Budapest | Aussie in France

Pest has not prepared me for Buda. Although we can see it from the other side of the Danube, I have no idea of what is awaiting us.

Unidentified church — Buda Calvinist Church

We park the car next to an unidentified red brick church with colourful varnished tiles, put our remaining coins in the parking metre and go off to find a café to get some more change. The Corvin Café on Corvin Ter is just opening and the lady is unstacking chairs and tables in one corner of a deserted square. She is obviously very taken with Jean Michel so I let him deal with getting the change.

We walk up a couple of quiet streets and a flight of stone steps and suddenly, Buda’s Castle District is before us, like something out of the Knights Templar. It is quite stunning.

As we climb, each step gives us an even better view of Pest.

View of Pest from the Fishermen's Bastion — View of Pest from the Fishermen’s Bastion

On the other side of the ramparts known as the Fishermen’s bastion, built in the early 1900s as a homage to the mediaeval fishermen in charge of defending this side of the ramparts, stands a white church with people milling around. There is something quite magical about the whole scene.

The inside of the church is something entirely new to us. Not the rococco style we’ve seen up until now. The colours are muted with intricately painted walls and ceilings of Arabic influence though very different from the Moorish art in Spain. Although the church dates back to the 13th century, it has been remodelled and restored over the ages.

When we come outside there are two men in mediaeval costume, one with dreadlocks, with hawks. There is Hungarian music playing somewhere.

One building stands out like a sore thumb – the Hilton Hotel, an entirely new construction whose presence is totally incomprehensible, despite the “integration” of a few mediaeval ruins. You really do wonder how it was every allowed.

We wander through the streets, delighting in the painted façades on some of the oldest buildings in the capital. By then we have left the tourists behind.

We loop back to the other side of the church, past Holy Trinity Column, was built to celebrate the end of the plague in the hope that it would provide protection from another epidemic.

Then we go back down to the Danube by the same route as before. I see a family with a little girl and boy looking at something on the ground. It turns out to be a hedgehog which, suprisingly, is not rolled up in a ball, and is coming towards us!

By then it is after one, so we feed the metre again and go to look for a fish restaurant with an impossible name indicated by the trusty Routard. We both order pike-perch (zander) prepared in two different ways. We’re not convinced it is the same fish on both plates.

Jean Michel has read that Hungarian tokay wine is worth tasting but the waiter says we can’t buy it by the glass and that the half bottles are too expensive so we order another Hungarian dry white instead which is very pleasant.

We decide not to visit the Royal Palace, which has been completely gutted and rebuilt over the years and now contains two museums.

Instead we move onto the next item on the day’s programme – one of Budapest’s famous baths which I shall tell you about in my next post.

Once our accommodation and washing were sorted out, we were able to forget the hassles and get on with our holiday. Szentendre, the village where we are staying, is only a half an hour’s drive from Budapest – not a very scenic route admittedly, but a very convenient location if you don’t want to stay in the city.

Margit Bridge or the yellow bridge as i prefer to call it — Margit Bridge or the yellow bridge as I dubbed it

Parking in Budapest is more problematic as we have only found one underground parking lot so far and our GPS had a hard time finding the entrance. However, street parking is quite easy to find, mainly because it’s relatively expensive at 440 florints (1.50 euros) an hour and limited to 3 hours.

Budapest, as you may know, is the unification of two towns, one on either side of the Danube – Buda on the west bank and Pest on the east – connected by Széchenyi Chain Bridge. Not that I know how to pronounce it. In fact, the Hungarian language is a great difficulty for me. I can’t remember simple things such as hello, goodbye, please and thank you because they won’t stay in my head. So I nod and smile a lot.

Interior of Saint Stephen's Basilica — Interior of Saint Stephen’s Basilica

We started our visit of Budapest in Pest, simply because that is where the guide book began. We walked halfway across the yellow bridge (actually the Margit Bridge) and looked across at the iconic Gothic Revival Parliament building which, like a lot of Budapest, is undergoing renovation.

We visited Saint Stephen’s Basilica (also called Cathedral), the largest church in the city which can hold up to 8,500 people and was completed in 1906.

This was the saddest thing we saw in Budapest. The Shoes on the Danube Promenade is a memorial concept by film director Can Togay and was created by him and the sculptor Gyula Pauer on the bank of the Danube River in Budapest. It honors the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

Another Jewish memorial in front of the main synogogue decicated to the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who perished under the Nazis.

One of the many large ornate buildings in Budapest that have been renovated, on Szabadsag Ter, the largest and most representative square in downtown Budapest.

I thought this was a wonderful example of recycling in the Jewish quarter of Budapest which still has many dilapidated buildings.

The Michael Jackson tree in Vorosmarty Ter just behind Saint Stephen’s Basilica

An example of art deco architecture — Gresham Palace

Gresham Palace, a beautiful example of art nouveau architecture in the manner of the Vienna Seessionists, now the Four Seasons Hotel.

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge, inaugurated in 1849 and the first bridge to connect up Buda and Pest. The architect is said to have committed suicide when he discovered the two lions had no tongues.

An amazing security check on vehicles entering the Bank of Hungary. The security guard walked around the car with a large mirror on a stick so he could look underneath!