A state of the art motor vehicle in Hungary!We only had two nights planned for Budapest and we didn’t realise it was such a large city, area wise. Consequently, this was one place that we simply didn’t have enough time to spend there, to do the city justice.
Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and that’s right, Pest. Fittingly, we stayed in Pest.
The city is divided in two by the Danube River, which is pretty bloody wide. There are also loads and loads of those river cruise boats in there at all times and this looked to be a pretty cool way to see Europe.
Plenty of grey folk there!
The River DanubeOn the Pest side, there are more shops and whatnot, whilst the Buda side features a serious hill on which the Royal Castle is perched. We headed up to the Royal Castle, walking of course, Sam whingeing of course!!!!! (She is English.) (What Dave failed to mention was that we were originally heading up on a bus, which turned out to be the incorrect bus and we got off at the back of the castle!) and when we finally reached the top, the views of the river and various bridges, including the brilliant Chain Bridge (in my top 5 bridges of the world) was absolutely spectacular. You can take the funicular railway to the top to see the view, but again, why do things the easy way when you can make a journey of it and talk about it later!
We also ventured to an absolutely incredible, and brilliantly presented (best museum presentation I have ever seen) museum, called The Terror Museum or House of Terror.
This museum is situated in the old building that housed the Nazi Party, then after their fall, the local Communist Death Squad people. This was up until the late 80’s, so not long ago at all…amazing really….and undoubtedly the same crap is going on somewhere else in the world as we speak. Anyway, the museum showed the way people had to live in fear for years and years and how they turned on each other, plus, it highlighted and demonstrated the torturous conditions prisoners had to endure.
Some had to stand in a cell that allowed them no room to move at all…other cells didn’t allow the prisoner to stand up properly, another was called a wet cell as it was always wet with water on the base….just incredible.
We also wanted to visit a park, just outside the city that features a massive collection of the huge statues of the military dictators and their cronies. Would have been good to see them all in one place as they probably wanted to destroy them, but instead, looks like they are now making some cash from the display…good luck to them.
View from the castle
There is a fair bit to see in Budapest and despite the language difficulties, it was not a bad place, but as I say, definitely a place we need to go back to, in order to investigate further and in more detail.
The brilliant Chain Bridge at night
