A view of the Danube and Hungarian Parliament in Budapest from the Castle
I usually start each blog post with a famous or literary quote, but this one I will start with a quote from our Jewish Quarter guide, Andrew who made this comment about Jews typically trying to assimilate into the cultures in which they live.
"Yes, I am Jewish. But I am also Hungarian. I speak Hungarian, I love paprika, I am depressed enough, and I know all the words to the Hungarian national anthem, which basically says, 'God, you haven't really helped the Hungarians all that much, but someday, we hope you will."
They don't call Budapest the Paris of the Danube for nothing! Budapest is charming and full of castles, ruin bars, thermal spas and good food! It would be no problem to spend weeks here exploring the incredible history of this place. We did what we could in two days. Fortunately, we have a few more days on our way back from our Danube long ship cruise to do it a bit more justice. And what can you say about this city? So much, it turns out!
Budapest is a city of bridges, nine in total. This is the "chain bridge>"
I think the concept of the Budapest being a city of bridges is fitting. Of the nine bridges across the Danube, three are public transport and the remaining six at minimum have pedestrian lanes. They are all different and interesting, just like the city itself. And Budapest is a symbolic bridge of so many things: Romans, the Barbarians (Asian long-ago settlers), Huns, Mongols, Jews, Ottomans, western Europeans, and now even more cultures. It is a bridge between different political heritage: tribalism, the Roman Empire, a kingdom, Communism and now democracy. It's definitely had it's ups and downs, its revolutions, wars and uprisings that have affected it severely. After World War I, for instance, Hungary lost over half of its land mass, and a great number of Hungarian-speaking people who identified themselves as Hungarian were dispersed into seven neighboring nations. If you look up Hungarian massacres, you will find no less than 8 listings on Wikipedia. And yet, the city and people remain resilient and beautiful. How can you encapsulate such a history into a few days visit? Well, obviously you can't! But this represents our effort.
Our Budapest buddies, Shelley and Claudia!
We arrived in Budapest and met our friends, Claudia and Shelley. Shelley's late husband (and my good friend), David, always wanted to come to Budapest and was our inspiration for this trip. He would have wanted to visit the Jewish Quarter, so that is where we started. We had a great guide, Andrew who explained a lot of history en route to the major synagogue, Dohany Street Synagogue.
The Shoes Memorial. When Jewish (and other) people were exterminated during WWII, in addition to death camps, they were forced to the banks of the Danube and made to take off their shoes before being shot and deposited in the river.
We learned that the Jewish population in Hungary arrived at various times, but the initial known migration was at the fall of the temple of Jerusalem in 70AD. The Romans enslaved some Jews and brought them to various cities, including Budapest, as slaves. The Jewish community built up over the years and had various "ups and downs" during the various occupations of the city. They were fairly well tolerated by the Ottoman Empire who initially wanted to relocate them, but eventually tolerated anyone whose religion included God and a connection to Abraham. There was a fairly thriving community by the 18th century. The Nazis occupied Hungary late in the war, and in November 1944, 70,000 Hungarian Jews were concentrate in the brickyard of Obuda and forced to march to concentration camps in Austria. Those in Budapest lived in the ghetto. Around 20,000 were shot on the banks of the Danube and this gave birth many years later to the shoes memorial. Their shoes were removed and distributed to non-Jewish people in the city as gifts and proof of the governments concern for them. The memorial has 60 pairs of shoes of men, women and children which have been bronzed and left symbolically on the banks as you see above. People sometimes leave flowers or candles nearby. If you can visit this place and not have a tear come to your eye, you aren't watching or listening. At the end of WWII, around 100,000 Jews remained in Budapest. The Soviets "liberated" Hungary on Feb. 13, 1945.
We continued from this poignant site to the main non-orthodox synagogue which was beautiful and unexpected architecture and fascinating internally.
Dohany Street Synagogue. Highly influenced by the Moorish style
There are stars of David about, but mostly hidden. It also has many of the same features as a Gothic cathedral.
There's even twin pulpits, which is never a feature of a synagogue, but is nearly always in a Catholic church. The guide said, "assimilation to the culture."
Windows with unusual stars of David
A peek at the interior.Women and children sat in the balconies and men in the pews.
This synagogue is the largest in Europe, seating up to 3000 worshipers. The believers are practicing Neolog Judaism. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society and were largely the representative body of urban, assimilated middle- and upper-class Jews. The synagogue was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, with the decoration based chiefly on Islamic models from North Africa and medieval Spain. The Dohány Street Synagogue complex consists of the Great Synagogue, the Heroes' Temple, the graveyard, the Memorial, and the Jewish Museum.
There is a holocaust memorial and Heroes Museum on the grounds.
Interior of the Holocaust Memorial
This lovely sculpture is called the tree of life and has the names of 2000 Jewish people who are buried in the cemetery in mass graves in the courtyard. These deaths were tragic in so many ways, only one of which is that they occurred so close to the end of WWII.
Rauol Wallenberg is the "Hungarian Schindler." He was a Swedish diplomat who sheltered thousands of Hungarian Jews in properties owned by the Swedish government where he claimed "non-Swedish authorities have no jurisdiction."
Our tour of the Jewish Quarter ended with an external view of the orthodox synagogue which is fortress-like and would not admit goyim like us. (Not sure I blame them.)
