Cruising Central Europe: Hungary
Our final destination along the Danube was Budapest. We powered through a lot of land on the border between Hungary and Slovakia to get from Vienna that night to Budapest in the morning. Budapest is actually three towns divided by the river that have been merged into one. On the east side of the river is the flat and cramped Pest and on the west side is hilly Buda. On the west side is also mostly residential Obuda, which is further out and we didn't visit. Together, they make Budapest. We got a bit of a chance to see the monumental structures and figure out the lay of the land as we sailed into town at the crack of 8am.
[View of Budapest Parliament as we approach the city]
A little bit later in the morning when we disembarked, we found that the weather had finally started heating up, too much so actually: I was sweating even before I got off the ferry from our boat (docked on the Buda side) to the Pest side. In the morning we had just enough time to go and catch the central market (Nagycsarnok) in Pest before it closed for the weekend. It was really a huge market, worth going to see even though I knew I didn't want to buy anything. The whole thing was a giant metal and glass structure that looked like it used to be a train station back in the day. On the first floor were food products, mostly meat and vegetables. On the second floor was a maze of tschotske stands for tourists, with everything from stacking dolls to table runners to fur hats (which did not really seem necessary in this weather).
[Budapest Central Market]
In the afternoon we had our last big bus tour(!), and the first stop was Heroes' Square on the Pest side, built in 1896 to honor Hungary's founding Magyar fathers. Judging by the statues of them, they were all very burly. We toured around and caught some of the historic architecture that currently houses government buildings. Some of these old fancy buildings are slipping into disrepair; the guide told us that the government can't afford to keep them up, so they are planning on moving the government out and launching a scheme to get big multi-national businesses to move in. They figure the businesses can pay for the upkeep in exchange for the location. We'll see how that goes...
[Heroes' Square]
On the Buda side, we drove up to the top of Castle Hill (Varhegy) and walked along the arcade and up the towers that looked out for a great view over the river. There was also a great view in the reflection off the windows of the Hilton, which had somehow finagled building a hotel 30 yards from the Castle towers. The were not inclined, however, to let any of us in to look around. Neither was the big neo-Gothic Matthias Church across the square, which apparently was in the middle of a wedding service.
[The towers on Castle Hill]
[1 - The tower reflected in the Castle Hill Hilton, 2 - View down on Budapest]
[On Castle Hill in Budapest: 1 - Matthias Church, 2 - My mom waiting for the bus]
After our little walk around Castle Hill, we were bussed back to the boat to get dolled up for the captain's dinner. It was like most other dinners except everyone was slightly less tacky-looking and they served us a dessert called "Baked Amadaggio" that had a lot of ice cream and chocolate in it and that the crew carried around the dining room singing and waving sparklers. It was our last night on the ship, and it was also Bastille Day, so we were treated to a big fireworks display over the water as a send-off.
[1 - The city lit up at night, 2 - Bastille Day fireworks]
The next day we got all of our stuff over the bridge to the hotel we were staying in on the Pest side. There was a big pedestrian market on the bridge with crafts and books (in Hungarian), but it was really hot and I wanted to check in to the hotel and get settled. After we all got ourselves sorted, we all headed our separate ways to see what we wanted to see in our free day in Budapest. I had to run some errands: I ran out of storage space for my photos, I couldn't get them to transfer to my iPod, so I had to go buy a little mini-hard drive. I didn't learn much from my expedition to the shopping mall except that Hungary has the same shopping malls as everwhere else in the world, and also that they don't really think it's necessary to mark their subway entrances. Every so often there's just a staircase going down and you have to have some faith that it's not just leading into a basement somewhere.
Despite the oppressive heat, that afternoon I did manage to get out again to the Jewish quarter and see the Great Synagogue which we had passed the day before in our bus tour. I was glad to get back to the hotel, though, not only for the air conditioning, but also to get away from the dumpy shirtless men walking around. Two of them were in front of my a good half of my walk home, sidling along and scratching their hairy bellies. Finally they sat down on an abandoned couch under the shade of an awning to relax and smoke some cigarettes; their departure gave me a much nicer view for the rest of the walk home.
