Our next trip was to Budapest - we had a long weekend (created by a public holiday Thursday and 'squeeze day' Friday), so we took of Wednesday as well and headed over to Budapest, capital of Hungary.
We flew out from Malmö Airport (rather than the normal Copenhagen) and landed in Budapest at about 11am. We'd been allowed to head to our apartment early to drop off our bags, so we decided to head there first.
The only real problem that we had was that I'd taken Euros out (as the apartment accepted payment in Euros and I stupidly assumed that Budapest worked on the Euro). Instead, it used the Hungarian Forint (HUF), which was worth about 1/200th of an Australian dollar ($1 = 200 HUF).
The bus was pretty cheap and we had a short walk to the apartment. They were still cleaning it from the previous guests, but we were allowed to drop off our bags and the one of the hosts took us out for a drink and to give us some tips on things to see.
The apartment building was built in the 1800s and was originally the property of a single owner. It now served as several apartments. The building had been bombed in World War II, with the bomb crashing through the roof and landing in the middle of the stairwell. It was possible to see the difference in the stop on the the stairwell where it was rebuilt:
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| The landing where the bomb had landed |
The only worrying thing was the balcony that led to the apartment - it had definitely seen better days:
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| The balcony |
Overall though, the apartment was great and well situated and the hosts were helpful and friendly. (My House In Budapest - booked through booking.com).
Our host, Andras, took us down to Mikszáth Kálmán Square (names after an Hungarian writer and politician: 1847-1910), where we had lemonade, coffee and discussed Budapest. He pointed out some great places to visit and gave some tips. Then we headed off to explore in the direction he recommended, towards the Market Hall.
After passing through some shady squares we came to the Hungarian National Museum, which was built in 1802:
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| Hungarian National Museum |
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| Top fresco |
We then passed into Kálvin tér (Calvin Square), which is a major intersection in central Budapest. named after John Calvin (
Kálvin János) a theologian in the Protestant Reformation (1509-1564).
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| Kálvin Ter |
The weather was pretty warm, high 20s to low 30s for the whole trip, but we were treated to a fairly heavy rain almost every afternoon at 4pm and the occasional evening thunderstorm.
Our walk took us down to near the bank of the Danube, which splits the former cities of Buda and Pest. The area that would become Budapest was first settled before 1AD by the Celts and then taken by the Romans in 106AD to become Aquinicum.
In the 9th century, the Magyar tribes were forced out of Bulgaria and founded a city on each bank of the Danube - Buda in the mountains on the west, and Pest on the flatter land on the east. In the 10th century this area was founded as the Kingdom of Hungary.
Buda was conquered by the Ottomans in 1526 and settled by them in 1541. The Turkish Ottomans built many of the thermal baths, taking advantage of the fact that Budapest sits over a hot thermal springs (the only capital city other than Reykjavik to have hot thermal springs). The 125 hot springs produced 70 million litres of water a day with temperatures up to 58 degrees C.
In 1718, after many years of fighting, the 'Holy League', a coalition of English, French, Swedish, German, Croat, Dutch, and other nationality soldiers, captured the Kingdom of Hungary from the Ottomans.
Hungary fought for independence in the 1800s, but an uprising in 1848 was put down with assistance from the Russians. In 1867 Hungary was formed into Austria-Hungary, which became highly prosperous until the First World War.
In 1849 the Chain Bridge was built over the Danube, linking the two cities and creating Budapest in 1873 (along with Óbuda- Old Buda).
Austria-Hungary lost the First World War and broke apart, with Hungary becoming independent. The town was bombed heavily by the allies in World War II and attacked by Soviet and Romanian troops, where over 38,000 civilians were killed. Budapest also suffered badly from the Nazi Final Solution - with 20-40% of the 250,000 Jews sent to concentration camps and/or killed.
After World War II, Hungary was occupied by the USSR until 1991, when it again become independent.
This history is sometimes visible in the city, with some very soviet style concrete block buildings, and the remaining Turkish thermal baths, however the city has been extensively rebuilt and now is rated the second most beautiful city in the world by Condé Nast Traveler.
