BUDAPEST second travel in 2010
Budapest is not the most beautiful city of my trip to Central Europe (just surpassed by Prague) but it is the city where I would most willingly move for a simple fact: in addition to being beautiful and pleasant, it has 8 large spas and I had the opportunity to visit 4 of them during the hot 5 days of my stay when around eleven in the morning I couldn't take it anymore and I took refuge inside their walls to relax, swim and rest after walking at least three hours to start again after 5pm when the sun he hit less.
I preferred to visit the city on my own, without taking part in the guided tours, since in Bratislava I was bored with the Australian guide, a young guy who spoke fast, counting on the fact that the majority of tourists were English-speaking people.
I still managed to understand more than 50% and immediately afterwards I got angry because rather than telling us about the city, he went on a tirade against the communist regime without knowing that the majority of citizens of the former communist countries regret the old system which was illiberal and anti-democratic but it guaranteed everyone work and social protection that capitalism has failed to ensure even if countries have made giant strides in terms of development, reconstruction, modernization, but it has also distanced millions of exasperated workers from low wages and salaries that do not allow anything else that a mere survival in the face of shops, shopping centers that offer every good thing while people look but cannot buy while a small class, sometimes mafia-like and corrupt, often made up of old recycled communist hierarchs manages to live large at the expense of a large part of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Furthermore, in his anti-communist emphasis the boy forgot to remember that education, decent infrastructure and jobs were guaranteed to everyone even if at a low quality level while today everything has to be paid for while most of the large industrial complexes have been closed and are sadly rusting, some sold for ridiculous amounts to foreign companies that dominate these countries also in the banking and financial field, first and foremost our Unicreditbanca which is present everywhere and predominantly also over German, French and Austrian banks, the other masters of the field.
In Bratislava the Australian guide told us the story of a worker who had tried to stop a Russian tank during the occupation of 1969, wanting us to believe that the photo had made history while I, who lived that period intensely, don't remember that episode at all, but I remember very well Jan Palak's sacrifice which he hadn't even mentioned.
Staying on the subject, even in Budapest there are sad memories of the communist regime and the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and its violent repression which caused 200,000 Hungarians to flee abroad.
I refused to visit the sad house of terror in Andryas Street which today is the most visited museum in the city because I don't like to deal with the sadness of the past and I know that in that horrible place first the Nazis and then the communists tortured and imprisoned in massively a lot of Hungarians.
Instead, I went to the suburbs to visit Memento Park where several defenestrated statues of the communist regime were brought, statues of communist leaders such as Lenin and Stalin and of local leaders, of partisans, of Hungarian workers and of liberating Russian soldiers.
In this park I most appreciated a beautiful documentary film that tells the life of communist spies, the agents trained to spy on suspicious citizens and the techniques used to infiltrate houses, insert technological tools to listen to the often normal and harmless conversations of the suspects , sometimes just for being cultured and intellectually independent people who were considered dangerous and sent to the Siberian gulags without any other guilt.
It reminded me of the beautiful German film "The Life of Others", winner of many film awards and which illustrated the life of a spy for the German communist regime of the former GDR.
Returning to the beautiful things about Budapest, I would like to talk about the spa again. There are two very beautiful and historic ones, the Szecheny...which is located in the northern part of the city in front of the gigantic Hero's Square, built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the arrival of the Magyar people (who left from the Urals) in Hungary today it is reduced to a third of its original territory, given that the remaining two thirds belong to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Croatia, in particular Bratislava, Varazdin, Novi Sad, Cluj Napoca and many other cities mainly Hungarians.
Hungary lost both world wars and consequently a large part of its original territory today restricted to the capital Budapest, Lake Balaton and two other medium-sized cities such as Pecs and Szeged.... while the rest are just small towns in the Hungarian post.
Budapest is a metropolis with over two million inhabitants and with around thirty districts crossed by three metro lines, the first of which was built around 1850, the first in Europe! There is also a vast network of trams that connect the various parts of the capital with an efficient transport network that allowed me to visit many places with a three-day pass bought twice for the modest sum of around 13 euros.
