A Tale of Two Cities: Buda

You would think that with time on my hands and taking it slow that I would actually get around to writing things sooner. But no. We could blame a somewhat shaky internet connection, or we could blame the cats, or we could blame travel times to the towns I've visited that dot the hills of Tuscany. We could also blame my book, even though I forgot my kobo in Budapest. The hostel is sending it along, and there are paperbacks here to keep me company in the meantime. The collection almost makes me think I was at a cottage somewhere in the Muskokas. The olive grove, vineyard, and pomegranate trees just outside my door though beg to differ. So yes, many things could be blamed for my tardiness, I'm just going to stick with I haven't felt like it.

But now I kinda do, so here goes.

Buda.

Budabudabudabuda Buda.

Makes me sound like an old motorboat.

Unlike my post on Pest the Buda post is a bit more structured. Photograph-wise anyway. I've tried to put them into some sort of categories and will attempt to write around them. The Pest one you may recall was a Frankenstein from a few different posts, so it was a bit scattered.

Enough excuses.

Buda is the hilly side of the city. Pest is flat by the way. They became Budapest on November 17th, 1873. You know, I wanted to mention some other fun facts about that date so went into Google and typed "November 17th, 1873 events" and was amazed by all of the hits I got back. Unfortunately they are for things like Family Fun in Omaha, and the School of Music - Malta. So no, not period. However the Criterion Restaurant apparently opened it's doors on that day, and it is here that Dr. Watson is told of Sherlock Holmes for the first time. And we all know where that went. Or at least we should.

So Buda is the hilly side.

Here are some city views to get us started. Almost.

I guess one of the things I noticed, when compared to Pest, is that Buda is all cleaned up. Now, that may be a wrong impression, and I certainly did not explore it as much as I did Pest, but the areas where I wandered, which are admittedly the more touristy areas of the historical part of the city, are all restored. And yes, this side of the river got the heck bombed out of it just as much as the Pest side, so it doesn't get to have that as an excuse.

I mentioned it was raining, right?

Cobblestones as lovely as they are, and as suprisingly comfortable underfoot as they are, unless of course you are wearing heels in which case they become a bit more treacherous (though not nearly as bad as Brutus I would suspect), get a bit slippery in the rain. Add "downhill" to that description and perhaps Brutus is starting to look a bit of a cleaner finish.

Said a tad more clearly: it was raining, so the cobblestones were wet and slick and it made for some careful walking downhill. I didn't wipe out or anything, but I was paying attention to putting one foot in front of the other at times. Similar actually to walking home after a late night at a ruin pub.

This particular building was at the bottom of one such hill. No idea what it is, but I really liked the blend of old and new, or what I hope is old as opposed to a clever recreation. Who knows? I suppose someone does, but I did not investigate.

I really have no idea which church this is, and I did not go inside it. It's a great example of the coloured ceramic tile roofs that can be found on many buildings in Budapest. Apparently this type of tile was invented in Hungary and can be seen adorning such buildings as the Grand Market Hall, which I showed you in the last post, and St. Matthias Church, which I will show you in this one.

I do know the name of this church though.

Okay, that's not actually the church.

This is the church.

Sziklatemplom, meaning "church by the rock", can be found in Gellert Hill. It inhabits natural caves formed by thermal springs, of which there are many in Budapest, hence all the spas and baths. But more on that later.

The initial cave which you see above even though it is now glassed in, is known as St. Ivan's cave, and it is there in 1926 that a group of Pauline monks set up shop. Apparently though this was a holy place a long time prior to that. A video presentation showing at the church told me (and anyone else paying attention at one point or another during it's endless loop) suggested that the "Pest" name comes from the old slavic word for cave, and that it was actually referring to this particular cave.

Wikipedia does not clarify this point. Not that that is saying much, just letting you know that I looked it up and it didn't mention this particular cave. It did mention though that the Buda name likely comes from Attila the Hun's brother, Bleda, who founded the city.

