Hungary anyone?

Dodge the guards at Fisherman's Bastion! When we arrived on Sunday, we trotted across the square to what we thought was the ramparts and were able to walk along a part which gave excellent views over Pest.

Fisherman's bastion

The following morning we thought it would be nice to see this in early morning light; oh no – there were a couple of burly individuals (one male the other probably not) in uniform ensuring that anyone who wanted a good view would pay for it. When we went back later that evening, they were busy counting their money and preparing for bed so we were able to have another look then. We had discovered that these ramparts are called Fisherman's Bastion. They were built between 1895 and 1902 and restored in 1947–48, after its near destruction during World War II. Its seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled in the Carpathian Basin in 896. The Bastion takes its name from the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages. Most fishermen I know are fairly peaceful folk, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to give them a section to defend but I confess they wouldn't have been my first choice. Anyway, to get the good view go at or after about 8pm.

The cogwheel train not going very far today

Today was a day for brave acts – using public transport! Sue liked the idea in the rough guide to get on a bus to the cog railway, walk a short way to what is known at the Children's railway, then take a trip along to the end and halfway back for a short walk up to a splendid viewing tower with a chair lift back down to civilisation. To enable this and other such activities, we would purchase a travel card which would give us free transport for the duration. We duly walked down to the place where the tickets are sold and using her best pigeon Hungarian with associated signing, Sue was able to extract the requisite items – I restricted myself to saying sagely in my best Hungarian 'kurssurnurm' which is supposed to be thankyou – it got a smile anyway.
Theory was fine but the practise had a small hiccough initially in working out from where the bus actually ran to get to the cog railway. No problem for Sue who deployed a stream of her best pigeon Hungarian and gesticulation at a couple of official looking blokes in uniform who duly delivered the required information. We managed to get on the bus but now had the problem of where to get off. The book said 2 stops but hadn't mentioned anything about request stops or whether we should counts stops where we didn't. Anyway when we disembarked Sue nailed a couple of old ladies who couldn't run and deployed her language skills to good effect. We were told we had missed our stop (surprise) and would have to walk back. About 200 metres back we found where we should have alighted and crossed the road to the cog railway. A word about Budapest bus drivers; I am not aware of a Hungarian F1 driver but I am quite certain that there are a huge number of potential candidates from the bus drivers we had today. As some readers may be aware I am not averse to being a bit heavy with my right foot occasionally but I have never before heard wheelspin from a bus; I am sure I did today, frequently. And I am quite sure that there is a competition to see who can turn the bus over first from the way they corner.

The train now departing................

Anyway as we waited on the tram, our ideas ran out of steam as a lovely couple deploying similar language skills to Sue indicated that the line was under repair from the third stop, so we wouldn't be able to go to the end and would need to get off and catch bus No. 22. While we had got the message, they were a little puzzled that we didn't alight. They would have been even more puzzled by the crazy English who went up to the third stop – and then just travelled back down again. Well we had promised ourselves a trip on the wretched train and we were jolly well going to have it. As it happens the bit we did was pretty uninspiring. Anyway, we managed to find bus No. 22 and a nice bloke who suggested that we don't try to get to the first station but aim for the second as the bus could drop us very close to that at Normafa. In fact we found the penultimate stop was right by the station.

the salute

The Children's Railway is a narrow gauge line and most of the station staff are filled by Scouts and Guides who have an interest in Railways – hence the name. I did find it a little other worldly watching a 10 year old saluting the train as he had been taught as it left the station. It was a pleasant trip on the railway climbing steadily through woodland and we left it at the second station, Janos-hegy. We had a steady uphill walk of just over 1km to get to Erzsbet look out tower. However, if our trip to lake Agnes last year rated a 9/10 for difficulty, this only managed about 3; it made us puff a bit but we didn't have to stop often.

Elizbet tower

We got some fabulous views over the city from (not quite) the top and were able to note the parliament building, the military museum, Mattyas Church and thereby our hotel. Childish but fun!

View from the top, Parliament in the middle

We had some more fun at the cafe by the chair lift. There were a small range of foodstuffs on offer but the main ones were hotdog, hamburger, which I vaguely recognised and melegszendvics. The last sounded like some kind of sandwich, confirmed by our phrase book as toasted sandwich. I duly (and worriedly) ordered these and the surprised looking lass taking the order confirmed one each; I was pleased that she correctly interpreted the single raised digit. The word meleg, it turned out may be better translated as 'hot' because it was not a toastie as we may expect but a huge torpedo which has a minced beef sauce on it and cheese melted over it. Sue confirmed between rather unnecessarily full mouthfuls that it was very good indeed.
On the chair lift back, there was a note not to rock the chair while in motion.

