Budapest: the last tourist side-trip

I think Budapest takes the prize for the most beautiful city I have visited, even if Vienna is still my favorite. To do Budapest a tiny amount of justice, I'm not holding any punches with the scenery in this post. Only after the onslaught will there be at least some description of an experience with Budapest that not every other tourist could have had. I went with Monika, a student at UGA who will have worked in the League alongside me for a good portion of the summer.

Part I: The onslaught

Parliament--the "most beautiful parliament building in Europe" and certainly the most beautiful building in Budapest. This is the building that makes people say "wow, this city is beautiful" after scanning the view of the city available from the castle on the hill on the Buda side (Parliament is in Pest). I had no idea before I came that "Budapest" was actually the combination of three settlements: Pest, a flatland just east of the Danube that serves as the commercial center for the area, Buda, a hilly region immediately west of the Danube, and "Ancient Buda," which I don't know anything about. These three regions were united with another one in order to form "Budapest" under the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 1870's.

Monika and I got a chance to go inside the Parliament building on Sunday. The guides said that over 40 kg of gold (almost 90 pounds) were used in its construction, and I believe them. We had the opportunity to see Hungary's crown jewels just before guards came in to do their hourly ceremony next to the jewels.

This street's modern vibe meets its end at a centuries-old church called St. Stephen's Basilica. In Vienna, you could turn a corner and find a hidden church. In Budapest if you turn a corner, you will probably find a straight, kilometers-long road leading directly to an impressive historic building or monument.

I had a serious case of New-York-City-neck after looking at the basilica from beneath it.

This monument belongs to Heroes' Square, a huge open square with a series of statues depicting Hungarian heroes as well as themes such as war, peace, agriculture, and science. Shocker: this square lies at the end of Andrassy Avenue, a long, straight road that cuts through the heart of Pest. The street as a whole is an official World Heritage Site.

This is the statue that adorns the top of the pedestal in the previous picture. It is a depiction of St. Gabriel, holding the traditional coronation crown for Hungarian kings in one hand and the double cross in the other. All I know about the double cross is that there is a ball-type thing in the crown jewels that has the cross on it, and with the pope's authority behind it, the king who bears it may make personnel decisions in the church.

Budapest apparently has various hot-spring baths that are open to the public--the buildings pictured above contain one section of these baths. Monika and I tried to get in because we figured we might be in for some sort of therapeutic experience in the caves of Hungary (at least for our feet--the lowest-maintenance idea for experiencing the baths), but we found out that the buildings were basically a perimeter surrounding a series of outdoor swimming pools where a bunch of people lay out to get tan. All of this architecture and landscaping? For a swimming pool?

We took an hour-long sightseeing cruise on the Danube at night. The student price was as good as the view. Up there in the middle is the historic palace on the Buda side.

Part II, Section A: The serious stuff

On Saturday night while we were walking to the cruise, we saw riot police out in full force. If they weren't escorting demonstrators to police vans, then they were standing in a line surrounding the perimeter of a centrally-located park. We had no idea what was going on and really just wanted to get through to the shore. We found out later that it had been Hungarian nationalists that were protesting for their right to free speech--nationalist speech that was likely xenophobic and racist--in their party uniforms, with their Hungarian flags. These folks, sitting right by the park where the riot took place, looked like they had been active that night but were not arrested. I figured that we had better watch out for people who feel like they "missed out" on any fun once the police broke everything up.

DO NOT ride the Budapest subway without a ticket. You physically can, but you will get charged a 30-dollar fine upon exit if there are controllers who are checking at the stop where you get off. Monika and I had the misfortune of boarding the train at a place where the machines were broken AND where controllers at that station motioned for us to just get on the train anyway. We tried to explain this to the controllers at the final station, but they were unsympathetic. After taking advantage of the generosity of several Hungarian-English translators, we were able to figure out how to file a formal complaint with the metro system in order to get our money back. Everyone we've talked to says they won't give us a refund, but we have a fan club. I have some email addresses to which I am supposed to send news of the results of our case (including that of a metro employee who was sympathetic). One guy who helped us said that he wants to post our story to a watchdog blog that is trying to fight corruption in the metro ticketing system. How cool is that!

It's hard to forget that your country was communist at one point when you have one of these lying around. I guess Soviets were fans of the single pillar.

Part II, Section B: Not so serious stuff

This is a lovely little shop where we had breakfast on Saturday. I had a sandwich whose price was determined by the price of each of its components--they basically sold me the baguette, the meat, the cheese, the peppers, and the tomatoes separately but assembled it for me. It was a great way to start the day.

A classic shell game at a lookout point on the Buda side. I couldn't believe what I was seeing--these tourists were betting 100 euros per play to guess which box the ball was under. I don't know what the deal was with this guy in the yellow who was running the game, but it seemed like more people were winning than losing. The only explanation I could come up with was that this was a scheme to trade counterfeit money for the real thing. I have no explanation for anyone's decision to bet 100 euros on the game.

And I thought I was lucky with a Subway that was open till 3 am. This would be amazing to have at home.

The reason I call this past weekend the last "tourist" side-trip is that my next two side-trips (my last two weekends in Europe) are trips within Slovakia with the staff from the League. This upcoming weekend, I will be staying with a few folks at one of the Katkas' cottages, next to the forest in the north of the country (according to my understanding). The weekend after that is the grand finale of my trip, Bazant Pohoda (the largest music festival in Slovakia!)--more details on that one later.