Budapest

18 May - Day 64

Today, I had to wake up early. Actually, it wasn't that bad. We left the house at 9 o clock and caught the bus into town.

We were going on a free walking tour of Budapest this morning, starting at 10.30 in Vorosmarty Square. We arrived a bit early and had a look around the surrounding streets and buildings, mainly because dad needed to find a toilet. On this Saturday morning, it appeared that everyone was either lining up to see (at least according to dad) a male bikini show or lining up to get some free Hungarian magazines in the square.

The tour group turned out to be quite large so we were split into two. Our group was assigned a guide named Andrew, a very funny Hungarian university student (I think) with an awesome R2-D2 belt buckle. He first took us down to the Duna River (the Danube) and gave us a brief history of Hungary. Basically, it was formed in 876 AD when 7 tribes had a meeting and decided it would be cool to live together. They crowned their first king, St Stephen, in the year 1000 and then proceeded to spend the next millenium getting invaded my the Mongolians, the Turkish, the Austrians, the Nazis and the Communists.

We were then taken to some other places like Erszebet (Elizabeth) Square, where we recieved an extensive lecture about Hungarian alcohol. We also visited the outside of the St Stephen Bascilica and learnt some stuff about Budapest architecture (it's pretty much all 'fake' as none of the buildings are older than about 170 years).

We then crossed the Szechenyi Chainbridge and climbed up the hill to the Royal Palace on the Buda side of the city. Oh yeah, Budapest used to be two seperate cities, one called Buda and the other Pest but that was too many capital cities for the Austrohungarian Empire to handle so they just stuck them together.

Anyway, there is an awesome view of the Pest side from the royal palace.

We ended the tour next to the Mathias Church. Turns out free walking tours aren't really free unless you can live with the guilt of not tipping your guide. We caught a bus back into town and went for a lunch in a square that we randomly stumbled upon.

After this, we walked up the very nice Andrassy Avenue to the House of Terror, a museum dedicated to the victims of the Arrowcross Party during WWII and of the Communists afterwards. It was the headquarters of both groups when they occupied the city and it was pretty okay. The most interesting and most eerie part of it was the basement, where prisoners were imprisoned, tortured and executed for the made up crimes that they probably didn't commit. CNN reporter Richard Quest was also there doing some CNN reporting stuff.

Then we went down to the metro and metro'd back home.

19 May - Day 65

Today we went to check out the Hungarian parliament, which was apparently the biggest in the world until the Romanians built one two metres longer just to spite them. It was very impressive from the oustide but according to our guide Andrew from the day before, nothing special on the inside. This is apparently the case with most buildings in Budapest.

We then walked along the riverside to see 'Shoes', a row of metal shoes sculpted for Budapest's Holocaust victims.

We also saw a bus driving down the middle of the Danube river and that was pretty neat too.

Lunch was had on the city's restaurant street, Raday street. It has a lot of restaurants on it.

Afterwards, we walked up Museum Boulevard and came across a marketplace outside the National Museum. There, we found a stall selling palinka, a Hungarian liquor that comes in various flavours from various fruits. My dad bought sour cherry. I couldn't really taste the sour cherry in it, but I'm pretty sure palinka is what fire would taste like if you tried to eat it.

We next made our way to the Szimpla Pub, one of Budapest's many 'ruin bars'; that is, bars built into the ruins of various buildings throughout the city. Unlike Budapest's more monumental structures, the Szimpla doesn't look like much from the outside but is actually very large and very cool on the inside, decorated with old sewing machines, bike frames and walls riddled with bullet holes.