right next to the impressive-looking Vajdahunyad Castle, which now houses the Museum of Agriculture.

In the afternoon we had another leisurely stroll down Andrassy Street and we stopped at a nice cafe for coffee and cake. Hungary does amazing cakes - we had a chocolate brownie covered in warm chocolate sauce and a sponge cake with fruit on top - both were delicious! It was a nice way to end a relaxing afternoon! From there we made our way back to the hotel to collect our bags and then caught the metro and bus combo out to the airport.

Country tally:
Megan 37
Tim and Bear 34