Our next stop was the Budapest Great Market Hall, which is the largest and oldest indoor market in Budapest, built in 1897 and covering 10,000 square meters. It was badly damaged in the war and repaired and restored in 1990. It consists of two floors - the bottom selling fruits, vegetables, paprika and other market foods, and the upper floor selling souvenirs and food.
The exterior of the building was really impressive, with a mosaic tiled roof:
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| Great Market Hall |
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| Great Market Hall |
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| Entrance |
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| Just inside the bottom floor |
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| Bags on the top floor |
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| The top floor was really crowded |
We grabbed some lunch at one of the food stalls - Hungarian sausage, goulash and a Hungarian stuffed cabbage roll (Toltott kaposzta).
After that, we ducked to an Aldi below the market and picked up some water bottles and then headed back to the apartment.
Once we were settled in, Kris and I headed out to the supermarkets nearby to look for some supplies to make dinner and breakfasts. There was an Aldi and a Spar store nearby, but they didn't have a huge selection. Overall it almost ended up being easier and cheaper to eat meals out.
The next day we had a small sleep-in and then retraced our steps back to the Market Hall. We then struck out north along the banks of the Danube.
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| Souvenirs on the upper floor |
Just north of the Market Hall was the Belvárosi Nagyboldogasszony Főplébánia-templom (literally translating to the Downtown Parish Church). It was built in 1056 but needed to be restored several times due to fire and war:
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| Belvárosi Nagyboldogasszony Főplébánia-templom |
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| Belvárosi Nagyboldogasszony Főplébánia-templom and March 15 Square (National Day Square) |
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| Tom on a statue |
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| Cam and the statue |
Heading further north we came to the Elisabeth Bridge, which spanned the narrowest part of the Danube (290m). It was built in 1964 and named after Elisabeth of Bavaria, who was an empress of Austria-Hungary and assassinated in 1898:
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| Elisabeth Bridge |
We checked out several souvenir shops, before coming to Vörösmarty tér (Vörösmarty Square), named after Hungarian Poet Mihály Vörösmarty, (1800-1855). The square was founded in 1812 and has held a variety of names (Theatro piatcza (Theatre place), Harmincad tér (Thirties Square), Játékszín tér (referring the the theatre), Séta tér (Promenade Square), Német Színház tér (German Theatre Square), Színház tér, Régi Színház tér (Old Theatre Square) and
Gizella tér (after an Archduchess). These names are captured on a column in the square, along with a statue of Mihály Vörösmarty:
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| Mihály Vörösmarty Statue |
We stopped just shortly after the square to head to the bank of the Danube and look across at Buda:
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| Kiskirálylány (Little Princess) Statue, 1989 |
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| The Danube, Chain Bridge and Matthias Church in the background |
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| Statue of Ignác Roskovics, a Hungarian Painter (1854-1915) |
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| Ignác's painting of the view over the Danube |
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| View of the Citadella over the Danube |
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| View of Buda Castle over the Danube |
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| The kids in front of Buda castle |
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| Kris and I in front of Buda Castle |
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| Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion from Pest |
We then headed up toward
Széchenyi tér in the centre of Pécs, the historic area of Hungary:
We then headed across the Chain Bridge towards Buda. The
Széchenyi Chain Bridge was the first bridge across the Danube to unite Buda and Pest. It was built in 1849.
The bridge has two stone lions at each end. There is a legend that the sculptor forgot to create tongues for the lions and ended up committing suicide after he was taunted about his omission. The truth is that the sculptor claimed that the lions have tongues, its not just visible from the road and he died of old age, not suicide.
At the end of the Chain Bridge is the Castle Hill Tunnel that is almost the same length and size of the bridge. A long-running Hungarian joke is that the bridge can be withdrawn into the tunnel if it rains, so the bridge doesn't get wet.
