Budapest Postcard #1

So, Budapest.  

We had a great time.  Are having.  One day left on our own before we check-in on the river cruise ship and then one day here with the cruise ship folks.  But a great time from the start.

The sepecial services guy here at Franz Liszt was the best so far.  Hard on me as I had to keep up but he is the Niki Lauda of wheelchair-pushers.  And not only did he grab our luggage off the carousel but he barged right to the fron of the taxi line and got us a cab in seconds.  Wish I had his name and photo.

Taxi driver a bit distressed by the weight of our luggage but he managed to sort out his trunk.  Was hugely apologetic that he couldn’;t get us to the door of our hotel because the square it is on (and which our room looks out over) was being re-done.  I thought he was going to cry.

On arrival or not long after we connected with Geri’s sister Lorrie and her partner Duke.  Duke just started a job with the International Atomic Energy Agency and works out of UNO City in Vienna.  Lorrie retired a few years ago (but doesn’t look it I should add) and so is looking forward to getting out and about.

Photos of Lorrie and Duke in (mostly) Pest HERE.  And of the river cruise we took with them HERE.

Striking are the number of monuments to the victims of the Nazis and the martyrs of that period, like Raoul Wallenberg.  Sometimes it seems as though there’s a statue of somebody on one corner, a plaque to someone else on another and to walk from one to the other you step on or pass a couple of Stolpersteins (brass bricks that replace paving stones outside the homes of victims of the Nazis).

But, oddly, not much regarding the victims of Hungary’s homegrown fascists, The Arrow Party.  I think it fair to saythat it was far closer to the Nazi end of the fascist spectrum rather the Italian Fascisti or the Spanish Falange.  Which is to say closer to genocidial than simply murderous.  There’s a monument in Liberty/Freedom (translated different ways) Square to the victims of the German Nazis but it is papered over (almost) with protests that it doesn’t mention the victims of Arrow.

Photos of Freedom/Liberty Square HERE.

I’ve raved about our hotel (actually a brasserie with rooms as the elegant and attentive maître d’hotel keeps reminding me) elsewhere.  But just in case you missed it: see photos for the room we had.  E91 on weeknights.  Rooms without a balcony overlooking the square aare E69.  The food was not just very, very good (as I write this we have just finished two bowls of goulash and a shared plate of calf’s liver pate with caramelized onions soaked in a balsamic reduction for lunch) but very reasonably priced.  Accompanied by a glass of a really nice red and a half litre of a really nice white.  All for less than we paid a couple of days ago when we succumbed and had fish and chips, eight wings and two beers for lunch when desperate and in a touristy area.

Hotel photos HERE and food and drink photos HERE.

A not so nice but fun red was to be had in a much different but equally interesting context at Boroso, not far (50m) from our rooms.  A post-punk resiliently punk dive.  Lovely.  Only wish we had found it sooner.  Customers all 60-ish men rode hard and put away wet as Ken Barger would say. But the music the bartender playing could be described as 'what if the B-52s had been Hungarian and had a recording studio on the back of a scooter?'. Why did we only find this place on our second to last day when the last day is packed schedule - wise?

Photo of Boroso HERE.  Look for the one in which my wine is being served.

The Great synagogue impressive.  Even sad/ironic in the design.  One of the reasons I wanted to see it is because it is in many ways modelled on a Catholic church.  Reflecting the Jewish community’s integration.  Just before Arrow and the German Nazi’s packed they up and sent them off to the camps.

This synagogue was at the centre of the ghetto the Nazis created and when the Red Army liberated the city and the ghetto from starvation the synagogue became the only one anywhere to have a burial ground within it as 2800+ starvation victims were buried in mass graves there.  Most of the Jewish population of the city died in the camps.  Today there are only about 80,000 still resident.

Great Synagogue photos HERE.

There is also the quite moving Holcaust Memorial on the grounds.  A tree with thousands of silver leaves, each with a name of the Budapest Jewish community who died in the Holocaust.

Holocaust Memorial photos HERE.

Other than walking around and stopping in here and there, which we did a lot of, the only touristy thing we did aside from the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour (always a good way to get oriented we find) was a trip out to Memento Park.  A municipal park where statues from the Communist era are taken and displayed.   Memento Park a lot of fun. Collected monuments of and collectively to the sculptural expressions of class collaboration between the working class and a nascent national bourgeoisie.

Photos of it HERE.

Photos of the Metro you can use to get there, and some of its older, classic stations, HERE.

Again, it was odd to have no mention of the fascist period.  Almost as though the current rightward shift in Hungarian politics, including the rise of a fascist militia and an increase in the number of attacks on Roma and Jews (sound familiar?) is part of the context.

I sighted a Dink in Budapest!!!

Manhole covers here really quite pretty and ornate and well-engineered (hinged rather than pop-off) manhole covers here.  I know it seems goofy but they are evidence of an attention to design and civic aesthetics.  Most North American covers are big plain slugs.  Here, lovely things but also way more practical.  Evidence of care.

Get a sense of what I am geeking-out about HERE.

Otherwise, lots of walking and eating and drinking and much pleasure.

Not quite Vienna but then nowhere near as expensive either.

All the Budapest photo albums, including the one of photos taken randomly as we walked, in one place can be found HERE.  There you’ll also see some images of things I haven’t mentioned.  Things like political stickers and billboards, the Terror Museum and a few other things.

To come: an account of our guided tour of the Parliament building tomorrow morning, checking into/onto the cruise boat and a comparo of a Budapest hamam with an Istanbul hamam.

Then off up the Danube.