[At the Great Synagogue in Budapest]
Next, my immediate family was heading out for another week in France, while everyone else was flying home to the States. Our flight out left the next morning at some ridiculous hour that I can't even remember any more, so it was a pretty early dinner and an early night. It was a bit anti-climactic saying goodbye to everyone and then heading off so early after all the time we'd spent together over the last week and a half, but in the end it was a great trip and we all saw a bunch of new countries (except for my grandmother, who, like I said, has been pretty much everywhere). Up to top
[View of Budapest Parliament as we approach the city]
A little bit later in the morning when we disembarked, we found that the weather had finally started heating up, too much so actually: I was sweating even before I got off the ferry from our boat (docked on the Buda side) to the Pest side. In the morning we had just enough time to go and catch the central market (Nagycsarnok) in Pest before it closed for the weekend. It was really a huge market, worth going to see even though I knew I didn't want to buy anything. The whole thing was a giant metal and glass structure that looked like it used to be a train station back in the day. On the first floor were food products, mostly meat and vegetables. On the second floor was a maze of tschotske stands for tourists, with everything from stacking dolls to table runners to fur hats (which did not really seem necessary in this weather).
[Budapest Central Market]
In the afternoon we had our last big bus tour(!), and the first stop was Heroes' Square on the Pest side, built in 1896 to honor Hungary's founding Magyar fathers. Judging by the statues of them, they were all very burly. We toured around and caught some of the historic architecture that currently houses government buildings. Some of these old fancy buildings are slipping into disrepair; the guide told us that the government can't afford to keep them up, so they are planning on moving the government out and launching a scheme to get big multi-national businesses to move in. They figure the businesses can pay for the upkeep in exchange for the location. We'll see how that goes...
[Heroes' Square]
On the Buda side, we drove up to the top of Castle Hill (Varhegy) and walked along the arcade and up the towers that looked out for a great view over the river. There was also a great view in the reflection off the windows of the Hilton, which had somehow finagled building a hotel 30 yards from the Castle towers. The were not inclined, however, to let any of us in to look around. Neither was the big neo-Gothic Matthias Church across the square, which apparently was in the middle of a wedding service.
[The towers on Castle Hill]
[1 - The tower reflected in the Castle Hill Hilton, 2 - View down on Budapest]
[On Castle Hill in Budapest: 1 - Matthias Church, 2 - My mom waiting for the bus]
After our little walk around Castle Hill, we were bussed back to the boat to get dolled up for the captain's dinner. It was like most other dinners except everyone was slightly less tacky-looking and they served us a dessert called "Baked Amadaggio" that had a lot of ice cream and chocolate in it and that the crew carried around the dining room singing and waving sparklers. It was our last night on the ship, and it was also Bastille Day, so we were treated to a big fireworks display over the water as a send-off.
[1 - The city lit up at night, 2 - Bastille Day fireworks]
The next day we got all of our stuff over the bridge to the hotel we were staying in on the Pest side. There was a big pedestrian market on the bridge with crafts and books (in Hungarian), but it was really hot and I wanted to check in to the hotel and get settled. After we all got ourselves sorted, we all headed our separate ways to see what we wanted to see in our free day in Budapest. I had to run some errands: I ran out of storage space for my photos, I couldn't get them to transfer to my iPod, so I had to go buy a little mini-hard drive. I didn't learn much from my expedition to the shopping mall except that Hungary has the same shopping malls as everwhere else in the world, and also that they don't really think it's necessary to mark their subway entrances. Every so often there's just a staircase going down and you have to have some faith that it's not just leading into a basement somewhere.
Despite the oppressive heat, that afternoon I did manage to get out again to the Jewish quarter and see the Great Synagogue which we had passed the day before in our bus tour. I was glad to get back to the hotel, though, not only for the air conditioning, but also to get away from the dumpy shirtless men walking around. Two of them were in front of my a good half of my walk home, sidling along and scratching their hairy bellies. Finally they sat down on an abandoned couch under the shade of an awning to relax and smoke some cigarettes; their departure gave me a much nicer view for the rest of the walk home.
[At the Great Synagogue in Budapest]
Next, my immediate family was heading out for another week in France, while everyone else was flying home to the States. Our flight out left the next morning at some ridiculous hour that I can't even remember any more, so it was a pretty early dinner and an early night. It was a bit anti-climactic saying goodbye to everyone and then heading off so early after all the time we'd spent together over the last week and a half, but in the end it was a great trip and we all saw a bunch of new countries (except for my grandmother, who, like I said, has been pretty much everywhere). Up to top
posted by Nora @ 11:36 PM
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