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Budapest

Hungary

Bec
2004-09-15 15:35:32

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Budapest
Vaci utca, parallel to the river two blocs away is also one of the fashionable places to amble and go shopping. Budapest has always been elegant, even in the dark days of communism when I used to come here on business in the 1960's.

In those days, I used to export lubricants and special petroleum products from France to several countries behind the iron curtain. In Hungary, I dealt with Mineralimpex, one of the state import monopolies with whom I had very good relations.

Roaming through central Pest, I was pleased to see that the great restaurant Mathias Pince where I had dined with my customers, was still going strong. I have good memories of an excellent dinner of spicy roast pork with a half dozen violinists hovering about the tables playing tzigane music. Unforgettable!

If I remember correctly, Andrasy utca, one of Pest's major avenues used to be called Nepkostarsasag utca. Underneath it, one of the world's first metro lines ran up to Hero's Square on the edge of Varosliget Park.

The Hero's monument was erected in 1896 to celebrate one millennium of Magyar presence in the Carpathian Bassin and to forget the 345 year Ottoman occupation ended in 1886.

My objective coming to the park was to visit to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths that had impressed me as being highly civilised when I discovered them forty years ago. I still hold that opinion and enjoyed soaking in a series of hot baths and coddling myself for two hours for only 3 $US.

Buda, on the western side of the Danube is smaller than Pest but it is much older because the high position of the hills over the river made them easy to defend. The first settlement was built by the Celts on the slopes of Gellert hill on the Buda side. The Romans later expanded it to include the plains on the Pest side.

The royal castle and the walled city were built on Castle Hill after the mongol invasion in the 13th century.

The Matthias church as seen today was rebuilt in 1896 over a medieval church that had been converted into a mosque during the Ottoman occupation from 1541 to 1886.

This composite picture shows an architectural particularity that I have not seen anywhere else. Ap partements are accessed from these balconies around the walls of an inner courtyard and that can be reached by a stairway spiralling around an elevator.

This is the courtyard of the Red Truck Hostel where I occupied a bunk in a 4 bed dorm for 13 $US which is quite reasonable for Europe!

I like Budapest, it's a beautiful, elegant and sophisticated city, the people are friendly and it can be quite inexpensive if you are not too demanding.

Thinking about the good times I have had here and elsewhere in my youth, I suddenly decided to change the plans I had made for this trip and visit Zagreb via Pécs instead of going directly to Belgrade via Szeged.

That is one of the advantages of travelling alone, one can choose to do absolutely anything one feels like doing, even at the last minute!

(Within the limits of legality of course.)

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