Hungary/Travelogue

Random Budapest

Posted on by Janet

During my time here in Budapest, I’ve collected a random smattering of memories that don’t warrant a post by themselves, but which I want to share with you here in one, giant regurgitation.  Enjoy 🙂

Street Art

Budapest doesn’t have the same street art culture as Rio de Janiero, but I stumbled across some lovely works nonetheless.  I’m not sure these count as street art as much as simply wall murals, but I wanted to note them anyway.

Budapest street art. Budapest street art. Budapest street art.

Budapest street art.
This gorgeous picture is painted on a wall adjacent to a children’s park. I love this use of street art to complement and enhance public space.

Modern Architecture

Budapest really prides itself on its modern (and historic) architectural innovations and identity.  That pride is well deserved.  Many of their more historic structures were firsts for the world and considered incredible feats of engineering.  Here are a few of the modern buildings I managed to snap.

Balna, Budapest
This is the shopping center Balna. The architect added that glass and steel structure to the two historic warehouse buildings. I didn’t go in, but it certainly struck an image from outside.

Balna, Budapest

IMG_2822
Modern office (apartment?) buildings along one of the main roads. I really appreciate how much character all their buildings have. Aside from the few communist era buildings in the city, all the buildings have a unique personality. No cookie-cutter architecture here.
Budapest Palace of Arts.
The new Palace of Arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Arts_(Budapest)

Rock Church

The Rock Church is a church and monastery built into the natural cave system within Gellert Hill.  This is as close as I got to it.  This is probably the thing I most regret not seeing while I was in town.

Budapest Rock Church.

Stairwells of Buda

I mentioned before that Buda, west of the Danube, is the hilly side of Budapest.  While walking around there, I decided to photo document some of the many stairwells I traversed.

Staircase, Gellert Hill, Buda
This was taken along the north side of Gellert Hill.
Staircase, Buda Castle, Budapest
This is a stairwell in the Buda Castle area leading down to Varkart Bazaar and the Danube. It’s dangerous to walk down at night – the view is very distracting!
Staircase, Buda Castle, Budapest
Leading up from Varkart Bazaar to the Buda Castle.
Staircase, Buda Castle, Budapest
Another stairwell in the Buda Castle complex.
Staircase, Buda Castle, Budapest
Leading up to Varkart Bazaar, in the Buda Castle complex, from the street.
Staircase, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda
One of the many staircases at the beautiful Fisherman’s Bastion.

Staircase, Buda

Staircase, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Staircase, Buda Staircase, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Staircase, Buda Staircase, Buda

Shoes on the Danube

This monument has been referred to as one of Budapest’s most moving, and I have to agree.  It honors the Jews who were brought to the Danube by the militiamen of the Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian equivalent of Nazis), ordered to remove their shoes, and then shot so that their bodies fell into the Danube and were swept away.

Cipők a Duna-parton, Shoes on the Danube Memorial, Budapest
The shoes are often decorated with flowers and candles. This particular decoration may have been in conjunction with a specific event, though I don’t know.
Cipők a Duna-parton, Shoes on the Danube Memorial, Budapest
That’s the Fisherman’s Bastion across the Danube.

Monuments

Budapest is a city of monuments.  They have them everywhere and for many different things and for people and events in history.  Here are a few that stood out to me.

Momument, Gellert Hill, Budapest
This is a representation of the great spiritual and religious leaders in history, including Jesus, Ghandi, Lao Tzu, Buddha, and others I don’t remember. Notice the prostrate person on the right – old women can be found to be begging throughout Budapest in such a prostrate position.
Soviet monument, Freedom Square, Hungary
These and other Soviet monuments used to be everywhere when Communism ruled in Hungary, but this is the only one left in the city outside Memento Park, where the rest are housed. Hungary keeps this monument in the city center; in exchange, Russia pays to maintain Hungarian military cemeteries (or so my tour guide told me). This monument is located, ironically, in Freedom Square.
Ronald Reagan, Ronnie, Statue, Freedom Square, Budapest
This is Ronnie. That’s the Parliament building over his right shoulder. Ronnie is located in Freedom Square with the Soviet monument and faces that monument. The Hungarians love Ronnie because, to them, he’s responsible for bringing communism to an end.
Jozsef Attila, Poet, Statue, Bust, Budapest
This monument is to the poet Jozsef Attila. I thought the pose was funny. There are a couple monuments to him in the city, including a very popular one along the Danube outside of Parliament – a larger-than-life Attila sits on the steps, arms resting on his knees, facing the Danube; on the step faces are the words to his famous poem “At the Danube.”
St. Gellert, monument, Gellert Hill, Budapest
This is the St. Gellert monument on Gellert Hill. This is the hill and the stairwells I was enticed up that night a couple weeks ago. I couldn’t get a good picture of this at night, but the monument is breathtaking in its beauty, with the white stone staircases zigzagging up the hill toward the monument.
St. Gellert, monument, Gellert Hill, Budapest
St. Gellert, looking over Budapest.

Kobuci Kert

Kobuci Kert is an outdoor performance venue in a courtyard amongst a bunch of old buildings and museums and such.  It has a bar and a small food cart, but you can also bring in your own food and drinks.  It’s off the beaten tourist path in Budapest – on the Buda side, up north past Margit Island.  On (some) Thursday nights, they have traditional Hungarian folk music and people show up IN DROVES to dance.  The floor is completely packed, sometimes as early as 8pm.  It is a FABULOUS time.