View from chairlift

Given the height above ground and the lack of a safety net I felt this admonishment was rather unnecessary. Arrival at the bottom terminus left us with a short walk to a waiting bus. Sue, feeling confident and fluent by now asked how we could get to one of the cave systems and was told very precisely that we should stay on the bus until a stop called Budegyozgye, then take a No 61 tram going in the opposite direction for 2 stops before finding a No 29 bus and getting off at Outilan; once Sue had elicited the information, I did my bit and smugly said 'kurssurnurm'. Sure that we had now got the complexities of Budapest travel understood, we never even blanched – perhaps we should. Getting off at the right place was no problem, nor was finding the tram going in the right direction or indeed, after some discussion, getting on the right bus going in the right direction. No our problem was the old one of knowing the right stop! We duly alighted several stops after we should have done near to the cave system that is in fact closed today. We had a 1.25 km walk to the other one, the first half km retracing our steps or rather wheels.

The Organ

The Palvolgi Stalactite caves were originally carved from the rock by rising thermal waters that subsequently powered the Budapest hot springs rather than the more common rain drainage. We only toured a small part of the huge complex but what we did was extensive and I'm tempted to say 'fantastic', Dad. In the course of a half hour tour we went up and down through some vivid underground landscapes at one point having to climb a 7 metre ladder.

Stalagmites - Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs (Snow white is 5ft 6 in tall)

The temperature in the caves is a steady 10 degrees which was a welcome relief from the 30 degrees outside, but we were glad to have brought some warm clothing.
When we got out we noticed there was a bus nearby and undaunted or perhaps enboldened by our earlier efforts jumped on the first going in roughly the right direction. This took us to a square we had never heard of so we jumped on another that was going somewhere we had. From here we felt we should have a go at a form of transport we hadn't tried before so jumped on a metro which took us to Moscow Square from where we were able to get a bus right back to the front door of the hotel. Public transport here is absolutely excellent; relatively cheap, incredibly frequent (usually today we had a maximum 10 minute wait even well out of the centre) very reliable and rather unnecessarily quick. It operates largely on a trust system so nobody checks you have a ticket as you board saving a huge amount of time over the course of a journey. UK take note.
For our evening meal tonight we thought we should try a little restaurant hidden away behind the main drag not far from the hotel. As we looked at the menu it looked pretty good and noticed a violinist playing (rather well to my untutored ear) some classical and classic music. We duly ordered and when the only other diner (!) vanished, we found ourselves treated to the undivided attentions of aforesaid violinist. Now I don't mind a bit of music as I eat but I found his attemps to get eye contact somewhat unnerving and the final straw came when he appeared with a 2000 forint bill stuck in the neck of his strad. This was taking unsubtlety to a new level but I was up to the job and looked him in the eye – not difficult as he was only a foot away at this point. I told him he played well and asked how long he had been playing. Misinterpreting my interest he told me that he was a gypsy violinist – my 'oh really?' was greeted with a virtuoso performance of recognisable and very nice hungarian folk music. I duly applauded and thanked him afterwards but he was confused but the lack of cash forthcoming so retreated to the interior of the restaurant. We paid our bill and left. You can't lever cash out of a Johnson by trying to embarrass them into it, we have too much experience of the state.

I was intrigued. How could it stay in place like that? It started from a single point just above and to the rear of the centre point of his left ear and radiated over the whole of his pate. There was a clear demarcation line between the slate grey covering and the white hair at the borders; the slate grey part was immaculately formed with not a hair out of place. This begged the question – is it an elaborate comb over or a poorly designed hairpiece? Whatever the answer led to a whole subsidiary set of questions that had occupied me over breakfast for the last couple of days. Like how did it stay in place, did he have to be careful about the direction of the wind and why didn't he colour all his hair the same colour, inter alia. There were a group of German guests at the hotel and this man was one of their number. I had noticed him (who wouldn't ) at breakfast a couple of days ago and was trying not to look too intrigued while searching for clues.

Changing the guard at Parliament

'So we'd better get to the parliament building quite early' Sue broke into my reveries, reminding me that we were due to spend the day in Pest and the questions never were answered. I'm sure that it was just a vicious and particularly poorly executed, desperate combover.
In the event, we discovered when we arrived at the parliament building that you can only buy tickets for that day and that by about 10, when we got there, they had all gone. It was not clear from the guide book that to stand any chance you had to be in the queue by 8am. Suddenly we had an extra hour to play with; it didn't take us long to re-think our day. The square outside parliament has a number of interesting memorials commemorating several events in the 20th C which are worth a tour before moving on.

Shoes Memorial

Next stop was at the touchingly eerie memorial to Jews murdered by the Arrow Cross as the Russians approached Budapest. Lined up by the Danube, they were told to take off their shoes and coats before they were shot and dumped in the river. The coats and shoes were distributed to German citizens. The memorial takes the form of apparently discarded shoes by the riverside, the shoes being made of iron. The memorial is just to the south of the parliament building and requires either a bit of a detour to cross a major road or taking your life in your hands. Perhaps unsurprisingly it didn't seem well visited when we were there.

