A city that has something for everyone, Budapest really needs more time than the 5 days we spent here. Here we found interesting buildings and monuments, streets with surprises round each corner, unique Hungarian foods in restaurants or on the street, folk crafts, pretty traditional blouses and skirts, museums for all different types of culture and knowledge, thermal baths, churches and synagogues, good beer, a melodious language, marvellous weather and more.
The initial orientation seems easy enough, Buda on the west bank; up on Castle Hill you can see the fanciful Fishermen's Bastion and the St. Matthew church. On the east bank is Pest with the imposing Parliament building dominating the shoreline and innumerable other massive buildings in all sorts of architectural styles spreading in waves beyond and behind the Parliament. In between lies the beautiful green Margaret Island. One bridge after another link the two cities to form the unity of Budapest.
But we found that it took a lot of time to come closer to the essence of the city. It is very diverse. Many buildings are neo-..., reproductions of gothic or romanesque or other style, which is sometimes confusing. Because of corona, many areas that would normally have a lot of visitors were almost empty, pleasant that there were no crowds, but still odd. And it is big! Our boat was about 5 kilometers out from the city so each day of exploration required 10 kilometers on the bikes just to get there and back, and then a far bit of cycling round. The language was less of a problem than we had feared, as the Hungarians generally are good at German or English, but it was a barrier when we tried to communicate with less educated people. It was also of course fun to try!
Budapest relies on tourism for a large part of its economy, and this year with the coronavirus has been a tough one. People told us that they had been locked down for 6 months. Finally they were allowed to open again and some optimism returned in August. September is an important month for the small restaurants, bars, holiday centres and shops, but their president Orban very suddenly closed the borders into Hungary for the whole month of
September (minimum). Luckily for us, we were already in the country. But the people here are really suffering. No one we spoke to understands or agrees with this action.
We chatted with the owner of a bar which had been in business for 40 years, situated in Buda close to the St. Matthew church. She told me that she thought she would have to close down permanently at the end of the month. It was just too difficult financially to keep up with the running costs when there were virtually no tourists. A few loyal locals still came for their wine and sparkling water, or a good beer, but she had stopped offering cooked meals now.
It was a similar story on the other side of the Danube in Pest. We had heard of the famous indoor Market Hall, in a beautiful Victorian style building, filled with stalls of fruits and vegetables and peppers and salamis, as well as Hungarian arts and crafts, crowds of tourists filling the hall, amidst local sellers and customers, languages mingling and shopping baskets knocking one another in the crush.
The building was indeed beautiful and very large, very impressive.
The food and crafts were plentiful and attractive.
But where were the crowds? If you look carefully, you may spot one or two customers.
On the other hand, the lack of crowds was a definite plus on the day we went to the Szechenyi thermal baths. Budapest is blessed with thermic healing waters whose properties have been used for more than 2000 years here with the building of baths and spas through the ages. We spent 4 luxurious hours going from one healing pool to the next, alternating with the leisure pools outdoors, with temperatures up to 40° Celsius, the smells of sulphur and other minerals permeating the air, the old joints grateful! The renaissance architecture and decoration of the buildings and grounds and the variations in the shape and size of the pools and saunas added much to the enjoyment. And yes, there really were some old guys sitting in one of the pools playing a game of chess! (I didn't feel comfortable taking photos here so I borrowed this one from the internet.)
We do like looking at churches and in Budapest, there is an unending array of them, all sorts, attesting to a religious tolerance that seems astounding. The largest synagogue of Europe is here in eastern Moorish style, as well as the light and airy St. Matthew church
in Buda and the neo-Renaissance cathedral of St. Stephan in Pest, with its deep burgundy marble walls and decent gold decorations, made more special by the black priest speaking his message of love (in English) as part of an international ecumenical festival.
We also found time to relax in some of the most delightful green spaces in Budapest, where we met a few other tourists but saw mostly local people who love to spend time here, whether a whole day on the weekend or a lunch break on a workday. The Little City Forest park offered lovely buildings like this castle as well as a cool park. The lungs of the city, the Margaret Island is a space on the Danube, with wonderful trees and flowers, a cloister and castle ruin, and water features like this amazing spring fountain that invite you to sit down and while away the hours in a pleasant green environment with no cars.
And so our time on the Danube is over for this year. We will drive back to Esztergom and leave our Sulina in the able hands of Attila, who will look after her until we return next spring. I hope we will see you all then again, as we carry on with our journey in Sulina to Sulina, and we'll describe it for you in this blog, 'Along the Danube.'