Rosie and The Operator are in Budapest! We have been here only a couple of hours and Rosie didn’t realise just how beautiful this city actually is and has totally fallen for this place. We have taken a while to get here with plans that have fallen through and trips that had to be cancelled over the past year, but here we are, finally!
Often described as the ‘Pearl of The Danube’ this city is the capitol and most populous city in Hungary. Its 1,750,000 inhabitants also make Budapest the tenth biggest city in the European Union. Hungary’s total population is just under 10 million people and one in every five people in this country live here, in Budapest.
Rosie’s first impressions of this city of Budapest is of one of reality, combined with majestic beauty. Budapest may be flooded with tourists but it is a real functioning everyday city that is busy and on the move and is not just for show. The majority of the cities buildings are gigantic! The fancy ones are gorgeous and delicate and sit alongside newer modern utilitarian ones, still enormous but gritty and grimy from carbon and dirt. They are square and blocky, beautiful in their simple no frills symmetry and geometry.
Our apartment building is one of these, mere steps away from the tourist hotspots, this utilitarian build has its own beauty and character on the outside. Seven stories high it is tired and well used on the inside, a huge courtyard with trees that soar the height of the whole building make it look like we are in the middle of nowhere adding to the urban charm. Inside the apartments are large and sunny, yet designed to be cool. They have been refurbished yet still remain as practical inside as the outside.
Budapest is a city of two halves, Buda and Pest, each area stretches along either sides of the Danube River that divides and flows, through the middle of Budapest. Each side of the river has its different character that defines the city and helps give it its flavor. It works like this, Buda is the hilly, historic castle district and Pest is the flat, more modern area. Pest is the area Rosie and The Operator are staying in.
So lets get cracking, you just have to walk over the most famous bridge in the city that links Buda and Pest, the Szechenyi Chain Bridge. This suspension bridge was started in 1840 and took over ten years to finish.
At the time it had the second largest span in the world and was one of the only two permanent bridges that crossed the Danube. The Chain bridge was nearly totally destroyed during WW2 and rebuilt in its exact likeness nearly 100 years to the day from its original inauguration.
It is glorious walking past the giant lions that guard each side of the bridge and from here, along the 375 meter walk, this is where we get our first real look of the Castle District and the beauty we are heading towards.
On the left of the Bridge sits the huge hulking symmetrical form of Buda Castle. To the right, at the very top of the hill are the delicate pointy spires of The Fishermans Bastion.
First though, we have to get up the hill, no stair climbing for Rosie so early in the morning. The wonderfully creaky, original wooden Funicular takes you all the way uphill in a couple of minutes and wow, what a beautiful view of the Chain Bridge looking back into Pest and seeing the spires of St Stephens Basilica you get from its windows!
Buda Castle is the historical Castle and Palace complex of the Hungarian Kings. It was originally built in 1265 but the sprawling complex you see today is from a rebuild done in a fabulous baroque style in 1749.
The views from the terraces were breath taking, looking upstream on the Pest side, out over the Danube River, taking in the Houses of Parliament as it sits on the waters edge.
It was early still, not even 0900 when Rosie and The Operator were standing on the terrace and the only action was a squad of military doing drills on the parade ground.
Across the undulating hilltop we walked towards the world renowned Fishermans Bastion. The morning was crisp and the sky back to blue after the last few days of rain. Past beautiful squares we walked full of monuments and fountains and down medieval streets we went until we popped out into Trinity Square, at the back of the Bastion in front of St Matthias Church.
Trinity Square, so named after the plague column in the middle, just glowed white in the morning sun and the towering delicate spires of the famed Church loomed overhead, but the roof! The roof just glittered and sparkled greens, yellows and oranges in the morning light. It was quite spectacular!
St Matthais church is the beating heart of the Castle District due to its splendid uniqueness. Built in 1019 this is the church where centuries worth of Hungarian Kings have held their coronations.
In 1529 the Turks invaded the city and destroyed most of the churches except for this one which they then used as a mosque for 150 years. When the Christians defeated the Turks and kicked them out of Buda castle in 1689, not much of the city remained intact after years of fighting…including the church….which was rebuilt completely in the style you see today. As for that sparkling roof, it is made up of thousands of individually handmade ceramic tiles from a famous Hungarian Factory.
The Church of St Matthias sits on the forecourt terrace of The Fishermans Bastion. The Bastion was designed and built in 1895 and would be THE most popular tourist destination in the city. The impressive bronze statue of Stephen the I, the first King of Hungary 975-1038, sits mounted on his horse ready for business and has done so since 1906 when it was first erected.
Rosie was surprised with the amount of visitors flooding onto the Fishermans Bastion lookout points at this early time of the morning. Looking over the sides of the Bastion and down the hill, well, there is the answer, bus after bus after busload of tourists were being disgorged one after the other and a steady stream were invading. Saying that, it must have been Rosie’s lucky photo taking day as she got some pretty great pics without too much stress or people in them!