Anyway, what Wikipedia cannot tell you, but I can, is that this video presentation ended with this montage of various scenes and views of the area, accompanied by a rendition of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars", sung by a mens choir that turns out to be the group "Gregorian". Ugh. Why someone gets to name themselves after an entire genre of music from the middle ages and then sing pop music is beyond me. And honestly, listen to the words, not what I'd think of as the right message.

So here's the church.

It's in a cave if you had forgotten that.

Now this church, like the rest of Budapest, had it's not so fun moments in history as well. The big one would likely be in 1951 when the Communist Regime bricked up the exterior thus essentially putting an end to it. Nicely though it reopened in 1991.

Here are some other buildings of interest on the Buda side.

This is the Gellert Spa.

And to be correct, when I say spa, I should be saying baths, or thermal baths. There are 118 springs in Budapest, providing around 70 million litres of water daily, with temperatures between 21 and 78 degrees celsius. While the Romans were using them as far back as the 2nd century AD we've really got the Turks to thank for the proliferation of the baths, and it becoming a big cultural thing during their occupation in the 16th century.

Gellert is one of the more famous ones on the Buda side. Szechenyi Bath is the largest, and most famous bath, and it is on the Pest side, in the park. I showed you a picture of it last time.

Many people said that, if in Budapest, definitely go to the baths.

I did not.

Next time.

This is, as the guide put it, Hungary's Whitehouse. That said, the Prime Minister does not actually live here. I will always remember this as being the place where, having walked a long way up a hill, we had to turn around walk part way down, and around, and then back up again, because there was some sort of happening going on and we weren't allowed to cut through the parking lot like you can on most days.

I should also likely point out the Palace to you. It dominates the Buda side in the same way the Parliament dominates the Pest side. That said, the Parliament is still the Parliament, while the palace is now a series of museums.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had two capitals for a period of time: Vienna, and Budapest. Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, was married to Emperor Franz Joseph I, and was amazingly popular. She loved Hungary, and spent a great deal of her time there, and was much loved in return. It's during this time in the 19th century that a great deal of money was put into Budapest, which accounts for how much that architectural style dominates the city. Art Nouveau by the way.

Lots of statues on the Buda side as well, though I did not see as many as I did on the Pest side. Here are a couple.

This one, though not a good picture, has a decent story. It is Turul.

I tried summing the story up, but it's easiest if you just go read it for yourself.

I have no idea what the story around this one is, but it's a better picture at least.

This is St. Matthias and is totally not like the one in Toronto where my Dad plays the organ. This one is a bit bigger. Okay, alot bigger. Oh, and they charge admission. On the otherhand you can go to the one in Toronto on Sundays and hear my Dad play for free.

Before popping inside for a looksee I will briefly mention that during my visit to the Terror House I saw a photo of this church after the bombings. The photo was taken from a vantage point that, while not this picture, was near it. Now I've seen pictures of bombed out buildings, and have been to their restored selves, but I've never done so, to my awareness anyway, within 24 hours. Comparing the devastation and restoration just leaves me to wonder at the amazing efforts undertaken to return such places to their former glory. I cannot begin to fathom where they would even start, but they did and they do and it's just simply incredible.

That last one is totally for Noah.

And then here's the bridge back to the Pest side.

So if these two posts had been a segment of a Sesame Street episode many children would now be calling this city Pestbuda, but fortunately (well not really that fortunate as it would be so incredibly cool to work with muppets), it is not, so we can flip it around and call it Budapest.

And I'll be honest, I prefer the Pest side. Now, like I may have said last time, that's not overly fair as I spent more time on the Pest side, so saw much more of it, and got more comfortable with wandering it's streets. This side of the Danube has its beauty and its coolness and deserves more time and attention than I gave it. For now though, and for me, the Pest side wins.

Mind you, watching the sun set over the Buda side is kinda pretty too.

Oh, some other fun things that happened along the way, that don't belong to either side. Those things are people.

First there is Justin...

Justin is from Melbourne, Australia, and is spending a few months wandering around Europe, along with half the rest of the country it would seem at times. Justin and I (along with a few other folk) met the morning of the first walk I did, and proceeded to spend the rest of that day and night exploring, learning, and generally getting along and having fun. We again met up and shared the walk on communism, and then some dinner. It was a pleasure.

