I have labelled these posts “Eurotrip” without so far reaching the continent. But this day was the day that was all going to change, because we were off to Budapest to begin a Viking river cruise through Europe! This was sponsored by my parents, who wanted to lure the kids in to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. My super amazing wife and I were of course delighted to fall into the trap of a family cruise through Europe, though we were easing into the affair. We had already spent a few days in Scotland of course and while now we were proceeding to Budapest, we planned to arrive a couple days before the family to allow us some more staid sightseeing.
The travel to Budapest was smooth. We had a bit of a RyanAir experience, having to go from literally one side of the airport to the next as the gate changed, but we made it after what for us felt like a pretty quick flight. Going from the usual Scottish weather to a still summery feeling, warm and sunny Hungary was a pleasant shock to our system. Further shocks were a taxi driver who became increasingly antagonistic towards the other drivers as we went along, but thankfully we arrived at the hotel before things boiled over too far.
In a hungry daze, we barely unpacked before stumbling out of the hotel to get something to eat, promptly picking the most proximate café for some paprikash. That was utterly delightful. With the food and a drink and the weather and suddenly there we were eating out on the sidewalk by the beautiful Danube each with the love of our life admiring a beautiful neighborhood in gorgeous late summer European weather and I understood, just a little bit, why people like the continent.
We spent the rest of the afternoon hiking around Budapest, or Buda anyway. It is a beautiful town and we admired views of the Danube and watched a jet ski tour go by. We passed a book cart which would have been more enticing had we been able to read Hungarian, and eventually we hiked up to Gül Baba’s tomb, though we didn’t get there before closing. That climb rather knackered us and so after an errand and admiring some more gardens we returned to the hotel to fairly promptly fall asleep.
The next day our big activity was a tour of Buda castle. Since it doesn’t understand how fortifications work, Google Maps had told us the walk to Buda castle was “mostly flat,” but that’s okay because after climbing up all the stairs to get there we were early and so had plenty of time to rest while admiring the gorgeous views of the city and cliffs and monuments. We rendezvoused with our guide, who didn’t want to be posted on the internet but did want everyone to leave a review on Get Your Guide, and the tour began.
It was a good tour but there was a lot of history to take in, with lots of sentences beginning with something like “let’s start in 1240…” Our guide explained it all fairly well I think but neither my super amazing wife nor I had much of a basis from which to understand Hungarian history. This meant we were surprised by things like the Huns having been there, something we really should have gleaned from the name “Hungary.” This was a good moment to start hearing the word “Hapsburg” though because they would be fairly relevant to the rest of the trip.
And so anyway we walked around the castle. They are rebuilding most of the buildings to how they were before WWII; most of the buildings were destroyed either in WWII or destroyed by the Communist government, or both (I emphasize everything I’m recording here is what I think I gleaned from the overwhelming amount of information presented on the tour). Some of the portions seemed to be a far cry from their original grandeur, as our guide liked the point out (she was very bitter about many of these buildings being destroyed), but I guess as the project continues they are getting better at it. In the middle of the castle was the lion courtyard which reminded me of nothing so much as Bancroft Hall, whatever that implies. The finale of the tour was St. Stephen’s hall, the significance of which I didn’t understand at the time and still don’t really. It is really nice though! Very intricate. I thought it was especially interesting that the painting of St. Elizabeth (done, like all the paintings in there, on “pyro granite” in multiple layers) is modelled on Empress Sissi, or the face is anyway.
The next big adventure we did that day was a trip to the Museum of Hungarian Applied Folk Art, a series of words guaranteed to get us to come to your premises. They had one exhibit going on which was all about traditional Hungarian folk art being used in fashion which was very very good! The most charming part is that they labelled all the items on display with the same formula, so surrounded by all this intricate embroidery and colorful motifs deployed on towering dresses was a suitcase from Hungarian airlines with the label “Unknown Artist. Malev-suitcase, undated. Artificial leather, synthetic fiber thread.” The sorts of things that were on display in the exhibition included everything from Gottex swimwear to the results of the Hungarian dress movement to party dresses. I really liked that the traditional Hungarian motifs centered on flowers and colorful designs, which meant they could really be incorporated in so many ways.
From there the rest of the evening drifted away, us fortifying ourselves with chimney cake before admiring the lights of Budapest at night. We were far from done with Budapest at this point but having walked around it was still hard to get a bead on where the soul of the city lay. My super amazing wife’s impression was that the city was so medieval, but I had seen the same buildings and felt it was so thoroughly 20th century. The first day I had noticed that some of the “stonework” on the newer buildings was already starting to crumble, revealing that it was really brickwork and plaster. But then on this day I noticed that where Buda castle itself had been damaged, it was also brickwork and plaster. So was it that the ancient castle was ersatz, or the new buildings done in the ancient style?