Budapest is actually made up of two two-faced cities. Buda which hosts the long castle hill and two other hills, the Gellert which houses the luxury hotel and the Gellert spa and another which houses the statue of liberty, a woman holding a horizontal leaf and the Citadel, an ancient fort never used and the Malastrana neighborhood under the castle, but also other residential hills that host an old railway with a small historic train that runs along it and leads to a panoramic tower and another train administered by young pioneers aged 10-14 and which leads into a nearby forest.
On the other hand, Pest on the other hand is much larger and more important and houses the large historic centre.
The castle is a large building which today houses the National Gallery which I have not visited, limiting myself to photographing it from the outside, to note the statue of the great military leader Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Roman ruins of Acquinqum, the beautiful Gothic church of San Matthias with the colored roof and the statue of San Stefano, the first Hungarian king who overlooks the elegant white and neo-Gothic bastions from which you can enjoy the beautiful city panorama with the Danube along its length crossed by various bridges of which the most famous is the one with the iron chains in the name of the usual Szecheny, a historical and political figure of stature to whom even the largest and most spectacular spas are dedicated with a huge outdoor swimming pool with hot thermal water and two other even hotter pools at the ends where the locals and tourists are soaking. In the basement there are saunas that I haven't visited because I was too busy cooling down and taking long swims.
The Gellert is a large luxury hotel with an adjoining spa facility, smaller in terms of outdoor swimming pool than the Szecheny, but also includes a beautiful indoor swimming pool that looks like a Greek temple. Then there is a large Turkish hamam with a water basin and a very high dome that lets faint colored lights filter through cracks in the roof while bathers divide their time between relaxing in the hot waters alternating visits to the very hot saunas, dressed in a sheet that hides their genitals but which leaves the buttocks exposed.
When they sit down for hygienic protection they turn the sheet towards their backs and reveal their genitals with a funny effect. Tuesday is dedicated to women, while the other days are dedicated to men, except in the evening and at night when the visit is permitted to both sexes.
I wonder if even on those occasions the men wear sheets and what the women wear, oh well! But I think Hungarians don't have as many problems with shame and privacy as we do.
I then visited the Rudas Turkish Hamam also in Buda under the castle which practically consists of two Hamams similar to the Gellert one although older. They built another new one nearby with the same name which I left out while I tried another more peripheral spa not far from the Danube, frequented mainly by elderly people which also houses a hospital and physiotherapy departments, a huge sun terrace and various swimming pools inside the courtyards of tall buildings. I didn't like this establishment very much but I still spent half a day there alternating the cool pools with the solarium terrace and a small steam sauna.
Furthermore, there is a play with the water in the sense that at Szecheny in a circular pool the water is moved by a technical structure that allows it to be carried by the current and turn in a circulatory direction while at Gellert waves are created that make the waters play guests like children at the seaside.
Starting from the wide Andrassy Avenue you arrive at the vast Hero's Square built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary in 1896 of the Hungarian conquest of the Magyar plateau, starting from the Urals.
There is a tall column, an important tomb and a circular colonnade which houses bas-reliefs and statues of the most important Hungarian kings which are also found at the base of the column.
On the sides of the square there are two large museums, an artificial basin under restoration, the Szecheny baths, the zoo and a complex of churches, museums and the Vajdahunyad castle on the edge of the city park.
But Budapest is not just spas, there are many beautiful buildings, squares, parks, churches and museums. In particular, in front of the enormous hero's square next to a huge artificial lake under restoration you can admire a spectacular complex consisting of a church, a large museum that looks like a castle entitled ............ ....
There are two other very important museums and art galleries nearby which I however left out, as well as the national museum in the center given the glut of museums I had had in Vienna and Prague and which I will then resume in a big way in Zagreb where I will visit no less than 5.
In Budapest I stayed in a nice central hostel a few steps from the Elizabeth Bridge, the white one that leads to Buda towards the castle.
Near the Astoria metro stop, the Vaci Utca shopping street which hosts elegant shops, bars and restaurants which at night become the meeting place for men in search of... erotic emotions given that prostitutes circulate there and there are strip clubs tease and night clubs.
During the day and in the evening, Hungarians love to crowd the many bars and restaurants in the vast pedestrian areas of the center and along the Danube crossed by tourist boats which also serve as restaurants.
In the middle of the Danube there is the large 2.5 km long Margaret Island which hosts the famous Sziget festival which in summer attracts thousands of young people from all over Europe.
