Budapest

I have wanted to visit Budapest ever since I saw Katy Perry's Firework music video (it was filmed there) and we finally went last weekend. The city was even better than I had imagined. The architecture is incredible, the food is delicious, and the people are really friendly. 

Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River. Buda is very hilly and has a lot of trees, whereas Pest is flat and covered with buildings. The two tallest buildings in Pest are Parliament and St Stephen's Basilica. 

Just about every room and hallway on the tour of Parliament was stunning. The photo above is of the main staircase and landing. No photos are allowed in the room under the dome where the Crown of St Stephen is located. The photo below is the Congress Hall, where the House of Lords met until 1944. 

On the windowsills outside the Congress Hall are these cigar holders. Since smoking has never been allowed inside the room, members of the House of Lords would leave their cigars here and were able to know which was their cigar by the numbers. 

My friend, Kate, gave us some great recommendations for our trip including to go on a night boat cruise. The views of the city were amazing. Budapest is lit up beautifully at night. Below is a view of the entire Parliament building from the river.

Two more iconic sights are the Chain Bridge and Buda Castle.

The Matthias Church in Buda is named for King Matthias Corvinus, who was married here twice. There has been a church on this site since 1015 during the reign of St Stephen, who is known for bringing Christianity to Hungary during his reign as king.  

The Matthias Church is incredible on the inside. During the Turkish occupation in the 1500s the church was converted to a mosque. It was badly damaged during World War II and was used as a camp for German and later Soviet soldiers during the War along with nearby Buda Castle. It has since gone through a complete renovation. 

Warren's brother-in-law lived in Hungary for a few years and gave us some great recommendations for sights and food. He told us about all the foods featured below, most of which we never would have tried on our own. I loved everything with túró, a type of cheese curd. The photo below is a túró filled pastry but my favourite thing was Túró Rudi, which is a smoother version of the cheese curd with a chocolate coating. It was so delicious that I brought a dozen home with me. 

All of the food we tried was amazing, but I really enjoyed this goulash stew with nokedli, a type of soft egg noodle or dumpling.  

We also tried fruit soup, a cold soup with chunks of fruit on the bottom served with whipped cream. It was much better than we had expected and I actually really enjoyed it. 

Madártej (aka "bird milk" or "floating island") is a dessert similar to a thin vanilla pudding with meringue on top. This was yet another example of something we never would have tried on our own but were so glad that we did. 

We had hot chocolate during a private tour at this amazing cafe on the top floor of a bookstore in Pest. This was originally a casino room inside a hotel.

St Stephen's Basilica is in honour of King Stephen, the first King of Hungary. The Basilica is the exact same height as the Parliament building which symbolises that church and state are equal. 

The inside was just as beautiful and intricate as the outside. 

The right hand of St Stephen is inside the reliquary. I like this photo below because you can see the reflection of the stained glass of the reliquary in the protectant glass case of the right hand. 

The Great Synagogue is the largest Jewish house of worship in Europe with a capacity to seat 3,000 people. 

The synagogue was completed in 1859 and was renovated in the 1990s. It was bombed in 1939 by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross militiamen and was damaged further in World War II when, sadly, it was used as a stable. 

This 'tree of life' Holocaust Memorial stands over the mass graves of people murdered by the Nazis in World War II. On the leaves of the metal tree are the family names of some of the hundreds of thousands of victims.

Another sobering reminder of the war is the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. It honours Jews who were killed by the Arrow Cross party. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the river so that their bodies fell into the river. I thought that this memorial was especially moving.

Budapest seemed to have an extremely large number of statues, which I enjoyed. The Millennium Monument in Heroes' Square was erected to commemorate the 1,000 year history of the Magyars (Hungarians). An angel is on the top of the pillar, with statues of the seven chieftains who led the Magyar tribes to Hungary on the stand below. 

In the courtyard of Vajdahunyad Castle is this statue of Anonymous, the first medieval Hungarian chronicler in either the 12th or 13th centuries. The statue is meant to portray an important historical figure whilst also hiding his face under a hood. 

Outside the Matthias Church and near the Fisherman's Bastion is this statue of St Stephen. A lot of the statues in Budapest had a mix of copper and gold, as you can see in the halo around St Stephen's head. 

On top of Gellert Hill is the Szabadsag Szobor, or Freedom Statue. Our walking tour guide said this statue was erected during the time of communism as a remembrance of the Soviet conquest but was kept as a symbol of Hungarian freedom at the conclusion of the Soviet occupation. 

Bishop Gellert was an Italian missionary invited to Hungary to preach by St Stephen. This statue marks the spot where the pagan Hungarians rolled him down the hill in a spiked barrel in 1046. The hill is now known as Gellert Hill. 

The guide on our walking tour said that during the time of Communism the people were nostalgic for things of the past and also wanted to focus on regular people instead of famous ones. So this statue of a policeman from the late 1800s was put up. Our tour guide also pointed out that since he is so overweight it meant that he had a lot of money and could afford to eat in excess, which would have been very attractive at the time. 

Budapest was even better than I had imagined. It easily moved to my top ten of my list of favourite cities I've visited.