FIRST DAY IN BUDAPESTLast Wednesday we set off to visit once more, the beautiful city of Budapest. Our flight from Gatwick was uneventful and we arrived in Budapest late in the afternoon (one hour ahead of London time).
To get to our hotel, we booked a mini-bus and were driven through homeward bound traffic and some rain, until we reached our destination a little before dinner time.
Our hotel, the Carlton was a perfectly located modern building tucked away in a quiet street a hundred metres or so from the river front on the Buda side of Budapest.
Once checked in, we set out to explore the nearby streets in search of a restaurant. As I said, our ho
tel was set in a little side street with a set of steps leading down towards the River Danube, at the top end of the steps we could look up towards the Castle Hill dominated by the bulk of the former Royal Palace, and down towards the splendid Chain Bridge, one of the bridges which connects Buda to Pest. There was a funicular railway leading up to the old part of the city, which we decided to take in the morning. In the meantime we found a nice little restaurant called the Gong (a boxing reference apparently), and enjoyed a bottle of Hungarian white wine, with spicy goulash soup, and veal with almonds and a dessert of apricot sauced pastries.The next day dawned warm and sunny and we were off again, firstly by funicular to the top of Castle Hill, looking back towards the Danube and city spread out below us. We had a book of recommended walks which we decided to follow to some extent, so for the next few hours we wandered around the tree lined Castle Promenade, the Alexander Palace, and across the cobbled Parade Square and along charming old world streets where Beethoven once walked and M
ozart visited. There were rows of baroque houses, many of them painted cream and yellow with geranium boxes and greenery lining little courtyards and alleyways. We stopped for coffee in a shady park across the square from t
he old church of St Matthias where many of Hungary’s kings were crowned. It was first built in the early Middle Ages, and rebuilt in 1896. The place is being restored right now but looking up you can see a beautiful variegated ceramic tiled roof. Beside that, a great statue of St Stephen, Hungary’s first king, looks back from his horse, in the shadow of a group of turreted walls and parapets known as the Fishermen’s Bastion.As we headed towards the path leading down to the river we walked by an elaborate sculpture with a hunting theme, called the Matthias Well, with coppery green figures of the king and his bowmen and a slaughtered deer, and all with streams of water cascading down.
On the way out we crossed the courtyard of what is now the Budapest History Museum, part of the old palace. And then past a fourteenth century round stone bastion and the Mace Tower, also a Middle Ages defence structure.
Down at river level again we enjoyed a quick lunch at a little bar across the lane from our hotel. This was followed by an hour’s nap. (God we are getting old!)
Refreshed and with the afternoon wearing on, we walked across the Chain Bridge, with its huge stone lions guarding each end, and into Pest. This is by far the busier, more hectic part of the city. To our left we could see the ornate red dome of the Parliament House, which we would visit on our final day here. Around us traffic moved fast and furiously in all directions. There are zebra crossings but until you learn to trust the drivers to stop, they are a bit daunting. However we did pluck up the courage and plonked a foot on the first line. Sure enough the cars stopped and we skipped across the road, waiting only for the yellow trams to go by, and
then onto the green lawns of Roosevelt Square. Passing lots of smart hotels and fashionable shops, we plunged on up a long wide street towards the imposing dome of the St Stephen Basilica. We emerged into the bright sunshine of the Basilica Sq
uare and climbed a wide flight of steps into the cool of the interior.The building of this enormous edifice was commenced in 1851 and was not completed until 1905.
Inside is a panorama of frescos and murals and gilt and plaster. The building is laid out in the shape of a Greek cross and the paintings are the work of many of the finest artists Hungary has produced.
Our next stop was the State Opera House, a neo renaissance style building built with help from the Emperor Franz Josep
h at the height of the Austro Hungarian Empire. We walked up a grand royal staircase past elaborately carved statues and entrances to the various boxes. From the auditorium we could look up at a magnificent and gorgeously decorated dome with a chandelier, and back at rows and rows of red velvet and gold decorated boxes stacked up to the ceiling.
Having paid tribute to Hungary’s Christian tradition, we then wandered through a network of streets wide and narrow in search of the great synagogue of Budapest. Our guidebook told us this is the biggest synagogue in Europe but it took us a while to find it, having paid several hundred Forints to inspect the restoration work in another synagogue a few streets away. (The wrong one).
But we did find it and it was worth the effort. We were shown around by a guide who told us that only one other synagogue in the world is bigger. Guess where?
New York of course!
But this building is magnificent. It is able to hold upwards of three thousand people and its design, both inside and out is influenced by a mixture of architectural influences. Its twin domes are decidedly Moorish with walls in alternating stripes of yellow and red brick. The book says Byzantine-Moorish and oriental.
Inside, while it follows the requirements of separating the faithful by gender, there is much in common with a Christian church. The area of what we might call the sanctuary, where the texts of the Torah are kept, is a rich velvet curtain and a flickering red lamp surrounded by white marble and gilt, almost in Christian orthodox style. Apparently the architect who came from Vienna, was not Jewish and his only experience was in the building of churches.
