Budapest
We spent a day travelling ...well four hours on the train so not much happening
but having negotiated the luggage lockers successfully, we set off for lunch, two soups, followed by Thermal bath (a tram ride away).
We did enjoy it but found ourselves quite exhausted by the experience, of the bath that is, and had previously decided to eat at home (to save a little) ...a very nice little apartment ... but first to buy food items ... not that cheap here ... and then a bit of cooking ... just a simple pasta dish with some hummus as an appetiser.
Still tired, went to bed.
Mixed sun and cloud today so, having the guide so kindly and meticulously curated by a fellow yogi (Tamás) we set off to find the tourist tram no.2, on a tram from our flat.
I love the trams here they are frequent and cheap and are great for checking out the populace and the city itself ... well, we have a 72 hour travel pass ...yes they do ... it was checked today.
This is a great city vast and sprawling, to the uninitiated eye, but the buildings are beautiful and different, in their way, from London or Paris. You can see the connection with Vienna and the Hapsburg empire.
We get off the No 2 and view the Parliament building from all sides ... it allongates the Danube on one side and is a real showpiece, rather putting our Houses of Parliament into the shade, both in terms of size and grandeur.
the views over the water to Buda are intriguing.
While outside the Parliament building we descend into an exhibition about the Hungarian uprising of October 1956 which, it seems to me, was not unlike the Tienamen Square massacre where some of the populace were mown down by Soviet tanks having been led to believe it was a permitted peaceful protest. Bloody Russian oligarchs.... no change there then!
Next stop the Great Market Hall ...
this is a huge space on two levels ...ground floor ...fruit, vegetables, fresh meat and cheeses, sausages, dried/smoked meats, not to mention paprika. On the balconies above, either side and crossing above your head, are other buyables including street food ... we had the sausages ... for lunch. Nice.
Somehow we lose the plot and having caught the wrong tram find ourselves in an unprepossessing area ...after some shilly-shallying we find a coffee house where we have the most glorious hot chocolate with some cakes.
Walking now to St. Stephens to climb the Basilica
we discover it cost more than we are prepared to spend (well it was going to be 350 steps anyway).. you would think they would pay us!
We walk home with the food we have bought from the market ... we did have to buy paprika (50 grammes cost as much as the chicken we bought) as this is sooo Hungarian and we will make an attempt at something tasty ...I'll let you know.
Another bright sunny morning but a bit chilly without the wind of yesterday.
We take the tram and the M1 ...no!... metro line 1 (there are four of them) to Hero Square at the top of Andrassy Avenue
M1 is the oldest metro in Europe and is very well preserved ...
and wander down this very broad boulevard of what are now embassies or v posh residences, who knows what goes on behind these opulent doors ...
until we get to the Terror Museum ... well it rather speaks for itself ... from my perspective, I had little or no idea of what it has been like for the Hungarian people under Nazi and Communist regimes ... a lot of innocent and brave people were killed, tortured, just slaughtered in the streets or sent to work camps during these years.
It was a difficult exhibition to walk around but I realise when confronted with the evidence, one should know of these atrocities, if only to avoid them, by supporting democracy, freedom of speech and the right to protest and at least empathise with the victims ... I don't know what to think or say really ... here we are on our half-world jolly, blissfully enjoying ourselves, despite the plight of a good deal of the world.
Coffee beckons in the turn of the century Art Cafe (built in 1884) on the same avenue.
Then we head across the Danube to Buda, our residence is in Pest ... the more modern side and flat, whereas Buda is hilly and older, with many staircases and slopes up to the main tourist spot around the Fisherman's Bastion ...
Buda spreads way beyond this historic section and is probably as large as the Pest side.
We spend some time wandering the surrounding lanes and start to head home; buying our supper from a supermarket on our way home.
Oh yes .. the paprika chicken was quite tasty ... as says it miself.
Very sunny this morning, our third day here. We are heading off for Szentendre ...some 40 minute train ride to the north of Budapest on west side of the Danube, although it turns our that Szentendre is on an anabranch of the Danube ...who would have known!
It is a town of more comfortable dimensions than the big city (cities) and is very picturesque, with lanes and alleys criss-crossing with many cafes and tourist shops ...it must be very crowded in the high season ...not so much now.
We sit outside and have some soup for lunch.
and then find a ceramics museum with work by a famous Hungarian ceramicist, Kovács Margit.
I had not heard of her but she has been much heralded in the past. Her life here was with her mother who was her aide as well.
Here are some pics ....
Then we return home and plan a meal out tonight as we leave for Brasov tomorrow evening ... we will leave our bags at the station so we are free to wander until the night train at 7.00 pm.
This morning is rather dreary and there has been rain but it's dry for now. ...
The Hungarian Art Gallery in Buda was our first stop ...
I don't know why I had reservations about this, unintended, inherent racism?... but these were immediately dismissed by the brilliance and variety of the works on view. I shall just download the pics I took, so you can see them without my irrelevant gabble. See what you think.
Following this we took a long tram ride to the Communist Social Housing, recommended for a quick shufti by Tomás. Well ...again my expectations were shattered as these fairly uniform blocks are much less forbidding than I had imagined; in fact, the layout with tree studded, generous spaces is positively pleasant and on a human scale. They're kept in good repair... with no graffiti which is not the same for other ares here. We could learn a thing or two about housing conurbations from these people.
Before we leave Budapest we have an early, delicious meal so we are not too hungry on the train ...although we do have beer, wine and sandwiches with us in case of emergencies!
A few things we have both noticed and surprised us here, is that a lot of the populace smoke, that stand outside residences, shops and restaurants puffing away ... it is not confined to the middle aged either, many young people are at it too.
...Traffic is very polite to pedestrians ... and the young give up their seats on public transport readily...many solar panels on private housing.
I haven't mentioned and we did not realise that public transport for the over 65s is free ... including non EU's like us ...pity we didn't know earlier!
We do get to our night train ... not without an element of panic as we were unable to download the ticket easily but we get on the train anyway ...just in case ...fortunately the data kicked in and we found our couchette;
sharing with a lovely French couple (Marie Noel and Yanns ) slightly younger than us ...we had lively conversations in English and French before settling down to sleep but half expecting to be woken at the border between Hungary and Romania ... no ...this did not happen. zzz
This featured blog entry was written by xopher from the blog To New Zealand and back.
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