Saturday 16 September
We didn’t decide to visit Budapest until last week, when we were in Strasbourg. It was on our itinerary back in August, then we took it off again. Our reluctance is due to it being 6.5 hours from Munich on the train. Then I started reading The Places In Between, which is about Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan during the winter. That made me feel like a big softy, and a long journey on a comfy train isn’t too much of a hardship. I’m a big fan of Rory Stewart, an incredibly tough polymath and the only Tory politician I respect.
As I write I’m in a reserved seat on a packed train on our way through Hungary near Mosonmagyrovar on the Pannonian basin. It’s flat all the way to the Carpathian mountains, and is studded with windmills.
Well we are here now, in a small but perfectly formed studio flat in Pest, which is on the eastern bank of the Danube which is (so Google tells us) the cooler part of town.
Having spent 9 hours travelling from our flat in Munich, we were feeling a bit err… shit… when we arrived. so after struggling with 2 digital keypads to get in, we soon went out to the Danube river bank a few hundred metres away for a drink at sunset. The Viaduckt bar is a bar under the viaduct for the tram running down the river bank. We had great views of Buda and the Chain Bridge and chilled there for a bit with a beer.
Julie found the Parisi6 restaurant close by, which was fantastic, I had a slow cooked pork steak and Julie had beef neck, those animals did not die in vain. The waiter liked what we said about his food and gave us a free shot, Which was nice.
On the way home we found a Lidl to get emergancy rations of red wine and chocolate. Well it’s just common sense.
Sunday 17 September
I had very few preconceptions about Budapest before I arrived. I knew that it had Buda and Pest with the Danube in between, and a collection of castles and museums, the usual kind of European capital stuff. But I have been blown away by how beautiful it is. Some of it looks like Paris, some of it like Vienna and there are even parts that look like Disneyland! The architecture is amazing, there are some gorgeous late 19th century art deco buildings and Victorian neo-gothic with a touch of Ottoman thrown in.
The first 3 hours of the day were Interrail Admin (boring but vital) so it was past 11 before we got out of the flat in Pest. Beautiful sunshine after mixed weather in Munich.
We found the Tourist Info to get some paper maps and general orientation, then walked down to the Danube. There was a lovely Victorian building that looked like something cultural, so we went in. It was called Vigado, a concert hall and exhibition centre that is stunningly beautiful. Its interior is quite palatial, the equal of palaces we have visited in other capital cities. On the 6th floor there was a design exhibition of leatherware, glassware, sculptures and other superb local crafts. There was also a roof terrace with wonderful views over the Danube to the castle district.
It’s a well known fact that culture makes you hungry, and we found Vapiano, a fast Italian food chain recommended by our neighbour Ruth. I had fusili Bolognese and Julie had a Cesare salad, both very good.
To get to Buda we crossed the chain bridge, a 19th century suspension bridge that looks like Marlow Bridge but is much bigger. It has just (like yesterday) been reopened after
renovation, and is like new. They have banned traffic, so just pedestrians and cycles were going across.
On the Buda side we walked up the steep hill to the castle district. It isn’t a medieval castle, but a collection of impressive 18th and 19th century buildings constructed for the Hapsburg Emperors of Austria Hungary. The amazing fact is that some of the buildings that look old are in fact very new and were built to replace demolished buildings.
Short History Lesson
Hungary started off in WW2 on the German side. They were getting thrashed by the Allies, so started negotiations to change horse mid-race. The Nazis didnt like that so invaded and treated the country extremely badly (it’s a grim story you can read on Wikipedia). At the end of the war many of the buildings on castle hill were badly damaged, but still standing. In 1971 the Communist government demolished several of them.
Those buildings are now being rebuilt as perfect copies of the old ones, and they are stunning. It shows that the old crafts are not dead.
These 2 are new buildings
At the northern end of the castle hill is Fishermans Bastion, which was built at the end of the 19th century as a panoramic look-out spot. It rivals some of those castles in Bavaria for its fairy tale castle look.
The views across the Danube are stunning, especially as the Parliament building catches the setting sun.
Culture makes you thirsty as well, and we found a cafe half way down the hill for a glass of wine.
FACT
Hungarian wine tastes pretty much like any other wine, nice.
Interrail Admin
Interrail isn’t all site seeing and drinking wine you know. we also have to book rail trips and find accommodation. Having gazed at our Rail Map of Europe and deciding which city next, we find a train to get there. That is fairly easy using the Interrail app on our phones that also creates the QR code ticket. For long distance journeys we also make a separate Seat Reservation. For Germany, Austria and Hungary we use the Deutche Bahn website, which is quite good (but not perfect).