In the past it was an island infested with rats and during Turkish domination it became the seat of the harem and later a recreational area.
There are many institutional buildings with elegant and impressive structures such as the Palace of Parliament located along the Danube which, due to its Gothic architecture, is reminiscent of the English Parliament or the Milan Cathedral. Immediately behind the beautiful building of the Ethnographic Museum and nearby other ministerial buildings, naturally the beautiful Basilica of St. Stephen and the very long Andrassy Avenue which leads to the Hero's Square and which houses the H ouse of Terror, the Opera House, and two squares at the intersection with other perpendicular streets.
Budapest is halfway between Prague and Vienna. It has in common the beauty of the palaces, the hill with the castle and the central river, the former has the appearance of an imperial capital with the grandeur and institutional spectacularity of the public buildings.
We must remember that Budapest was the capital of a very large Hungarian kingdom first and then was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire with equal dignity starting from around 1870 with the help of Empress Sissi, after the Hungarian revolution of 1848 when the Hungarians rose up against Austrian domination.
Budapest is home to a very important university named after Matthias Corvinus, the great Hungarian monarch of the 1500s, a native of Cluj Napoca, the now Romanian city that hosts his birthplace.
There are various buildings scattered around the center and especially along the river which house various faculties.
I had the opportunity to meet two nice university students with whom I exchanged an interesting conversation on the political and economic situation of the country, but also on the historical events linked to the Habsburgs.
A somewhat sad picture emerged as today Hungary has a lower standard of living than the Czech and Slovak ones while in the past it was the opposite.
The blame would be due to the terrible political ruling class that followed after the fall of the communist regime.
They have not been able to attract many foreign companies, especially German ones like the other two republics also favored by their greater proximity to neighboring and powerful Germany.
In the hostel a nice guy had us cook goulash which Hungarians eat as a rather spicy soup with paprika and a stew of mixed beef and pork and the addition of cumin and a simple and tender pasta prepared at home with egg and flour.
We were a mixed group made up of Brazilians, French, Japanese and myself who had fun preparing and tasting.
Then I tried it in an outdoor restaurant in the center and I liked it so much that I asked for a second portion except for having some burning sensations in unspeakable places the next day.
Strangely, Hungarian beer costs double that of Czech and Slovakian beer, while the rest of the prices are lower. It's probably a question of alcohol taxes.
I would have liked to visit Lake Balaton and the city of Pecs and then from there move on to Osjek in Croatia to continue to Zagreb, the last stop of my journey.
In about three hours you can reach Lake Balaton by train or bus, but then it takes six to reach Pecs.
I preferred to visit the city on my own, without taking part in the guided tours, since in Bratislava I was bored with the Australian guide, a young guy who spoke fast, counting on the fact that the majority of tourists were English-speaking people.
I still managed to understand more than 50% and immediately afterwards I got angry because rather than telling us about the city, he went on a tirade against the communist regime without knowing that the majority of citizens of the former communist countries regret the old system which was illiberal and anti-democratic but it guaranteed everyone work and social protection that capitalism has failed to ensure even if countries have made giant strides in terms of development, reconstruction, modernization, but it has also distanced millions of exasperated workers from low wages and salaries that do not allow anything else that a mere survival in the face of shops, shopping centers that offer every good thing while people look but cannot buy while a small class, sometimes mafia-like and corrupt, often made up of old recycled communist hierarchs manages to live large at the expense of a large part of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Furthermore, in his anti-communist emphasis the boy forgot to remember that education, decent infrastructure and jobs were guaranteed to everyone even if at a low quality level while today everything has to be paid for while most of the large industrial complexes have been closed and are sadly rusting, some sold for ridiculous amounts to foreign companies that dominate these countries also in the banking and financial field, first and foremost our Unicreditbanca which is present everywhere and predominantly also over German, French and Austrian banks, the other masters of the field.
In Bratislava the Australian guide told us the story of a worker who had tried to stop a Russian tank during the occupation of 1969, wanting us to believe that the photo had made history while I, who lived that period intensely, don't remember that episode at all, but I remember very well Jan Palak's sacrifice which he hadn't even mentioned.
Staying on the subject, even in Budapest there are sad memories of the communist regime and the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and its violent repression which caused 200,000 Hungarians to flee abroad.