These two fellows are Troels and Gergo. Read that from right to left.

Gergo is from Budapest and Troels is a friend of his (former boss too) from Denmark. They both work in LEAN (either you know it or don't care, so I won't bother explaining), continuous improvement stuff, so we got to talk a little shop. The three of us met over a burrito at this taco place near the hostel I was staying at. Timing was excellent. For whatever reason, and apparently I don't need a very good one, I was feeling kinda down and out, a bit on the lonely side, disconnected, whathaveyou. Much of it I think had to do with the hostel I was staying in. Great place, nice enough people, well located, but I was just not chatting with people there at all. Anyway, so here I am needing food and feeling a bit low thinking that it'd be nice to chat with someone, and low and behold I find myself sharing a table with Gergo and we begin to chat, and then Troels arrives and we all get chatting and then they need to go but before they do they invite me to join them the next evening at that place that I posted to FB as being my favourite pub yet, so you know how that went, and then Troels and I meet for dinner the next night again and have a good chat about the number 42.

It would appear that people are everywhere, and that there is ample opportunity to meet them if you take the smallest of steps to try and do so. Yes, sometimes people can be disappointing, they're human, so go figure. Lord knows I am likely a disappointment to many people from time to time. We all can be. My experience so far though, and this is not confined to this trip, but is certainly reinforced by my travels thus far, is that, more likely than not, people totally rock.

A Tale of Two Cities: Pest

It's morning. I've deviated a little from my budget and have taken up residence for the next little while in this lovely place near Sienna. Sun is coming in the window, birds are chirping away, seems like a good time to write.

Guess we'll see if that is true or not, as I'm still not really sure what to say. I've actually had drafts of four or five different posts on Hungary going for a bit now, but have be unable/unwilling to commit to any of them. But the other evening when I was skyping with Jake he said I should do one on Pest and one on Buda, so I'm going to do that. I am though, going to take some of the text from the other posts and toss it in to help speed this up a bit. Not that I'm in a hurry to go anywhere today, tomorrow, or maybe even the next day (I do like this place), but waste not want not. Right?

896 is an important number for Hungary. It's basically when they first became Hungary. I learned this twice. Once on a general "this is Budapest" walking tour when the guide talked about St. Stephen's Basilica. That's this place.

The dome of the Basilica is 96 metres high. It's the tallest building in Budapest. Laws were passed that nothing could be built higher, which keeps Budapest's city profile quite low and lovely. And with a population of around two million or so, it also means it is spread out along both sides of the Danube pretty well too.

I'm not sure where the 8 went. And I don't know how Gandolf figures into the story.

The next time I learned it was when the same tour walked it's way over to the Buda side of the Danube across the cable bridge.

Looking back at the Pest side you can see the Parliament chillin' out along the bank of the river.

It's dome is also 96 metres high. Apparently this is symbolic of the equality of church and state. So much so, that when the Soviet Union came along after WWII and having just freed Hungary from Germany proceeded to welcome them into the loving, some would say crushing, embrace of Communism, proceeded to cap the tower with a 4 meter tall red star, so that state won.

Apparently size matters.

I learned that little tidbit about the red star when on another walk that talked about the history of Hungary in general and Budapest more specifically during it's stint as part of the Eastern Block. That's also when I learned the 96 metre thing for the second time. Now, having known it by then, I got top marks when the second guide asked us all if we knew these things.

Keener would be a suitable name to call me should you be searching for one.

That's just another view from the Pest side. I did not go in, though apparently it is stunning. Perhaps next time.

Next time currently has a list of things to do which include, aside from the Parliament, going to a spa, taking a cruise on the Danube, going on a day trip to St. Andrew's, and remembering to read the brochure on the musical festival going on the entire time I was here before my second to last night so that I don't miss the whole damn thing.

Weep not though, as I saw plenty.

Apparently design competitions are the way to go when looking to build a parliament, and Hungary was no exception. The one above was the winner. Across the square from it are the two runner ups.

