Budapest

Budapest is divided by the Danube River and consists of two formally separate cities, Buda and Pest (pronounced Pesh not Pest like an insect). Buda is the older city and we took a tour there in the morning, and then another one covering Pest in the afternoon.

Neither location has any ‘must see’ sites but it was all very interesting.  Both tour guides talked about the change to the country after the Soviets were thrown out in 1990.  The last 34 years have been the ‘happy times’ as described by them.

The city is beautiful, very clean with a lively vibe.  We’re staying on the Pest side and there are pedestrian zones, shops, restaurants, you name it.  Everyone has told us that the city is very safe and you can feel comfortable walking around at night.  Fred and I have a scale, if you will, when we visit a new city, we have to answer the question, would we live here?  Budapest gets a yes.  Rome, for example, was a no because it’s just too crazy, but we would definitely visit again!

We started the Buda tour at the former Palace location.  Buda is very hilly and the palace is on top of a hill.  There’s picture of it from a restaurant in yesterday’s post.  We didn’t go inside, it’s a museum now and a lot of the square footage is used for events.  It is massive and was built when Hungary was part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, under the Hapsburgs.  That empire ended after World War I and the palace stopped being used.  

The current Prime Minister has his office nearby (even though the Parliament is across the river).  He likes to connect to the old royal themes and is moving more government agencies over there.  Hungary shares a border with Ukraine, the people of Hungary supported Ukraine in the war, but the PM begged to differ causing widespread protests.  He has since backed down a little.

We visited Mathias Cathedral, named for a former king of Hungary.  It’s unusual to have a Catholic Church without a Saint’s name but apparently there’s workaround…It had a very pretty roof.

From the Buda side you can see the massive Parliament Building.  This building is seen in the background of a lot Viking River Tour ads.

After the tour the guide dropped us off at the Market Building, a combination farmers market, tourist trap and, in the basement, a fish and pickle market.  We didn’t go down to see the fish and pickles, our loss I’m sure. The market was interesting and we had lunch there.

Our afternoon tour began at 2:30 and I have to admit, we were pretty tired.  It was a beautiful day but a little warm in the sun.  We’re just not use to that yet.  

There were two real highlights of the tour, the Parliament Building and a very moving holocaust memorial.

When we walked up to the holocaust memorial the guide announced ‘we are here’, I didn’t see anything and didn’t know what to expect.  The memorial consists of shoes lined up along the Danube.  Holocaust victims were lined up here, told to take off their shoes and were shot and killed, falling into the river as they died.  It’s been estimated that tens of thousands might have met their death this way.

From there we walked up to the Parliament Building.  This, like the Palace, is massively oversized.  It was built when Hungary was part of the Empire and needed the space for all its member nations.  Now, with a population of only about 1.7 million people, the government only needs to use about 20% of the building.

We ended the day by driving down one of Budapest’s prettiest boulevards.  

Tomorrow we have the morning on our own and then we’ll be transported to the ship.