Log Thirty Three – The Twin Cities of Buda and Pest

9 September 2017

This entry is being written on a train travelling at 230kph across the Austrian countryside.       Our journey through eastern Europe continues….

One thing you can’t ignore in Prague or Budapest is the size of the rivers. This reinforces our experience that they do a good river in the northern hemisphere. Some of our best rivers in Australia might be considered creeks by European standards.

The Danube is massive and the speed of the current impressive. In Australia at the end of summer most our rivers would almost be not flowing.

Blue the Danube is not.

The People of Budapest
Like London everyone seems young. The people dress with style. Their dress might be casual but it is elegant and stylish. Everyone seems to be slim, maybe that’s about all the walking people do in the city.

The Streets
The boulevards and avenues are wide and lined with trees. For shopping there is a wide range of the best labels and whilst I was tempted at the Rolex store I didn’t have a spare $22,500 for the watch of my choice.
There are trams, trolley buses, a metro rail system, segways, electric scooters, and all sorts of other new fangled electronic vehicles for personal mobility.
There is less use of cobble stones than we experienced in Prague so you can walk great distances with your wheelie suitcase to train stations etc.

Architecture
There are two forms of architecture in Budapest. The classic style you would see in Prague or London. Very European and whilst the buildings might be relatively new they look like they are from the 19th century.
Then there are the buildings from the communist times. Functional, geometric lines, glass and steel rather than stone. The buildings from the communist era are so very obvious throughout the city.
Soviet monuments are similarly monolithic and overwhelming.

History.
Budapest has it all. There is history from the long term, as in the Hungarians originating from the steppes of Asia many hundreds of years ago. There is the history of Hungary being part of the Ottoman Empire and then Hapsburg’s. Later the Nazis arrived and after them the Russians.
In all cases it seems the invaders came to help the Hungarians and in some way to save them. Now one of the golden rules of helping someone is knowing when to go home. When the helping bit is done and your services are no longer required it’s time to return to your own backyard to let your neighbours get on with it.
Seems most of these invading helpers forgot the go home part of the relationship. The Russians stayed for about 45 years and only left when the old USSR fell apart. They had originally turned up to help get the Nazis out back in 1945. The Hapsbergs turned up to help with the Ottomans and then decided Hungary was so nice they would stay for about 150 years.
A visit to the Budapest Terror Museum provides a very sobering insight into the techniques the Nazis, the Communists and their sympathisers helped the local population. So helpful in ways it’s is hard to conceive.

The Liberty or Freedom Park seems to say it all. The park includes a Russian memorial to the Russians who died saving Hungary from the Nazis. There is a sculpture memorialising Germany’s invasion of Hungary, which has been augmented with a people’s informal memorial reminding the citizens of Budapest that it was Hungarian Nazis who committed great terrors on their own people.
In another corner of the park there is Ronnie Reagan. Ron is walking away from the Hungarian parliament and toward the US embassy but with one eye to the Soviet memorial. Ron is there to memorialise his efforts to bring down the old USSR.
The Hungarians haven’t removed the Soviet memorial, that might be insulting. They have however planted a ring of trees around it.

The Food
Go with the traditional Hungarian fare, it’s excellent. I enjoyed the roasted duck (half a bird), best ever. Hungarian food tilts toward meat, potatoes and dumplings.
The coffee is very good and the desserts and cakes to die for.