I believe this is currently housing the Ministry of Agriculture amongst others.

And this one is where the Ministry of Funny Walks gets it's daily exercise.

Nearby is Freedom Square, which was the main focal point of the tour on Hungary under Communism.

During WWII Hungary attempted to be neutral and held out till 1944 when Germany occupied them. During that time they deported so many jewish people that I cannot fathom how the word neutral gets to be used, but it does. Way more than what the quota placed upon Hungary by Germany actually was. Yes, there was a quota.

So when this monument got put up recently in Freedom Square with the basic metaphor being that Hungary was an innocent in all of this and were just being suppressed by Germany, people got seriously, seriously ticked.

Not the fountain. The fountain was already there, it's the thing behind the fountain. that monument now has police baby sitting it at night as people want the thing torn down and are suggesting they will do it themselves if the government doesn't take care of it. People are feeling that they need to be honest about their countries history, even if it is not the prettiest. I would tend to agree. So they're talking. We'll see.

Another monument that has people cheezed off is this one.

It's a monument to the Soviet soldiers who lost their lives liberating Hungary from Germany in 1945. Seems reasonable enough, unless you consider the tyranny under the Soviets that ensued afterwards and lasted until 1956 when Hungary had a revolution. Yes, it technically lost this revolution, but things did start to improve, so even though it was still under Soviet rule it was one of the better places to be on the block. That monument is also under close eye of the police and until a month or so ago had a fence around it that no one was allowed to cross.

So why is this monument still standing when every other vestige of Soviet rule has been torn down and all associated imagery has been banned, to the extent that even Heinenken considered changing the red star on their label to something else, though ultimately an exception was made in that case? Well, there is a reciprocal agreement between Russia and Hungary that monuments to fallen Soviet soldiers be protected in Hungary, and monuments to Hungarian military in Russia also be protected.

Fair enough. No clue what Hungarian war monuments are in Russia, but there you have it.

The revolution of 1956 got started up by a whole bunch of students out of this building.

That was, ironically enough, the Lenin Institute. And you know, the revolution was going along pretty well until the government made a call to Moscow and 2000 tanks started rolling in. 2000. That's how many tanks Hitler had for his whole western front apparently.

Oh, and why this revolution? Well, as I mentioned, things had gotten pretty out of hand between 1945 and 1956. A lot of the out of hand happened here, at Andrassy Ut 60 (read 60 Andrassy Rd.). Now the Terror House, a museum doing an excellent job of educating people on what went on during both the fascist and communist regimes.

Known as the "House of Loyalty" in 1944 when national socialist Ferenc Szalasi and his Arrow Cross Party came into power, thus beginning a short but nasty reign of terror that was soon taken up by Soviets once they "liberated" Hungary from Germany and came into power, it was used to imprison, interrogate, torture and murder supposed enemies of the state, which could by the way, be anybody. Seriously. Pretty much anyone. The Soviet leadership under Rakosi, and the AVH secret police carried on with the pretty much the same approach until 1956 when Hungary had that revolution I mentioned earlier.

Okay, let me switch gears a bit as you don't need me giving you a history lesson. We all have wikipedia for that.

Budapest is a complicated place. Lots of juxtapositions. It makes for a beautiful city, but that beauty is in both it's restored buildings (80% of Budapest was destroyed during the war), and those that have not been restored. It's not like there are tons of ruined buildings around town, but there are way more than anywhere else I've been so far.  Walking around is an eye opener, and is a study in contrast. And ya, Hungary doesn't have the economy of a western European country, or the UK (or at least the economies they had until a couple of years ago), so it's not like it's all done. It's not like it's all either fixed or new. But I also think, and I may be very wrong about this, that there isn't necessarily the intention to make it all shiny and 21st century, that there is value in having some reminders about. Like I said, could be wrong about that.

Above is the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest functioning synagogue in Europe. It is one of three synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, two of which remain operational. Why three? Well, there are three types of Judaism practiced in Hungary: Orthodox, Status Quo, and Neolog, or progressive. Each practice had it's own synagogue. Dohany Street is Neolog.