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| North-Eastern Lion with Matthias Church in the background |
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| Side view |
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| Chain Bridge |
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| Buda Castle from the bridge |
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| Looking south towards Citadella and the Elisabeth Bridge |
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| Buda (west) side of the Chain Bridge |
Once across the bridge, we found ourselves at the base of Castle Hill, site of Buda Castle. There were a few ways to get up to the Castle, the most exciting being a funicular railway, but we decided to buy tickets for a small hop-on-hop-off service that would take us up the castle as well as around to the Citadella.
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| Castle Hill Tunnel |
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| Castle Crest |
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| Castle Map |
While we were trying to decide, Tomas sat on some steps in front of a man drinking sour milk drink. the man reached for his drink, but instead knocked it down the stairs, splashing it all over Tom. This was a problem as Tomas has a diary protein allergy (and it was hot, so he was going to start to smell), so we rushed to a water fountain to wash him off.
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| Hussar Statue at Buda Castle |
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| Washing Tomas |
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| Washing Alana, who also got splashed |
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| Roads on the way to the castle |
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| Buda Castle Statues |
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| Buda Castle Statues |
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| Buda Castle Statues |
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| Gates at the castle |
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| Gate statue |
The next stop was the Fisherman's Bastion, but first we stopped through a market:
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| Markets |
Fisherman's Bastion (Halászbástya) was built in 1895 around the Matthias Church. The seven towers of the Bastion represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled the basin. The name Fisherman's Bastion derives from fact that the Buda side castle wall was protected by the Fisherman's Guild.
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| Fisherman's Bastion from the front |
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| Fisherman's Bastion walls |
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| Inside the Fisherman's Bastion |
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| King Stephan I of Hungary |
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| Walls of the Bastion |
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| North side of the inside of the Bastion |
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| North-eastern tower |
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| Tom guarding the walls |
We stopped at the top of the tower to take some shots of the view over to Pest:
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| Looking south along the Danube towards Elisabeth Bridge (the green spires are Belvárosi Nagyboldogasszony Főplébánia-templom) |
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| Looking at the Pest bank (east) of the Danube) |
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| View of Budapest Parliament House (on the Pest side) from the Fisherman's Bastion |
Just behind the Bastion was Matthias Church - an amazing looking church built in the 14th century and extensively restored in the late 1800s on the site of an 1015 church destroyed by the Mongols in 1241.
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| Matthias Church Tower |
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| Matthias Church |
We hopped back on the bus, heading back down towards Citadella, however the bus decided to skip the Citadella and just head back to the base of the Castle Hill.
If we wanted to take the bus to Citadella, we had to take it the entire way back up past the castle, market, bastion etc, so we decided to walk along the shore towards the Citadella. We passed the
Várkert Bazá (Garden Bazaar), which is an art, garden and architectural site on the Buda side of the Danube:
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| Várkert Bazá |
We ended up underneath the Citadella, looking up. By now, we were hot and tired, so we decided to start on our way home. We did a brief stop at the Market Hall to get some supplies and a few souvenirs and got home just in time for the rain shower and thunderstorm.
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| Citadella Statues from below |
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| Cliffs at the base of Citadella |
The following day we decided to catch a tram out to Heroes Square and the Széchenyi Thermal Baths.
You may have noticed that many places in Budapest have the name Széchenyi attached to them - this is named after Count István Széchenyi de Sárvár-Felsővidék, who was a politician and writer (1791-1860), considered to be "the Greatest Hungarian".
To start our day, we caught a tram out to Heroes Square (Hősök tere), which holds a series of statues marking the seven chieftains of the Magyars and other national leaders. During the Friday when we arrived, it was hosting the handball championships, so some of the photos below are from the Friday visit, and others from when we returned on Saturday:
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| Monuments rising over the Handball advertising |
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| Central Column |
The central column shows Archangel Gabriel giving the Holy Crown to the St. Stephan, making him the first King of Hungary. Gabriel also holds the apostolic cross - a symbol that was given to St Stephen by the pope after he converted Hungary to Christianity. Around the base of the column are the statues of the seven Magyar chieftains - the ones that led the Hungarian people into the Carpathian basin in the 9th century.
In front of the column is the centopath, or the tomb of the unknown soldier.
