Day 113 to 118
17th to 21st August
St Stevens fist and Ferenc’s foot.
St Stevens Basilica houses the hand of St Steven, the first King of Hungary. It also houses the body of Puskas Ferenc, the best Hungarian soccer player ever known. It is said that St Stevens hosts the best of the two most famous Hungarians, the Kings fist and Ferenc’s left foot.
Probably not the best impression of Budapest after an eight-hour overnight bus from Krakow to be dumped at a bus station in the middle of nowhere at 5am. It does skew things a bit.
Positive outlook tested further with luxurious accommodation. A tiny room that just fitted 2 skinny single beds with no luggage space. The sheets were grey and threadbare and our spare bit of floor felt like a sandpit. $20 a night each. Oh well, a little bit extra money to go exploring.
Budapest. Well, the buildings are beautiful and the Danube flows between Buda and Pest making up the city but, it is filthy. Cigarette butts and broken glass everywhere. By catering to the younger crowd with the bars and nightclubs, it lacks the infrastructure or perhaps city pride to clean up the carnage in the parks and gardens caused by the illegal public drinking which is not enforced.
Palinka is the drink of the Hungarians and can be up to 70% proof on the black market. It looks like metho and tastes disgusting due to its lack of taste but there are Palinka bars everywhere and we were told by the locals that the best stuff is only 50 percent proof as there is still some slight resemblance to its fruit origins.
The Szechenyi Baths are fun. Three main outdoor pools and about 12 inside the beautiful buildings circa 1913. It was packed and the pools were warm. Yes….. thinking the same thing. The inside thermal pools are cold and hot with all kinds of torture to partake in. It is a very popular place. Rumour has it that there is a beer bar where you can sit in beer while drinking beer. Food is served but denial is a very strong motivation.
A well-deserved night cruise down the Danube due to the accommodation savings. The welcoming drink was the metho followed by 4 courses: duck rillette, smoked trout and a pork thing that were all fried, set with lard and squeezed out of an icing bag onto a piece of fried bread. Traditional Goulash soup was a winner. Taste of Hungary plate- don’t even go there and a dessert called Somloi galuska. 90 minutes, A$65 and a few photos of the nightscape. Bargain?
The Shoes on the Danube is a memorial to the Budapest Jews who were shot by militiamen between 1944 and 1945. The victims were forced to remove their shoes at gunpoint and face their executioner before they were shot without mercy, falling over the edge to be washed away by the freezing waters. It is such a powerful work.
Because we stayed just outside the city centre, we have seen the beautiful and the ugly Budapest and unfortunately it is hard to let the bad things go.
On a positive note Paprika is the Hungarian spice and there are many types, hot, sweet and smoked. Delicious! Picked up 3 Hungarian men. All solid, with good professions that dont answer back!
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Two Travelling Bags 