Hungary: Oct. 21 - 24

Budapest: Sunday Oct. 23, 2005

Today started off as another grey and drizzly day. So even though it was the last day that boats were cruising up the Danube River to the small artist village of Szentendre, we decided to skip the experience. With all the cloud and mist, we knew we wouldn’t see much from the boat. Also today was a Hungarian National Holiday and we weren’t sure just how much would be open this late in the tourist season and on the holiday.

We let the kids sleep in and then headed off on the yellow subway line to Heroes’ Square in City Park at the end of picturesque Andrassy Avenue. This metro line was Continental Europe’s first subway, built in 1896, and ran under the French inspired avenue. At each stop there were billboards describing important buildings above ground, the architects involved etc. I never managed to finish reading each exhibit because the trains came so frequently.

As we exited the subway steps, we heard lots of shouting and cheering. We weren’t sure what we were walking into…… It turned out to be a long distance run and many competitors were grinding their way by us. I happily waited for them to pass and then continued on to the park. Heroes’ Square was built for the one thousand year anniversary of the Hungarian conquest in 1896. In the center was a tall (36m) monument with Archangel Gabriel on the top and the seven tribe leaders of the conquering Hungarians surrounding the column. Behind this were two semicircular arcades with statues of 14 heroes of Hungarian history. It was very impressive and because of the holiday, we witnessed changing of guard ceremonies and patriotic demonstrations at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the base of the monument.

City Park covered a very large area. It was originally built for the burgeoning middle classes in economically prosperous Pest. The social and sporting activities of the wealthy middle class were quite different from those of the noble rich who preferred hunting and riding. The park became home to an artificial lake for rowing in the summer and skating in the winter, a zoo, a circus, a public thermal bath/spa, gardens and a fitness center. We passed dozens of people skating on the frozen lake and then continued on to Vajdahunyad Castle, now home of the museums of agriculture and transport. We stopped to watch a number of people rubbing a large statue in front of the castle. Then we realized it was a statue of the writer Anonymous, and they were rubbing his quill pen. I had read about this man, Georiosissimi Bela Regis Notarius, the day before at one of the museums in the castle. I just couldn’t remember about what he wrote…… The kids had to rub his pen of course. Sierra hoped it would improve her writing style.

We passed one of the thermal baths for which Budapest is so famous. However I couldn’t convince the boys that getting into a large HOT pool was a good thing. I traded this pool for a future spa (with massages and treatments) later in our trip. By this time I was getting hungry and I couldn’t pass up a gigantic pretzel from a vendor in the park. It was monstrous and about $1.50. Food in Hungary has been very cheap. We all chowed down on it as we walked to the zoo.

The zoo was free with the Budapest card and was high on Sierra’s list of things to see in the city. It was a fun couple of hours seeing many animals that aren’t in our zoo at home. As in the Salzburg zoo, I turned over my camera to Sierra and she had a great time snapping photos of different animals. Look for the animal photo she took in our selection from Budapest.

We became masters of the subway and headed off to another train station (Nyugati Palyaudvar) to get tickets for our trip to Prague, after Romania. It has proven to be necessary to book ahead and reserve seats on the trains in the old eastern block countries. As we climbed the stairs in this new train station we were very pleased to find the ticket and information offices where they were supposed to be. As well the general feel of the station was more comfortable than the Keleti station. Thankfully we checked about the tickets because we had the wrong train station. The Prague train left out of Keleti too. However all was not lost, we had a very helpful clerk and she got us all set up with tickets and seats. The kids were hungry and not much was open on the holiday Sunday except you guessed it…….McDonalds. When we entered the restaurant, I was amazed. It was beautiful! I don’t know what the room was in its previous existence but it had old plaster moldings and medallions on the walls, marble floors, beyond high ceilings and huge antique styled windows. This wasn’t any cookie-cutter drive in fast food joint.

Everyone was full and happy, so once again we went onto the metro. We were certainly getting value from the Budapest card. This time we were heading to Margit Island, a large green oasis in the middle of the Danube. In the summer tour boats stop at the dock on the island but we walked on from the bridge at the Parliament buildings. The sun was attempting to shine and as we walked through the fallen leaves, it was a nice break from the concrete of the city. In the summer, I would imagine that all the gardens would have been beautiful. The kids loved an extremely large fountain that changed water patterns to the music from the Nutcracker ballet. At times, the water shot straight up into the air like a large geyser and then it would quickly change to a more horizontal multi-armed spray. This would catch spectators by surprise and they would jump back from the water.

We walked past the beautiful House of Parliament, a symbol of the city. It was built between 1885 and 1902 in a combination of styles; neo-gothic, neo-roman, Byzantine and Venetian. It was closed today because of the holiday.

Well our plan had been to go out for dinner after the disastrous effort the night before. However, and this is beginning to sound like a broken record, all the restaurants were closed in our area because of the national holiday and/or it being Sunday. We managed to find a very small grocery store across the street from the closed internet café. It didn’t have any butcher shop but we got enough supplies for a reasonable vegetarian dinner of pasta. The only thing it didn’t have was fresh garlic. This surprised me because all the food here seemed to be loaded with it, as evidenced by everyone’s breath and body odors. I found a small fruit and vegetable shop with some garlic bulbs. It cost 9 Hungarian cents or about 9/200 American cents!!! I was so embarrassed to be spending so little on one purchase that I almost bought other stuff. It was great on the garlic bread though.

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