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| Heroes Square after the Handball Tournament was finished. |
The stone colonnades behind the colum have statues of famous and important Hungarians:
The right colonnade is capped with a statue of Peace (the palm frond is the symbol of peace):
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| Peace |
and the leftwith War -(the snake is symbol of war):
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| War |
The left side has Labour and Wealth capping the top left:
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| Left Colonnade |
Below them are the following:
- King Stephen I, his panel shows him receiving the crown from an emissary of the Pope,
- King Ladislaus I, his panel shows him slaying the Cumanian adbuctor ( a turkish nomad who abducted a Hungarian girl),
- King Coloman, his panel shows him bringing in laws preventing the burning of witches,
- King Andrew II, his panel shows him leading crusades to the Holy Land,
- King Béla IV, his panel shows him rebuilding the country after the Mongol invasion,
- King Charles I, his panel shows the defeat of the Ottogar at the Battle of Marchfeld, and
- King Louis I, showing him occupying Napels.
The right side is topped with Knowledge and Glory:
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| Right Colonnade |
Below them are the following:
- John Hunyadi, his panel shows him at the siege of Belgrade (1456),
- King Matthias Corvinus, his panel shows him with his scholars,
- István Bocskay, his panel shows his soldiers defeating Habsburg imperial forces,
-Gabriel Bethlen, his panel shows him concluding a treaty with Bohemia,
- Imre Thököly, his panel shows the battle of Szikszó
- Prince Francis II Rákócz, his panel shows him returning from Poland, and
- Lajos Kossuth, his panel shows him rallying the peasants of the Great Plain.
Around the Heroes Square are some other impressive buildings, the Kunsthalle (Art Hall) to the right, built in 1896:
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| Kunsthalle |
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| Wall of the Kunsthalle |
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| Pillars at the Kunsthalle |
and the Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum), built in the early 1900s:
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| Museum of Fine Arts |
Behind Heroes Square is Vajdahunyad vára
(Vajdahunyad Castle), built in 1896 as part of the Millennial Exhibition (1000 years of Hungary)
. The name comes from an original Hungarian Gothic castle in Hunyadvar, hence the name Vajda-Hunyadvar
. The original building was temporary, made of planks and cardboard, just for the celebrations, but it was built permanent in 1904.
To get to the castle we had to walk through the park, so we decided to stop by the lake for a picnic lunch.
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| View of the castle across the lake from Heroes Square |
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| Rear of Vajdahunyad vára |
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| Corner tower (SW) as we crossed the bridge towards the castle |
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| Walking along the South side of the Castle |
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| Eastern facades |
In the grounds just in front of the castle is a statue to Anonymus (Anonymus Bele Regis Notarius - Anonymous Notary of King Bela) who was a chronicler for King Bela III in the 12th century.
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| Anonymus |
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| Main entrance to the Castle - into the agriculture museum |
This was where we stopped for our picnic, behind the statue and in front of the castle
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| Running around in the park |
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| Castle view from the lake |
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| The lake |
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| Posing by the Budapest sign |
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| We left just in time! A school group took over our picnic area |
We headed around the lake and back into the other side of the castle.
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| Castle Gates |
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| Guardian Lion |
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| Church |
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| Above the Door |
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| Bottom of the door |
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| Top of the door |
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| The boys with Ignác Darányi - Minister of Agriculture 1895-1903 |
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| Statues around the door |
Our next stop was the Szechenyi Baths (
Széchenyi gyógyfürdő) - one of the Budapest's famous thermal baths. There were 2 big out door baths and lots of smaller indoor ones. They are generally about 28-40 degrees C (from the 76 degrees C heated thermal springs), but there are a few that are a little hotter or colder.
The Szechenyi Baths are the largest in Europe and were built in 1913.