The most difficult job is finding accomodation on Booking.com and AirBnB which is in the right place and fits our budget. We prefer a kitchen and washing machine so we dont have to eat out and have clean undies.
All this took 3 hours and lots of swearing this morning. Then the knob-end we booked with in Salzburg said his flat was no longer available. Grrrrrrrr!!!
Monday 18 September
This morning we took a “free” walking tour of Pest with Matt. Free means you give what you think it’s worth at the end of the tour. Pest (pronounced Pesht) was undeveloped until the Chain Bridge was opened in 1849. It was designed by British engineer James Tierney Clark and is a scaled up version of his design for Marlow Bridge.
The nice bits of Pest are all late 19th century buildings when Buda had joined with Pest to make a single city. The Hapsburg Empress loved Budapest and influenced Emperor Franz Joseph to improve the capital. She was known as Sisi, and has a similar status to Princess Diana in Austria and Hungary. There have recently been a Netflix series and a film about her, she was quite a live wire compared to her rather conservative husband.
Sisi
Matt took us to St Stephen’s church, which is built in a Baroque style like St Pauls in London but wasn’t finished until 1905. Parts of it collapsed twice, killing two of the architects. Quite Darwinian really, it prevented them from designing any more terrible buildings,
Matt showed us the “Statue of Liberty”, an eagle (the Nazis) attacking an angelic figure (Hungary). It was put up over night under police protection. The memorial is controversial since it show Hungary as a victim of the Nazis. In fact they joined the war as Nazi partners, 80,000 died in a day in Stalingrad. They tried to change sides in 1943 and were then occupied by the Nazis, who sent 400,000 Jews and minorities to Ausweitz. In 1945 they were occupied by the Soviets who controlled Hungary until 1989, and they are still recovering from it.
The walk ended at the Parliament Building, which is “the third largest Parliament in the world”. Its very impressive, and looks better from the Fishermens Bastion.
In the afternoon we walked down to the huge Central Market, a huge cast iron shed, similar to those in Leeds and Newcastle. On the first floor are lots of stalls selling Hungarian food. I had Beef Goulash, with noodles. It was huge, very tasty and good value, about £9 for the best beef stew I have eaten. Possibly.
On the way back to the flat for a serious sit down, we bought a Chimney Cake. These are cyclindrical spirals of dough, cooked to golden brown. They taste like a Cinnamon Roll and are bloody gorgeous. Honestly, better than good.
I washed my smalls in the sink and hung them off the lighting to make a tasteful mobile called “Pants in Motion”.
It’s art, init?
In the evening we went to a Ruin Bar in the Jewish Quarter. We had a slightly overpriced drink in a trendy bar. It was alright, but honestly I’ve had better beer in a Spoons. Yes, I’m a pleb.
A ruin bar
Tuesday 19 September
We are now 2 weeks into our adventure in Europe. This is an “unpackaged” holiday, there is no charming courier to take us on a coach to our hotel and organise tours for us. So we spend hours each day planning the next leg of the trip, and the one after that. Our original plan was to go from Salzburg to Innsbruck, but it’s going to be raining in Innsbruck so we will go straight through to Verona.
It’s raining in Budapest this morning, so we are doing our admin. I went to Aldi nearby where they have bread that looks like dildos. I bought flat bread in a plastic bag, no chance of miss-use.
Ooh err missus…
Once it stopped raining we go the metro line M1 to City Park, a couple of miles away. The metro is the oldest in continental Europe, built in 1896. That’s more than 30 years after London, they took their time didn’t they ? It look like it has barely been modernised since.
The park is very lovely, with several Hapsburg era buildings and some strikingly modern ones.
The metro stops at Szechenyi baths, the grandest of the thermal baths in the city. I didn’t go in, I didn’t fancy sharing a hot bath with other people drinking beer. I know what people do when they drink beer.
The thermal baths
Nearby is a mock castle with an agricultural museum in it. Didn’t go in their either, I got museumed-out in Munich on the very rainy day.
A mock castle, a bit like in Cardiff
The House of Music is a very modern concert hall with a fantastic ceiling and staincase. Like most arty places it had excellent toilets, so I had a quality metropolitan elite piss.
The most interesting building is the Ethnographic Museum, which has a dish shaped roof that is also a garden. It looks better than I have described it. Inside it has a huge architectural model of Budapest showing all of the city city. The Ethnographic collection didn’t appeal, that’s a rainy day trip I think.
The sloping museum roof
It’s our last night here, so we went down to the Danube to enjoy the view of the castle and have a beer.
We had dinner in a Mexican cafe, a delicious Budapest Burrito.
timharnesstravels 