Kobuci Kert
4 violins!!!
Kobuci Kert, Hungarian Folk Dancing, Budapest
There were 5 concentric circles of dancers at this point in the night. It was impossible to move.

Opera

Hungary’s State Opera House is a gorgeous building with a dramatic history.  There’s a whole complex in the opera house built just for the emperor, Franz Josef of Austria at the time, but he only visited the opera house once.  Partially funded by Franz Josef, the designers were commanded not to make the opera house larger than the one in Vienna.  The designers (there were 3 over the course of the construction due to various accidents) adhered to this rule, yet Franz Josef was said to be upset all the same when he came to visit the Opera House for the first time.  The Hungarians like to say he never told them not to make it more beautiful than the Vienna Opera House, and this is why he was angry.  In any case, his luxurious royal box went unused for the rest of his reign.  His wife, Queen Elizabeth, who the Hungarians call Sisi, did go back to the opera often, but was not allowed in the Royal box without the emperor.  As such, she had her own box, called “Sisi’s box,” which was immediately left of the stage.

Fortunately, the Opera House was only minorly damaged during WWII, so it’s mostly all original.

Sisi's box, Opera House, Budapest
View of the theater from Sisi’s box.
Budapest Opera House
Panorama of the inside of the the theater. The Royal box is right in the middle; Sisi’s box is on the far right, second level up.
Budapest Opera House Royal Entrance
Royal entrance into the Opera House.
Budapest Opera House, Aristocrat Box
Aristocrat boxes. Sisi’s is at the very end.
M.C. Escher-like foyer of the Budapest Opera House.
The Opera House foyer. I thought it looked a bit like and MC Escher sketch.

Szent Istvan Bazilika

St. Stephen’s Basilica is massive, beautiful, and only a little over a hundred years old.  It is extremely ornate, with frescos, statues, mosaics, gold gilt, and no hidden corner left unadorned.

Oh…and the 1000-year old hand.

St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest
Inside the Basilica.
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest
The central figure at the altar is St. Stephen, with only a small cross and a crucified Jesus sitting in front of him. This surprised me, as I’ve never seen a Catholic church (or any church, really) that had images of anyone other than Jesus in the altar area.
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Pipe Organ, Budapest
The famed basilica organ.
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Spiral Staircase, Budapest
The first set of stairs to climb to get up to the basilica’s rotunda.
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Spiral Staircase, Budapest
I made it up!
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Budapest
Gorgeous panoramas from the rotunda. That’s the Liberty Statue on Gellert Hill in the distance, and you can see the dome of the Buda Castle across the Danube on the far right.
St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Budapest
More gorgeous views from the rotunda. That’s the Parliament building dominating the background.

Dohany Street Synagogue

The Dohany Street Synagogue is an impressive building, the largest synagogue in Europe.  It was completed in the middle of the 19th century.  I heard the synagogue was able to protect many Jews during WWII.  I did not go into the synagogue, sadly.  But I did walk by it every day on my way to language lessons.

Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest

Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest
Jewish stars adorn the entire exterior, including window designs, wall decorations, and these specially shaped metal gates that largely surround the synagogue.

Margit-sziget

I visited Margit Island today and I have to say, I loved it.  Margit Island is named for Princess Margit, who’s father banished her here in the 13th century as a sacrifice to God for having helped Hungary defeat the invaders of the time.  Margit was said to be very devout and was later canonized a Saint.

Margit island is a big island in the Danube north of central Budapest and is basically a big park.  It is over a mile long and just over a quarter mile wide.  It has parking lots on the north side of the island, but there are otherwise almost no personal vehicles on the single road that traverses the island.  It has an athletic complex, a running path along the Pest side of the island, a water park with big, twisting water slides, a Japanese Garden, an open air playhouse, flower gardens, big open grassy areas, a water fountain that does a choreographed musical performance, and the ruins of the convent where Princess Margit lived.  It also has a nice-looking hotel.  If I every come back to Budapest with money, that’s where I’ll stay.

Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Budapest
This is the lovely view that greets you as you enter the island from the Margit Bridge on the south end.
Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Dancing Water Fountain, Budapest
The choreographed water fountain was amazing and not nearly as corny as it sounds.
Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Dancing Water Fountain, Budapest
Another choreographed water fountain shot.
Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Convent Ruins, Budapest
The ruins of the convent where Margit lived. There’s a children’s performance going on on the left hand side.
Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Japanese Garden, Budapest
Japanese Garden.

Drinking Fountains

These are what drinking fountains look like in Budapest.  You cup your hand to get the water, or just fill up your water bottle.  Easy for foreigners to mistake as decorative fountains.

Drinking Water Fountain, Budapest

 

TL;DR:  Maybe just look at the pics?

Janet

2 Comments

  1. It was Hungarian folk music, Diana. Though they had two bands playing that night, and they did have very different sounds. When the violin players came on, the dancing actually stopped for a bit, and when it picked back up it was only couples (vs. the group circles) doing some pretty complicated movements. I guess that band had more of a gypsy feel to it – the music was certainly a lot faster.

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