Budapest – Getting There and Exploring Lipótváros (Leopold Town)

***** Sorry, not much food in this one. But, if you'd like to see some photos and stories on Budapest….

Four months seemed like an excruciating wait for the Missus. After going "back home" for a few days in January, She had to wait four months for our next vacation. But I thought this one was going to be worth it. It entailed starting in a city that the Missus always wanted to visit, Budapest, and ending in what has become (along with Japan) almost like our home away form home if you will.

The travel time was going to be rather long, though the meals on the San Diego to LHR leg was not bad at all.

And while the Galleries Lounge in Terminal 3 at Heathrow was rather small and seemingly a bit worn, it was quiet, and relaxing.

And so it was; an almost eleven hour flight from San Diego to Heathrow, a five hour lay-over in LHR, followed by an almost three hour flight to Budapest. In the end we'd had three square meals in an airplane.

We felt blessed to be able to travel in Business Class.

We arrived in Budapest after midnight, though getting thru customs and immigration, then working a system of getting a cab at the booth, you go to the cab booth, tell the person your destination, you are handed a ticket with a number. This number coincides with the cab number. You'll see the number on the visor of the taxi. Since we pack light and never check luggage going, we actually got to our hotel, the Budapest Marriott around 130 am. There's a reason I picked the Marriott; while the façade looks like something left over from the cold war, the view when I opened the shades in the morning looked like this.

That's the Royal Palace perched on top of Palace Hill, on the Buda side of the Danube. Man was it beautiful!

Since the sun rose early and set at around 830pm, we'd be able to get in a good amount of exploring. There were two things we noticed right away as we walked along the Danube. There were benches everywhere….along with statues and monuments…too many to count. Like this one; simply called "A girl with her dog".

The day had started overcast and it started drizzling a bit, well, more like an irritating mistiness as we got to the Parliament Building.

And yes, that's another statue, of Attila József a 20th century poet, who is much beloved in his home town of Budapest. In fact, his birthday is celebrated as National Poetry Day in Hungary. Sadly, József's life would be a rather short one. He was run over by a train on December 3rd, 1937….whether a suicide or a terrible accident is up for debate. Regardless, he died at the age of 32. His statue sits on the stairs right before the parliament building, looking at the Danube.

We headed down the stairs and headed south along the Danube, to this somber monument of 60 1940's style iron shoes at the banks of the river.

This is the monument called "Shoes on the Danube Bank". This memorial remembers the hundreds of Jews killed by the militia of the Arrow Cross Party. Many were murdered along the Danube and were forced to remove their shoes and even strip naked before being shot.

From the rocks and pebbles placed in and around the shoes; something that is often done on graves; to the flowers, candles, and other items…..on a later visit we saw a woman who looked like was in perhaps her late 80's place flowers here, walking arm in arm with what I can only assume were relatives.

It was quite moving…..

More on the Shoes on the Danube here and here.

We then crossed back and took in the impressive Parliament Building.

As we took a walk around the building there were…well, monuments galore. Like this one of István Tisza.

On the grand statue of Ferenc Rákóczi, who led Hungarians in an uprising (unsuccessful) against the Habsburgs.

Across from the Parliament are two other grand looking buildings; the Museum of Ethnography.

And the Ministry of Agriculture.

We crossed the street to check something out at the end of the building.

These black "plugs" are actually bullet hole markers that memorialize the victims of "Bloody Thursday" a moment at the beginning of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. On October 25th, 1956, a large group of peaceful protesters gathered in front of the Parliament Building. For whatever reason, the Államvédelmi Hatóság (AVH – the Communist Police) opened fire and scores were killed.

Yes, the views are beautiful, the buildings grand…..

But if those structures could talk……..

Thanks for stopping by!