The Fishermans Bastion gets its name from the Guild of Fisherman who protected this stretch of the city wall in the Middle Ages. It has seven towers that represent the seven tribes that first settled in this area and was the basis of the developing settlement from which the city grew.
The 180 degree panoramic views from the terraces are just stunning…when you can tear your eyes away from the amazing castle like bastion itself.
From the bottom of the steps where the tour buses release the multitudes and few rarely even pause to look skyward before charging up the stairs, the overall view of the Fishermans Bastion was even more amazing showing it in its complete beautiful entirety.
Walking back, along the riverfront in the shade of the trees that line it Rosie can say she really only scratched the surface of this historical and beautiful area of Buda….but it will remain with her forever in its beauty. Rosie believes we have to leave something to explore another day. The Operator nods his head in agreement.
Walking over the bridge again and back in to Pest it seems everyone is up and about and on the streets. Its 1100am and a lot of the cafes and restaurants are only just opening. It was actually a little hard to get a coffee here early this morning, this country seems to love its gentlemans hours! We did enjoy our breakfast however, when we found a nice outdoor terrace in the shade of St Stephens Basilica. Don’t hate me, Rosie couldn’t resist a Hungarian take on an English Breakfast…just look at its pretty smiley face.
St Stephens Basilica solidly sits in the square it is named after, another huge edifice that totally dominates all it surrounds. Named in honor after the first King of Hungary who lived from 975 – 1038. This church is one of the newest in Europe and construction started in the 1850s with it being officially inaugurated in 1905.
It was stunning walking up between the buildings towards the square it sits in, watching it get bigger and bigger and the people getting thicker and thicker….
This church houses the rather odd and macabre holy relic of King Stephens ‘incorruptible’ right hand. It is housed in a glass box and you have to pay 1 euro to see it….oh yes, that is right up Rosie’s alley…a millennium old hand! Rosie was trucking over to the concealed relic room for a squizzy and she was turned away. They were closing the church for mass….are you serious! Denied again, Rosie isn’t having much luck with opening times on this road trip.
The inside of the church was huge and cavernous, Rosie can honestly say she has never been in a church so wide she has had to use a panorama shot to capture it all…..crazy! Rosie was still taking pics and trying to evade the ushers that were trying to get us out of the church.
We were however allowed up into the tower, so upstairs we headed to get a birds eye view of the surroundings. How civilized, you can pick your method of ascending the tower. Do the hard yards and climb 300 odd stairs or just take the lift. You know Rosie’s option. The Operator was disappointed, don’t let me stop you said Rosie, see you at the top! I had better come with you so you don’t get lost said The Operator….in a lift shaft said Rosie? Don’t make excuses….you didn’t really want to climb the stairs either….there is no shame in it Rosie sagely advised The Operator.
The views were amazing, as they always are out over the city. Rosie didn’t notice The Buda Castle and The Fishermans Bastion until The Operator pointed them out. They looked so far away with one of the four towers of the Basilica in the foreground.
Afterwards, we strolled through Budapest absorbing the atmosphere with the most beautifully crafted ice cream each that Rosie and The Operator has ever seen. This rose shaped ice cream was totally worth the ten minute wait in line at Gelarto Rosa. Lets face it you needed that length of time to decide what awesome flavor combinations you want to try from the amazing selection. It was just incredible watching them craft the petals of the rose right in front of you while you wait.
We also passed a statue of a gentleman that looked exactly like a dearly departed relative of Rosies…fancy bumping into his Doppleganger in Budapest. Was lovely to remember him here. You bet we rubbed his belly.
Onward in the sun, through the city, finishing our ice cream we gravitated back to the banks of the Danube and walked along the bottle strewn edge of the river on the way to The Shoes on The Danube. This dusty jogging track and riverside refuge for the homeless is also a parking lot for the seemingly hundreds of tourist river boats that dock three abreast up and down the river. Rosie and The Operator peered onto their plush sundecks and into their super plush lounges, rooms and dining rooms. It does seem like a premier way to travel said Rosie. If you want to see one city per day said The Operator.
The Shoes on the Danube are a poignant holocaust memorial to the 200,000 Jews who were lined up on the banks of the Danube, made to take off their shoes (a valuable commodity at this time) and were executed, their bodies falling into the river and washed away.
There are sixty pairs of period appropriate shoes made of cast iron lining the bank of the river…all that is left of their disappeared but never forgotten owners.
Walking back to our apartment we breathe in the sights and sounds that have made this city break so amazing. At every twist and turn in this city there is something different new and exciting to see and experience.
Tomorrow Rosie and The Operator will show you around the once abandoned Jewish Ghetto in Budapest where the illicit and infamous Ruin Bars of Budapest are housed. The history of this area and the eclecticism of these bars…was right up Rosie’s alley.
PS…Rosie has a new favorite European City…move over Paris and Rome, you have had your turn….Rosie cannot wait to return to Budapest.
