Before I started planning this trip I had no idea that Budapest was two cities…Buda and Pest. Buda lies on the west side of the Danube River, Pest on the east. The city became Budapest in 1873. For a period of time it was also known as Pestbuda, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so “Budapest” became official. Locals, however, still refer to each side of the river as Buda and Pest. In the below drawing, Buda is the obviously larger area, with the castle up on the hill, while Pest is much smaller, down on the flatland. Pest is actually the much larger area now, spreading out as far as the eye can see.
We are staying at the beautiful, stunning (insert more superlatives here) Aria Hotel! This is a 5 star hotel and it shows it! Our friend Paul Fridrich is childhood friends with the owner, and he got us the “Friends and Family” discount. Not only is the hotel beautiful, and the staff exceptional, but the hotel location is literally at the exact center of the city!
The lobby where they serve breakfast and daily wine and cheese is stunning! We’ve had live music almost every afternoon. The piano looks like a Ferrari!
The lobby area is the bottom of a courtyard, with glass enclosing the bottom floor.
The is the view of the glass ceiling from just outside of our room. Very cool setup!
Right around the corner from the hotel is the striking Saint Stephen’s Basilica. We will visit the Basilica later during our stay.
After dinner on our first night we took a stroll around, and decided to go up in the Ferris Wheel of Budapest.
Yet another great view of Saint Stephen’s Basilica from the Ferris Wheel.
On our first full day in Budapest we had a tour with Rita from Tours By Locals, a company I have come to trust with most of the tours we take during our travels. Rita was excellent!
On our way to catch a bus we ran across this statue called The Policeman. Rubbing his belly is supposed to bring you good luck….or help you lose weight….one of those! Don’t worry, I rubbed it too….fingers crossed!
We then caught a bus and crossed the Danube into Buda to visit the castle district. These guards are standing outside the office and home of the President of Hungary. Our guide told us this was merely ceremonial, as the President is never actually there.
The view back towards Pest is excellent. The Szechenyi Chain Bridge is in the foreground, while the Saint Stephens Basilica is center right.
Buda also provides the best view of the Hungarian Parliament Building.
Holding a prominent position overlooking the Danube, the Turul statue is a mythological bird, resembling a falcon, sitting on a sword that is part of Hungarian mythology.
Up against one side of Buda Castle, this is the Fountain of King Matthias. Built in 1904, the king is hunting a stag with a crossbow and his faithful hounds. Our guide advised us that during WWII, a Nazi stole one of the hounds from the fountain….as Nazis are wont to do!
This is Buda Castle, that sits high on the hill of Buda. Our guide advised that shortly after WWII, before the communists took over, the castle was slightly damaged but repairable. The communists, hating anything related to royalty, sadly destroyed it all. It has since been restored, and while the exterior looks historically similar, the interior has been completely removed from its opulent past. Yet another reason to hate communists!
This building, Kiraly Lovarda, is brand spanking new. It is a restoration of a building the communists blew up. It’s so new that if you look at Google Maps, this spot is just an open field. There are actually several buildings being built in the area right now, to replace buildings the commies blew up because they had a royal relationship.
This statue of a raven with a ring in his mouth is a testament to King Matthias. Matthias Corvinus (not to be confused with Lord Fauci and Coronavirus) was the King of Hungary from 1458 (when he was just 14 years old) to 1490, and was considered the best king Hungary ever had. In 1485 he even defeated the Austrians and moved into his new palace in Vienna! This was somebody Hungarians could unite behind. These raven statues can be found all over Budapest.
The King Matthias parade continues as we visit Matthias Church.
The interior is covered in paintings, everywhere you look.
Literally everywhere you look!
Queen Elisabeth, aka Sisi, makes another appearance….this time in the church in Budapest, where she was revered.
Yet another raven on the top of the church.
Just outside Matthias Church is the Fisherman’s Bastion, an overlook of the Danube. We didn’t go into this one, as we’ve seen plenty of excellent overlooks already!
In front of the Fisherman’s Bastion is this statue of Saint Stephen, the dude named after the Basilica. More about him later. He looks pretty badass though….like something out of Lord of the Rings!
On the advice of our guide we visited the Hospital in the Rock, a former hospital created out of the caverns under Buda Castle during WWII.
The hospital was also used during the Hungarian 1956 uprising against the Commies. After that it was a prison for a period of time, before becoming a nuclear bomb shelter.
They advised not to take photos during the tours (I have no idea why), so the following are from the internet. First off, they have a bunch of terribly funky looking wax figures in the hospital/bunkers. First is the Operating Room.
This is the area where they kept the patients. The guide told us that due to body heat, this room would often get up to over 100 degrees F….so it was not a nice place to be!
The Nuclear Bunker portion of the tour made it clear this was not the place to be during a nuclear attack. Is this the place you want to end up dying of starvation? No thanks. The tanks they are showing here are supposed to filter the air with activated charcoal…so you can live a few days longer than everybody else. Yippie!
Ok, enough doom and gloom! Our guide then got us back on the bus, then on a tram, then on the oldest section of underground railroad in Europe so we could visit the Szechenyi Thermal Bath building. Opened in 1913, this is the largest thermal bathhouse in Europe!
We liked the immediate interior, but we aren’t bathhouse people….we actually like the cold….so it was nice to see, but we won’t come back for a bath. A shot of a statue in the front entrance.
We then walked over to Vajdahunyad Castle, built in 1896 for the Hungarian Centennial celebration as an exhibit of the evolution of Hungarian architecture.
This building represents the Romanesque period of architecture.
While this one represents the Baroque style. This was originally built as a temporary exhibition out of rudimentary materials, but the locals liked it so much they made it solidly permanent.
Ok, almost to the end of our first day! We then walked to Hero’s Square, a UNESCO World Heritage site with statues of the 7 tribes who founded Hungary. They are at the base on the central column….click on the photo for an enlargement!
Our last stop of the day was at the Hungarian State Opera House.
When Budapest first talked to Austrian King Franz Joseph about building an Opera House, they were told it had to be smaller than the Opera House in Vienna. They did that, but they simply made it much more beautiful….something Franz Joseph apparently appreciated when it visited after it opened in 1884.
Our guide advised us that the same person who designed the interior of the Opera House also designed the interior of Saint Stephen’s Basilica, something we’d experience a couple of days later. In the meantime, it’s obvious no expense was spared here!
My last photo of this post. At the entrance to the Opera House were these wooden blocks that look like stone. These were placed at the entrance as all the VIP’s arriving here would have come by horse and carriage, and the wooden blocks were easier on their hooves than stone would have been. A nice touch!
Coming up next, more Budapest!