Behind it is this, the memorial to the victims of the holocaust. It is a weeping willow, and on it's branches are many, many leaves. On each of those leaves is written a name. Like I said, there are alot of leaves.

These shots are of other areas within the quarter.

The wall above is part of the wall that had enclosed the ghetto.

This was also the neighbourhood where I was living, and I absolutely loved it. Vibrant, alive. Just an incredible atmosphere both day and night. It's where many of the Ruin pubs are, and it's also where Kisuzem that restaurant I wrote about is. So ya, I kinda liked it there.

Meanwhile Andrassy ut, this wonderful, long boulevard that is referred to as "a little bit of Paris", is dotted with embassies, and leads up to Hero's Square, has got the same discordance.

Okay, this one isn't on Andrassy, it's on Liszt Ferenc, which only runs off of Andrassy, but was part of my walk that day so gets included now.

You may know Liszt Ferenc better as Franz Liszt.

This intersection part way up Andrassy is known as "the Octagon", and not because Chuck Norris fought to the death here. But, like Chuck Norris, no single photo would do it justice. It has to many facets to consume all at once. Like an opponent of Chuck Norris, you need to circle around it a few times to take it all in at which point you have been floored by it's sheer awesomeness. UNESCO may be feeling the same way. About the Octagon; I'm not sure how they feel about Chuck Norris. But who knows, maybe a bid should be put in for his cultural significance. If Chuck Norris were to become a UNESCO World Heritage site, would that mean he would live forever? Not that he won't. But you know, just to be on the safe side.

I will save you from the oct-a-view and just include the one shot, as truthfully, I did not do the whole walk about. Nor did I snap all sides. I just turned my head and blinked a little less for a few minutes.

At the top of Andrassy is Heroes' Square, and beyond it a park.

And like all parks it has the usual green spaces with water and bridges...

... castles...

... and of course, a huge spa.

Meanwhile, back in the city we have the Ruin Pubs. These are exactly what they sound like, pubs that are in the "ruins" of older buildings. Now, in truth, the building are just fine, all the walls are standing and they've more than possibly have passed a health and safety inspection since opening. It's just that the buildings are old, and not redone, and no one seems to be in any hurry anything to do anything about that, in fact, it looks more to be the opposite. They're really popular though, and I can see why. Fantastic atmosphere, if stupidly crowded for a 3am.

That last one, which you may not make out all that well as it's kinda a sucky shot, is all bunnies. Reminded me of Watership Down.

Not the best of memories.

I'm not sure if my father had read Richard Adam's novel prior to taking my brother and I to see the movie in theatres in 1978, but I'm really hoping not. Yes, it's animated. But you know what, there have been cartoons not meant for kids long before South Park came along. Just sayin'. Freaked me right out. And good.

Really funny now though. The memory, not the movie. Watership Down is to Peter Rabbit what Apocalypse Now is to Adrian Cronauer.

Yes Rich, I digress.

There are some other wonderful things on the Pest side that I should mention:

A station of Line 1 of the Budapest metro. Opened in 189-something it's the oldest subway in continental Europe. Emphasis on the continental, as London's is the oldest overall.

The market.

And yes, this shot is from my Buda side picnic lunch in the rain but I ate the leftovers in the park by Heroes' Square, so I get to include it here too.

Some fantastic sculptures.

This one has been nicknamed The Hulk. (And not by me.)

This one is of Imre Nagy, the leader of the reform government in the 50's that helped bring about the revolution of 1956 and got brought down by the Soviets. He's looking to the west, having turned his back on the east. You gotta love metaphors.

This statue of a little girl, dressed up as a prince (it's the artist's daughter and she apparently did this sort of thing all the time) was the first public work of art displayed post 1989 when Hungary finally did successfully attain it's freedom.

And of course there is graffiti, whether I spell it correctly or not.

And then there are bridges. You've already seen the cable bridge, this is the Liberty Bridge, and is quite close to the Great Market Hall, where I bought the yummy picnic stuff.

This is the bridge I crossed over to Buda the second time, and where I'll pick up the second half of this tale another day.