SUMMER/FALL 2022. Part 4: BUDAPEST

Despite the question that is in the air now: Is Hungary the first dictatorship in the EU? We decide to visit while the question remains unanswered.  For reading on the topic, see this

QUEEN & BUDAPEST

The story goes that in 1986 Freddie Mercury and Queen came to Budapest to perform a concert before 70,000 people.  Pre-concert, the band took a cruise on the Danube and when passing Buda Castle, Freddie started joking about who owned it and if he could buy it.  This offended the Hungarians who witnessed it.

However, Freddie got himself a coach who taught him how to sing a Hungarian Folk Song in the Hungarian language.  When he sang this to the audience at the concert, he won their hearts. Here is the YouTube link.

Photo from a story 2022/07/27 about the 1986 concert in 'Hungary Today'.

We were in Budapest for six days ... and missed most of it.  Wow, it can rain there.  Eventually, one gets tired of being soaked and cold and enjoys the comfort of a room.  

The Pest side of the Danube is where many tourists stay and where many locals live.  The Buda side is for those in the upper-income brackets.  On the Pest side, like in other places in central Europe, an apartment rental proves to be a better deal than hostels or hotels, with all the comforts of home.  Partway through our stay, management gifts us with a bottle of white Hungarian wine.  

While a bit more spread out than some of the other cities we visited, we still walk everywhere.  As has become our custom, the first outing is with a free walking tour.  The meeting place is Saint Stephen's Basilica.

Saint Stephen is the patron saint not only of Hungary but also of bricklayers and stonemasons.  He is known for uniting the Carpathian basin, successfully repelling invaders to the Hungarian Kingdom, and spreading Christianity.

When he was canonized, his corpse was exhumed, and the story goes that his right arm was as fresh as the day he was buried.  The right arm was cut off so it could be preserved and venerated.  His fist remained in Budapest, the upper arm went to another place and the lower arm to Vienna.  Every year on St Stephen's Day, his now mummified right fist leads the parade.

Only one other person has been considered worthy enough to be buried in the basilica:  Hungary's famous football player, Ferenc Puskas.

The 96-meter-tall basilica spire is the same height as the parliament buildings to remind all that church and state are on equal footing and that one does not have authority over the other.

A Tribute to the Jewish People of Hungary

During WWI Hungary lost about seventy percent of its lands.  After the war, to recover some of those lands, the Hungarian leader began to align the country with Germany, the Nazis and the Axis Powers, eventually becoming a communist country and staying that way for about forty years.

In 1944 deportation of Jews from Hungary began in earnest. and in two months 437,000 people were sent to Auschwitz to be gassed.  Others in Budapest were simply rounded up in the dead of winter in the middle of the night and forcibly marched to the banks of the Danube.  

Here they were made to remove their valuable shoes which the militia could later sell.  The militia was running low on bullets, so they tied the people's hands together and shot every third or fourth person who dragged the living into the water as they fell.  Today this portion of the river is known as the Red Danube.

In 2005 a sculpture was placed on the banks of the Danube to remember this terrible time.  There are some flowers at the memorial, but many stones are placed in the shoes as a permanent marker of memory and legacy.  It was very moving to stand by the shoes on the riverbank while listening to the guide relate the events.

The guide points out a tiny bronze Kermit-the-frog statue.  Mihaly Kolodka who has been called a guerrilla sculptor has put up many different statues around the city and continues to do so.  Some are serious, and most are whimsical.  All are tiny.

A delightful visit is to the Great Market Hall.

The fruit and vegetables are beautiful.  The salami, sausages and other meats are something to behold.  The homemade and traditional clothing is exquisite and of such quality and the crafts are both traditional and amusing.  Here we buy paprika.  One pack is smokey, and the other is smokey and hot.  There are numerous other choices.  We can hardly wait to start cooking with it.

Many stores have an offering of Palinka.  This type of brandy is made from almost any type of fruit with a 40% alcohol content.  It's everywhere, but we don't really care for sweet drinks.

Wandering in the city one day a Lindt chocolate store lures us in.  Oh my.  My fave.

There are flavours in these balls of luxurious delight that we never see in North America.

Another day walking past the National Museum is a mannequin fashion show.  No information is available on it.  Perhaps it is fashion created from recycled materials.  They are so creative.  One sample is below and for the fashionistas, a link to the twenty-two or so other ones in my google photos album.

On another dark and cloudy day, we head across the river and attempt to see Buda Castle, a palace and castle complex of past Hungarian Kings.  Once there it begins to rain so heavily that we give up and get 'home' as fast as we can.

Today it houses three museums, the Budapest History Museum, the Hungarian National Gallery, and the National Széchényi Library.

Look here for photos of the exterior of Buda Castle.  

Below are photos taken through the rain from Buda Castle looking back at Pest.

And this is directly below the castle.

The Castle guards and horses look miserable in the rain.

High atop Gellert Hill in Budapest and seen from most places in the city is Liberty Statue.  As I understand it, it was first built to express appreciation for the Soviet liberation of Hungary from the Nazi forces.  Then as Soviet rule became more oppressive, the statue was not so well-liked.  Eventually, hard-won freedom came from communism.  So, the statue remained, but the meaning to the people and the inscriptions changed.

Sadly, that's all we managed to see of Budapest through downpours of rain that followed us to our next couple of locations.  Below are some random photos.

For assorted reasons known to Hungarian citizens, three American presidents have statues in Budapest: George Washington, Ronald Reagan (a bust and a full statue) and George H.W. Bush.  

Below is a small portion of the entrance to the famous New York Cafe that holds the title of the most beautiful cafe in the world.  Lineups were always long to get into it.  Check out this link to see it.  You'll be glad you did.

Now, back to Slovakia, our favourite country so far on this trip.