Budapest III

The city of Budapest was created in the late 1870's by joining the two cities of Buda and Pest, each occupying a side of the Danube, into one metropolis. (I suspect this was inspired by the celebrated union of Osh and Kosh in Wisconsin.) The river dominates the city with Pest on rive gauche. On the other side Buda castle, seat of the Kings of Hungary, looms on one side of a long narrow mesa, nearly a kilometer in length. The hill is nearly a city unto itself with buildings from various periods in its long history. In one building near the castle a plaque proclaims that Beethoven once made a concert appearance there. The Soviet Stalinist regime gutted the Palace itself in the 1950's but it has since been restored. The view of the Pest side and the river is magnificent. Even Vienna doesn't offer anything like it as there are no hills in the city. Oddly, Vienna, which celebrates the Danube, has its back turned to the mighty stream. In Budapest it takes center stage. There are several islands in the river and five important bridges. The Germans blew up every one of them, but they have all been rebuilt. The most famous and a landmark of the city is the Chain Bridge. It is an imposing span.

Budapest II

Budapest is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Everyone I know who has been there has waxed ecstatic about the place. Add me to the list. If you appreciate interesting architecture there are few cities to match the Hungarian metropolis in magnificence. You cannot walk down a street without coming across stellar examples of Belle Époque, neo-Renaissance and especially Art Nouveau styles. It seems that the entire city was rebuilt in the late 19th century. And indeed it was. The Golden Age began with the creation of the Dual Monarchy with Vienna and Budapest as co-capitals in 1875 and continued unabated until the First World War. Not only are there numerous public buildings to gawk at, but seemingly endless streets of gorgeous residential buildings. Of course some are neglected and crumbling quietly away, but very many have been taken care of. Considering the ravages of WW II and the '56 Revolution, Budapest is in surprisingly good shape. They might do a little better at trash pick-up, though. And some of the parks were in a sorry state, but those are minor quibbles about this great city. The photos show the famed Gresham Palace, originally built by a British insurance firm as an office building. In the Soviet era it fell into disrepair but has now been restored to its former glory by the Four Seasons hotel. It's a real stunner.

Budapest

With no one signed up for Friday afternoon and fine weather predicted I decided that this would be the weekend to go to Budapest. At the last minute my British colleague and friend Penny Johnson decided to join me. The train journey east takes about six hours. There are two possible routes to take: either through Vienna or crossing into Hungary directly east from Graz. I assumed (wrongly) that the latter would be quicker. Our train turned out to be something of a local, stopping in nearly every station along the way. No matter -- we weren't in a hurry and the turnip express afforded us the opportunity to see more of the country. The train didn't go northeast as we anticipated, but it zigzagged from one town to another. Eastern Austria is quite pretty with rolling hills, the end of the Alps, and prosperous villages. We watched for the border crossing, but there was virtually no trace of what had once been the fiercely guarded Iron Curtain. Things in Hungary looked like (in Penny's words) they needed a bit of TLC. The terrain in Hungary flattens out. The area is surprisingly sparsely populated. The vast expanse of nearly featureless farm land looked like what you might see in rural Illinois or Nebraska, that is until the train stops in a place like Nagytétényiszemlöhegy (I made that up) and you know you're not approaching Omaha. We got stuck in one station for a long time. Announcements were given repeatedly over the loudspeakers, but since they were in Hungarian we had no way of knowing what was going on. Perhaps it was something like: This train will be running off a cliff after leaving the station. Have a nice trip and thank you for traveling with Magyar Rail. It turned out to be a malfunctioning engine. Once that was fixed we were on our way. It was blazing hot and the train was not air conditioned (very little is in Europe). We arrived at Budapest Keletli Station an hour and a half late and somewhat fried. The first thing that hit my eye upon leaving the station was a huge sign for Burger King. Good grief -- is there no escaping American culture? After sorting out our hotels (both relatively new and quite nice) we stumbled upon a street that had something like 45 restaurants, all with outside seating. We found something to our liking and had a fabulous dinner among the Magyars.