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| Outdoor bath |
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| Outdoor Baths - see if you can find Tom |
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| Me and the kids |
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| Us in the baths |
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| One of the indoor baths |
To enter the baths, you firstly pay to get a wristband that scans you in. Then you enter a long corridor lined with wooden doors. Each door leads to a 'changing cabin', and you locate one that is empty. When you enter and close the door, a wooden bench folds down, that also blocks the doors and acts as a lock. The cabin has two doors, the one you entered from and one leading out into the pools. Once you're changed you exit through the second door, find a locker to store your gear and heads to the pools. When you're finished you reverse the process, entering the cabins from the inner door this time and exiting into the corridor.
Once we'd finished up at the baths, we we went for a walk through the park and stopped for a
Kürtőskalács - a Hungarian Chimney cakes - a pastry of a sweet, yeasty dough that is cooked on a spit and then rolled in sugar.
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| Slushees |
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| Kürtőskalács |
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| The kids called this the 'Legit Shop' - Liget means Park in Hungarian |
We then walked back into town and passed the Dohány Street Synagogue, know as the Great Synagogue. It is the largest Synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world and was build in 1859:
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| Above the main doors |
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| Main Entrance |
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| Looking down the side |
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| Unfortunately this is the only photo we took that shows most of the building. |
For dinner we stopped at a medieval themed restaurant called Sir Lancelot's. We got a meat platter for 4 and it filled us all up:
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| Thrones |
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| King Tomas wants food! |
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| Us (well most of us) and our platter of meat |
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| Yum |
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| Our platter |
Our platter contained:
A Holy Grill - Grilled Chicken
Sword in the Breast - Poultry breast skewers with apple
Forester's Wife on Skewers - Poultry breast skewers with zucchini and mushrooms
Sir Vincent's Charm - Roasted goose drumsticks with braised purple cabbage
Chicken Wings - Spicy wings wrapped in bacon
Monk's Dish - Crispy fried pork knuckle with onion potatoes
Merlin's Basket - Spicy beef tenderloin strips
Guinevere's Mantle - Deer filet mignon wrapped in bacon
The Red Knight's Lance - Pork filet skewers with sausage, bacon and onions
Glazed Rib - Rib seasoned with various spices and garlic
Fisherman's Catch - Roasted pike-perch filet with almonds
The Queen's Dream - Royal roast goose liver served with potato slivers and ratatouille
and garnishes.
Here's a brief description of what Tomas ate:
For our final day we decided to take the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to see all the things we might have missed. Unfortunately it was ridiculously busy and crowded, which made it not as much fun as it should have been.
Here's some of the sights from the bus:
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| Front of the Terror museum |
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| Chain Bridge |
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| Dog with a balloon |
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| Looking along the Danube |
Our main destination was the top of Citadella - where we hadn't made it on the first exploring day.
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| Statue of St Gellert - who the hill is named after |
The views from the top of Citadella were worth it. Looking down from Gellert Hill it was possible to see along the Danube to Buda Castle, the Parliament building and the spires of Matthias Church:
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| The view - looking north along the Danube |
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| Buda Castle |
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| Parliament Building |
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| Us (and a random old man) |
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| The Danube |
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| Pest |
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| Checking out the sights |
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| Torchlight Statue |
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| Slaying a dragon |
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| Statue of Liberty at the top of Gellert Hill |
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| The whole monument |
When we bought our bus tickets we were told that there was a free boat tour included, out to Margaret Island. One of the incentives to buy the tickets was that they gave us all three children free. However, when we lined up for the boat they forced us to pay for Alana because they were 'a different company for the boat'. That coupled with a 45 minute delay sitting in the direct sunlight before the boat took off, didn't leave us very impressed.
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| Buda Castle from the boat |
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| Chain bridge |
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| Parliament Building |
We hopped off at Margaret Island and went to cool off my the massive fountain, people took their shoes off and sat with their feet in the channel around the fountain:
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| Margaret Island |
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| Cooling the feet |
When we'd cooled off, we went for a walk around the island and stopped for a (very) late lunch of pizza for adults and hot dogs for the kids, before catching the tram back to our apartment to start packing.
We were out fairly early the next morning and home in Sweden by about 1pm on Sunday ready for work.
Budapest was an amazing city, the castles were great and thermal baths relaxing. We had a great time and were glad we'd found the time to visit.
