Wofford Travels – 2018-10-08 – Budapest, Hungary
Budapest – Day 3
After breakfast our plan was to go to the ticket office for a tour through the Parliament Building. However, when we got there, the office was closed…Monday. (Didn’t we run into this before?!) Not only that, the streets had police everywhere…not big groups, but one or two in this area, three or four in another, one scattered here, and another there. And then, you would periodically hear sirens. Is it the police or an ambulance? You couldn’t always tell who was sounding the sirens.
Note: It turns out that the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was in town, so there was a lot of security. Tom and I even got to see the cars with his retinue driving through one of the main streets. Politics doesn’t stop just because you’re traveling!
Another plan for us was to go on Rick Steves’ Leopold Town Walk, but so many streets were blocked by the police that we decided to stop and visit Saint István’s Basilica, Budapest’s largest church and a top landmark. The grand interior celebrates St. István, Hungary’s first Christian king. You can also see his withered, blackened, millennium-old fist in a gilded reliquary in the side chapel.
We decided to pay the fee to walk up to the tower (315 feet). Do you want to know how many steps? It was 145 midway, climbing regular swirling steps. The “last” 145 were like climbing the metal spiral staircase in a lighthouse. I will have to,say that the view at the top was magnificent, and as you can imagine, you could see just about all of Budapest. It reminded me of our climb up Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (450 feet).
Next, we took the metro (had gotten a set of ten transportation tickets and are finally doing some riding) to Heroes’ Square, and following that, City Park. As with a lot of squares in Europe, the space was huge. Built in 1895, to celebrate the 1,000 anniversary of the Magyars’ arrival in Hungary, this vast square culminates at a bold Millenium Monument. Standing stoically at its colonnades are 14 Hungarian leaders who represent the whole span of this nation’s colorful history. In the front, at the base of a high pillar, are the seven original Magyar chieftains, the Hungarian War Memorial, and young Hungarian skateboarders of the 21st century.
City Park, which is 302 acres, sprawls behind Heroes’ Square and is endlessly entertaining. It contains the fantasy castle of Vajdahunyad, various animals, and playful Art Nouveau buildings inside the city’s zoo. The Vajdahunyad Castle (a fanciful replica of a Renaissance-era Translyvania castle) is an elaborate pavilion that the people of Budapest couldn’t bear to tear down after their millennial celebration ended a century ago. The park is free to the public and always open to explore.
We walked around a bit and then it was time to consider our second meal. Dinner was at 5:00 at the Gerlõczy Café and Brasserie. We both split a cup of goulash soup. Tom had stuffed tenderloin with cabbage and noodles. I had beef stew with pasta rolls with cottage cheese. And, we even split a multi-layered dessert!
Our last activity was attending a 1 1/2-hour concert at the Duna Palota (Danube Palace) Theatre with the Duna Art Ensamble. I will have to say that I was highly impressed with the quality of performance: skill of the dancers, and their precision…so much so, that I purchased a DVD of the same show that we had just seen.
We walked back to our hotel to end this l-o-n-g day. I can assure you, neither of us has any trouble sleeping at night!
Tita