From here, our guide departed, but not before directing us to a ruin bar for typical Hungarian bread with cheese and sour cream.
What is a ruin bar? A collection of bars in or between an abandoned building with graffiti & plants, drawing an international crowd.
Yum, Hungarian style! This was as big as a pizza and shared between 4 people.
We enjoyed a couple of very nice restaurants while we were in Budapest. The first, Borkonyha Wine Kitchen serves a lovely, creative tasting menu. Hilda serve "elevated" Hungarian food. The goulash was top notch!
The interior of Hilda restaurant
The interior of my belly after eating at Boronkonyha
After our tour, we found out that August 20th is a national holiday---sort of an independence day for Hungary. St Stephen, the first king, agreed to make the city devoted to Christianity and made way for establishment of the country of Hungary. On this day, like our own independence day, people are off work and party like it's 1999. At St. Stephen's Basilica, they bring out the relic of St Stephen's right hand for observation by Hungarians (interestingly, he had fourteen fingers and the DNA of chicken, but who's checking?). At 9pm, there is an impressive 30 minute fireworks show with music from Liszt and Bartok. For those in Knoxville, think Boomsday, only louder and bigger. The fireworks launched from barges in the Danube is massive!
Paul, Shelley and Claudia prepare for fireworks extraordinaire
St Stephens Day fireworks viewed near the river. Also note the laser light show on the far left.
St Stephen's Basilica---site of the big reveal every August 20 of Stephen's mummified right hand.
The following morning, we were following a local guide to the Budapest Castle Area which included a walk over several of the bridges.
The chain bridge was actually engineered and built by the British at the Hungarians request.
The Margaret Bridge goes across the Danube, but has access to Margaret Island
The Elizabeth Bridge. The viking cruise ship docked near this bridge.
We walked up to Castle Hill in 90+ degree heat. It was SO HOT. But we made it. The Budapest Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian royalty in Budapest. . It was first completed in 1265, although the massive Baroque palace today occupying most of the site was built between 1749 and 1769. Much of the castle was destroyed in WWII, but there are ongoing efforts to restore it. The national library, national art gallery, a few restaurants, stores and the St Mathias church are all intact and accessible on Castle Hill.
King Stephen's statue at Castle Hill
St Matthias church. Lotsa tourists!
Interior of St Matthias
This church was built during the Ottoman Empire when it was not allowed to depict people or animals so the designs are geometric.
We also ventured out to Margaret Island, an island in the Danube which is about a mile and half long and contains fountains, gardens, a spa, a few small restaurants and most notably, the remains of St Margaret. She was St Stephen (the first king's) sister and spent her life quietly on this small island in the Danube at a convent whose ruins are still visible next to her grave.
Paul stands next to the giant LEGO lion who greets visitors to St. Margaret's Island.
St Margaret's grave from 1271
Ruins of the convent on St Margaret's Island
That night, we did a night time tour of Budapest and I must admit, the Parliament is gorgeous all lit up!
Hard to beat this view of the Parliament in Budapest.
The guide said this "worker statue" looks like a guy who runs a coat check running after a customer who forgot his jacket.
This statue depicts a free Hungarian being supported by a Russian soldier whose arms are up claiming the victory. The message seemed to always be that Hungary owed their freedom to the Russians
The grateful Hungarian clasps his Russian soldier benefactor's hand in both of his.
Lenin. These statues stand far outside the city in the Memento park.
Students tore down the statue of Stalin in 1983 leaving only his boots.
After this visit, we continued the "behind the iron curtain tour" and proceeded to the Retro Museum in Budapest which detailed life under Communism.
The now defunct Hungarian Malev Airlines. We saw the airplane graveyard for the airline at the airport on arrival.
Motorcycle with sidecar. I thought I might never get out of it!
Cookie-cutter communist housing in Budapest.
Paul uses a communist era pay phone.
Our view as we exited Budapest on the boat.
The bridge at Vac.
I nearly always end these posts with a quote or a poem and I gave serious consideration to publishing the lyrics to the Hungarian national anthem, seeing as we were in the capital on Independence Day and our guide to the Jewish Quarter mentioned it with humor. It is actually poem written in 1823 by the poet Ferenc Kolcsey and later set to music. Unfortunately, it is 1844 words long (even longer than this windy post) and depressing as hell. So I will stick with Elvis Costello who might not be cheery, but he isn't as gloomy as the Hungarian national anthem. Next time you listen to the Star Spangled Banner and think it sucks, take a listen to Himnusz and you might think Francis Scott Key wasn't such a rotten lyricist after all.
Paul's ponderings: We had a great introduction to Budapest. While I knew it was two towns with a river (the Danube) in between, I did not realize how different those towns were. Pest (or "Pesht" at the locals would say) is pretty flat and full of shops/restaurants/nightlife/government/etc, while Buda is more hilly and residential, albeit with the palace up on the hill. Overall, while it was murderously hot, we had a great time. Who gets to drive a Trabant? Yours truly in turns out.....thinking back to all those spy movies with east European villians and such. Turns out the folks in Budapest hated Communism as well. Oh well, another illusion destroyed in that regard. Putting cars aside, it's a great town and we'd highly recommend it. Now on to Slovakia, Vienna, and more.
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