Budapest, June 18th 2005

Our Budapest visit has come to an end, and although it was not the most pleasant place we have visited, it was one of the most different, interesting and enlightening. The impression one gets of Budapest is that it was once a beautiful city and it is now badly nees cleaning up and repair. From a distance many of the older buildings look very charming but close up almost every building is crumbling. There was some bombing in World War II and one finds ugly Communist style buildings, built to replace bombed out buildings, mixed with pre-war buildings with beautiful Baroque architecture.

We arrived mid-afternoon by train from Vienna and took an evening walking tour near the Danube River. It was pretty to see the lighting on the bridges and the fortress on Buda hill illuminated. On the morning of first full day we took a bus tour of the city which was a good introduction of the major sights and then a cruise down the Danube to view the city from the water, which was very nice. It helped being in an air conditioned vehicle with the heat reaching 35C and humid!

The next day we took a walking tour through Buda (on the right side of the River) and through the hillside castle, fortress and museums. We walked through Pest (on the other side of the River) through the shopping areas and sampled the Hungarian food and pastries at the restaurants. We then went to a huge indoor market that had very interesting food for sale and visited the largest Synagogue in Europe. Budapest is known for its hot mineral baths so we visited the famous Gellert Baths. It was elaborately decorated with indoor and outdoor pools, and hot baths segregated for men and women (yes it too was a little bet run down looking). Most of the people in the segregated hot baths did not wear clothes, but we both tried it (separately of course). Dahlia then got a foot massage (to help from all the walking) and Lance got a facial.

On the last day in Budapest we visited the Terror Museum and the Soviet Statue Park which gave us a different appreciation of what we saw in the first two days. The Terror Museum had been the headquarters of the secret police and documented with incredible realism what fifty years of repressive Nazi and Communist dictatorship have done to the people of this country. It included basement jail cells and torture rooms of the secret police. The Statue Park was a place where old Communist statues and memorials were put after the Soviets left in 1991. This place, located far from the center of the city, shows the propaganda the Soviets used to convince the Hungarians that they lived in a workers paradise

We stayed in a large apartment that was very inexpensive and we rented it sight unseen. It was in a great location, not far from a subway to the tourist area of the city and near a lively cafe lined park. The entrance was between an Internet cafe and a sex shop with two strip joints a couple of doors down. It was on the third floor with no elevator and the inside was as rundown as the outside. We got a taste of what it may have been like to live in a Communist-era apartment. It definitely made better people of us. After staying there we decided to change our lodging reservations in Krakow, Warsaw and Prague to hotels in a nice chain of three star hotels with elevators and AC.

The Cafes and restaurants we went to were very nice. The food was good and inexpensive, the pastries and coffee were delicious as well. We were also fortunate to be here during the 10th annual Danube folk festival and were able to see several wonderful folk dance performances on the open-air stage at the central town square. Although a bit of a cultural shock Budapest was a most interesting and enlightening visit.