This building was the centre of the Jewish ghetto during WW2 and part of it was used as HQ for the SS at one time. Around the outside in the grounds there is a mass grave of those thousands who died here mostly from illness and malnutrition. Every gravestone has a death date of 1945.
The place was left in very bad condition at the end of the war, but has now been totally restored.
We were interested to learn that this was due in large part to the support of the film star (of Hungarian Jewish background) Tony Curtis.
Also in the grounds outside is a large sculpture of a silvery willow tree, each leaf inscribed with the name of a Jewish citizen of Budapest who died in the Holocaust.
It was now late in the afternoon and we stopped for coffees and cake at a nearby sidewalk cafe, and watched the passing crowds. There were office workers, jumping for trams or buses, old men out for a walk, teenagers talking and smoking and ogling passing young women; mothers and kids with prams and middle aged women gossiping over coffee (and more smoking). We bought ice creams and headed slowly back to our hotel, across one of the oldest parts of Pest known as a Vorosmarty Square. This is the hub of this part of the
city, and a very popular meeting and strolling (and smoking) spot.
Barbara and I found another restaurant close to our hotel and enjoyed another Hungarian dinner. This time saddle of hare, and chicken paprika were on the menu, along with white wine and in my case beer. This place offered all sorts of beer, mostly Belgian, including apple beer and flavoured beers like strawberry, pear, peach and even passion fruit. So I asked for a Stella. This was the only beer they did not sell, so I settled for a Pils.
After that we strolled by the river and looked at the lights across the water. They floodlight many of the public buildings and bridges.
Tomorrow we planned to chance our hand on public transport and head out of the city to an old town called Szentendre (St Andrew) More of that in the next blog!
h at the height of the Austro Hungarian Empire. We walked up a grand royal staircase past elaborately carved statues and entrances to the various boxes. From the auditorium we could look up at a magnificent and gorgeously decorated dome with a chandelier, and back at rows and rows of red velvet and gold decorated boxes stacked up to the ceiling.
Having paid tribute to Hungary’s Christian tradition, we then wandered through a network of streets wide and narrow in search of the great synagogue of Budapest. Our guidebook told us this is the biggest synagogue in Europe but it took us a while to find it, having paid several hundred Forints to inspect the restoration work in another synagogue a few streets away. (The wrong one).But we did find it and it was worth the effort. We were shown around by a guide who told us that only one other synagogue in the world is bigger. Guess where?
New York of course!
But this building is magnificent. It is able to hold upwards of three thousand people and its design, both inside and out is influenced by a mixture of architectural influences. Its twin domes are decidedly Moorish with walls in alternating stripes of yellow and red brick. The book says Byzantine-Moorish and oriental.
Inside, while it follows the requirements of separating the faithful by gender, there is much in common with a Christian church. The area of what we might call the sanctuary, where the texts of the Torah are kept, is a rich velvet curtain and a flickering red lamp surrounded by white marble and gilt, almost in Christian orthodox style. Apparently the architect who came from Vienna, was not Jewish and his only experience was in the building of churches.
This building was the centre of the Jewish ghetto during WW2 and part of it was used as HQ for the SS at one time. Around the outside in the grounds there is a mass grave of those thousands who died here mostly from illness and malnutrition. Every gravestone has a death date of 1945.
The place was left in very bad condition at the end of the war, but has now been totally restored.
We were interested to learn that this was due in large part to the support of the film star (of Hungarian Jewish background) Tony Curtis.
Also in the grounds outside is a large sculpture of a silvery willow tree, each leaf inscribed with the name of a Jewish citizen of Budapest who died in the Holocaust.
It was now late in the afternoon and we stopped for coffees and cake at a nearby sidewalk cafe, and watched the passing crowds. There were office workers, jumping for trams or buses, old men out for a walk, teenagers talking and smoking and ogling passing young women; mothers and kids with prams and middle aged women gossiping over coffee (and more smoking). We bought ice creams and headed slowly back to our hotel, across one of the oldest parts of Pest known as a Vorosmarty Square. This is the hub of this part of the
city, and a very popular meeting and strolling (and smoking) spot.Barbara and I found another restaurant close to our hotel and enjoyed another Hungarian dinner. This time saddle of hare, and chicken paprika were on the menu, along with white wine and in my case beer. This place offered all sorts of beer, mostly Belgian, including apple beer and flavoured beers like strawberry, pear, peach and even passion fruit. So I asked for a Stella. This was the only beer they did not sell, so I settled for a Pils.
After that we strolled by the river and looked at the lights across the water. They floodlight many of the public buildings and bridges.
Tomorrow we planned to chance our hand on public transport and head out of the city to an old town called Szentendre (St Andrew) More of that in the next blog!
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