The Gresham Palace

The next stop was the beautiful, refurbished Gresham Palace. This exquisite art deco place was originally built as an up market building of shops, offices and apartments by Gresham Life, an English life assurance company. Neglected and falling into disrepair from the 40's to the millennium, it has been tastefully and lovingly restored using wherever possible using the original methods and workshops and reopened in 2004 as a Four Seasons Hotel.

St Stefan's basilica

Just around the corner is St Stefan's Basilica. The external architecture is impressive with its huge dome. This is the second dome, the first one crashed in while being built because someone got his sums wrong. Apparently, when the King visited for the first time, he was seen to glance nervously at the ceiling. Inside it is highly decorated and quite beautiful if somewhat OTT. Yet again I found myself thinking that the cost of all the decoration could perhaps have been better spent in a truly civilised society. But this is equally true of the cost of our travelling, so who am I to judge?

Weeping Willow, Wallenberg Memorial Garden

We stopped for a nice lunch at a cafe outside the Great Synagogue behind which there is a memorial garden to Raoul Wallenberg. The only entrance to the garden is through the synagogue and you had to pay to go in, so we didn't visit the garden. However, from the street we managed to see the steel weeping willow in the garden, each leaf of which is inscribed with the name of a holocaust victim.

The Opera House

Our next stop was the Opera House, which is yet another beautiful piece of architecture. We took the guided tour (only way to get in other than go to a performance). Our tour was for a large party of people who wanted to do it in English. There were 3 Italian women who didn't stop yabbering at the top of their voices to each other all the way round; I don't know what they understood or why they bothered. Try as I might none of Harry Potter's best spells seemed to work on them. Even my best Paddington Bear stare didn't slow them down! The tour was none-the-less very interesting and the guide very informative.

The Royal Staircase, Opera House

At the top of the royal staircase, there is a huge mirror and the reason for it being there is apparently royal protocol meant that a royal personage could only look to their front; the mirror meant that they could observe the scene without turning their heads! The interior decoration is fabulous; apparently they used 3 kilos of gold leaf when restoring it. While it was being built, the Opera House in Vienna burned down killing 400. The lessons were incorporated into this building and it has a steel safety curtain, doors that open outwards and so on.

The Market Hall

The final stop in Pest was at the vast under cover Market Hall. The lower level has all the usual fresh produce you could want and upstairs there are lots of boutique outlets and masses of souvenir stalls, most of which are pretty tasteful. It's certainly a good place to go for a wide range of souvenirs in one place.

The lower level, Market Hall, with Ellesmere bag (the cotton one)

Competition from the many stallholders probably keeps the prices down.
After our shopping, it was a quick dash across Liberty Bridge on a tram to have a quick look at the Gellert Hotel & Baths – some more rather nice Art Deco architecture.

Gellert Hotel & Baths

The original plan had been to take in one of the baths at some point but we were running out of time. Road works meant that we had quite a walk to the next bus stop and make our way back to the hotel for a quick shower and change to get down to the theatre below Fishermen's Bastion where we had booked seats for an evening of Folk Dance & Song.

Theatre for Folk evening

It was a warm evening and we were sorry for the performers who must have sweated buckets as they stomped, stamped and twirled through an hour and a half of strenuous physical exercise. Think Riverdance meets barndance with a bit of clogdancing and lederhosen thigh slapping thrown in and you'll get the picture. I'm sure all the steps were authentic but I suspect the choreography was for dramatic effect rather than an expression of fun as originally intended; certainly the peasants from whom the culture evolved wouldn't have had the energy to deliver what these professionals managed.

Boat on the ceiling in the restaurant

When it finished there was a brief debate about where to go for dinner, it being 10pm. We decided to go to the nearest restaurant and were allowed in, although our waiter was not entirely happy about it. He certainly headed off a party of 6 that tried to get in shortly afterwards and sent them packing. The restaurant was called something like the Fisherman, surprisingly enough specialising in fish dishes which we thought would make a nice change. Our waiter was economically efficient and made no effort to make us feel welcome; our meal when it arrived was pleasant enough but not particularly memorable. If 10% service hadn't already been added to the bill, we wouldn't have added a tip. All that remained was for us to climb up the hill to the base of Fishermen's Bastion and then up the steps to the top. By the time we reached our room on the second floor we were certainly ready for bed.

a travel blog by rickandsuejohnson

Arrival

Budapest, Hungary

Hop on - hop off

Budapest, Hungary

Let's try some public transport

Budapest, Hungary

A good day out

Budapest, Hungary

Pest

Budapest, Hungary

All good things come to an end

Budapest, Hungary