Day three in Budapest and Ray and I decided we would join a walking tour available through the hop-on hop-off bus tour we had bought tickets for. First, we took the bus to St. Stephen’s Basilica, dedicated to the first Hungarian Christian king. Construction on the basilica was from 1851-1905.
Inside the church was beautiful. Look at the dome, which reaches 315 feet, is visible all over Budapest, and those beautiful mosaics.
One of the strangest things in the church was the mummified forearm of St. Stephen, also known as Istvan.
After we visited the Basilica we joined the walking tour, which was great. The architecture of Budapest is beautiful, but an interesting thing about it is how evident the Soviet presence is; the Soviets ruled Budapest from 1947-1989. Look at the contrast of the buildings.
Not far from the Basilica is freedom square. On one end of the square is a monument to the victims of the Nazi occupation of Hungary. There is an eagle, which represents the Nazis, attacking the Archangel Gabriel, representing the Hungarian victims. There is a fun fountain that you can walk through, and the spray of water turns off when you approach it.
Apparently, not everyone is happy with this monument, there were signs and protests from people who think the government is sugarcoating their collaboration with the Nazis.
Also in Freedom Square is this, a memorial to the Soviet Red Army. This memorial is obviously not very popular and often has guards protecting it from being defaced. It is the last Soviet Memorial standing in the city.
Additionally located next to the square is the US Embassy, and look who we found near there, former president Ronald Reagan. He’s overlooking the embassy and is honored here because of his help ending Communist rule in Eastern Europe.
Finally, leaving the square and heading towards Parliament we passed this monument, a bridge on which is a statue representing Imre Nagy, a national hero in Hungary. He was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Hungary. On November 1, 1956 he announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and asked the UN to recognize Hungary as a neutral state. Basically, this was him jumping ship from being on the Communist side to the people’s side. However, he was later arrested by Soviet forces, given a secret trial and was executed.
Speaking of Soviet Rule, this building still has bullet holes from the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Our tour guide during the walking tour gave us so much interesting information about the history and buildings of Budapest.
Next stop was the Hungarian Parliament building, the largest building in the country. It was built in 1885-1902 and was designed after the Houses of Parliament in London. It is 880 feet long, 315 feet tall, and has 691 rooms inside.
Have a look at Kossuth Square, with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ethnographical Museum opposite the Parliament. In the center of the square stands the Parliament Guards.
Getting around Budapest was very easy. It was walk-able, there’s a metro, tour buses, and there are more than 30 tram lines and has been in operation since 1866.
Our walking tour ended in Vorosmarty Square, a major business and shopping area in Budapest, which was perfect for getting my mom her favorite souvenir, because there was a Hard Rock Cafe there. My mom loves the city shirts.
And this is an important stop in my story because in-between stopping here and our yummy lunch where we had more typical Hungarian food, my credit card disappeared. And not just disappeared, but when I finally found a cafe with WiFi to call my credit card company, the person who “found” my credit card had already charged almost $2,000 worth of purchases. That was the first negative mark against Budapest the whole time, and put a bit of a black spot on the day. But that didn’t stop us, we had the Budapest Opera House to tour.
This Opera House opened in 1884 and was built to rival those of Paris and Vienna. We paid for a walking tour, which had so many people in attendance we were split into groups by language, and even the English speakers had to be split into three other groups. They only have walking tours every couple hours, and you have to pay extra to take pictures, but I’m glad I did- It was beautiful inside!
We got to go into the theater, where we saw the royal box and the chandelier. Our tour guide gave us lots of good information about the history of the theater, most of which I’ve forgotten by now, so you’ll just have to enjoy the pics. When the tour was over, we also paid a few dollars to get a little opera concert.
The rest of the day we spent walking around Budapest. There are so many amazing streets that we would turn down by chance and would be so enamored with because they were so quaint and beautiful. Our little secret places (in our mind); but not so secret because they were everywhere. I would love to spend more time in Budapest just exploring off the beaten path, because it was all so magical.
One of the places we passed by was the Great Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter. It’s the largest synagogue in Europe, but the admission fee was a bit expensive so we didn’t venture in this time. There is a holocaust memorial there that I would like to see the next time I visit.
Behind the synagogue is the Raoul Wallenberg Emlekpark with the Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs, for the more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews who were murdered. It resembles a weeping willow tree and the leaves have inscriptions of the names of the victims.
So remember the story about my credit card getting stolen? The second black mark of the day was after we left the train station, where we had gone to get our tickets to Vienna the next day. We had booked a traditional Hungarian concert that was starting at 7 and we were afraid we wouldn’t get to the theater on time, so we took a taxi from the train station to where we thought the theater was located, and were charged over $40! The same price for this 5 minute drive as it was from the aiport to our AirBnB which took over 30 minutes. Talk about getting taking advantage of because we were foreigners. And the bad part was, we weren’t even at the right spot for the show. We found another taxi, who confirmed that we were ripped off, and he dropped us off at the theater, which, coincidentally, was on the same street as our AirBnB. Tricky travel problems.
We ended the day at the concert, which was SOOOO great! It lasted about two hours and had lots of dancing, with traditional costumes, singing and instruments, including the cimbalum which was absolutely amazing. Check out the video below. You’ve got to go see one of these shows when you’re in Budapest.
That wraps up Budapest. Check out my other two posts to find out the whole time. Definitely one of the best cities I’ve ever visited, and I hope I get back one day. Next blog post…Vienna!