I refused to visit the sad house of terror in Andryas Street which today is the most visited museum in the city because I don't like to deal with the sadness of the past and I know that in that horrible place first the Nazis and then the communists tortured and imprisoned in massively a lot of Hungarians.
Instead, I went to the suburbs to visit Memento Park where several defenestrated statues of the communist regime were brought, statues of communist leaders such as Lenin and Stalin and of local leaders, of partisans, of Hungarian workers and of liberating Russian soldiers.
In this park I most appreciated a beautiful documentary film that tells the life of communist spies, the agents trained to spy on suspicious citizens and the techniques used to infiltrate houses, insert technological tools to listen to the often normal and harmless conversations of the suspects , sometimes just for being cultured and intellectually independent people who were considered dangerous and sent to the Siberian gulags without any other guilt.
It reminded me of the beautiful German film "The Life of Others", winner of many film awards and which illustrated the life of a spy for the German communist regime of the former GDR.
Returning to the beautiful things about Budapest, I would like to talk about the spa again. There are two very beautiful and historic ones, the Szecheny...which is located in the northern part of the city in front of the gigantic Hero's Square, built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the arrival of the Magyar people (who left from the Urals) in Hungary today it is reduced to a third of its original territory, given that the remaining two thirds belong to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Croatia, in particular Bratislava, Varazdin, Novi Sad, Cluj Napoca and many other cities mainly Hungarians.
Hungary lost both world wars and consequently a large part of its original territory today restricted to the capital Budapest, Lake Balaton and two other medium-sized cities such as Pecs and Szeged.... while the rest are just small towns in the Hungarian post.
Budapest is a metropolis with over two million inhabitants and with around thirty districts crossed by three metro lines, the first of which was built around 1850, the first in Europe! There is also a vast network of trams that connect the various parts of the capital with an efficient transport network that allowed me to visit many places with a three-day pass bought twice for the modest sum of around 13 euros.
Budapest is actually made up of two two-faced cities. Buda which hosts the long castle hill and two other hills, the Gellert which houses the luxury hotel and the Gellert spa and another which houses the statue of liberty, a woman holding a horizontal leaf and the Citadel, an ancient fort never used and the Malastrana neighborhood under the castle, but also other residential hills that host an old railway with a small historic train that runs along it and leads to a panoramic tower and another train administered by young pioneers aged 10-14 and which leads into a nearby forest.
On the other hand, Pest on the other hand is much larger and more important and houses the large historic centre.
The castle is a large building which today houses the National Gallery which I have not visited, limiting myself to photographing it from the outside, to note the statue of the great military leader Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Roman ruins of Acquinqum, the beautiful Gothic church of San Matthias with the colored roof and the statue of San Stefano, the first Hungarian king who overlooks the elegant white and neo-Gothic bastions from which you can enjoy the beautiful city panorama with the Danube along its length crossed by various bridges of which the most famous is the one with the iron chains in the name of the usual Szecheny, a historical and political figure of stature to whom even the largest and most spectacular spas are dedicated with a huge outdoor swimming pool with hot thermal water and two other even hotter pools at the ends where the locals and tourists are soaking. In the basement there are saunas that I haven't visited because I was too busy cooling down and taking long swims.
The Gellert is a large luxury hotel with an adjoining spa facility, smaller in terms of outdoor swimming pool than the Szecheny, but also includes a beautiful indoor swimming pool that looks like a Greek temple. Then there is a large Turkish hamam with a water basin and a very high dome that lets faint colored lights filter through cracks in the roof while bathers divide their time between relaxing in the hot waters alternating visits to the very hot saunas, dressed in a sheet that hides their genitals but which leaves the buttocks exposed.
When they sit down for hygienic protection they turn the sheet towards their backs and reveal their genitals with a funny effect. Tuesday is dedicated to women, while the other days are dedicated to men, except in the evening and at night when the visit is permitted to both sexes.
I wonder if even on those occasions the men wear sheets and what the women wear, oh well! But I think Hungarians don't have as many problems with shame and privacy as we do.
I then visited the Rudas Turkish Hamam also in Buda under the castle which practically consists of two Hamams similar to the Gellert one although older. They built another new one nearby with the same name which I left out while I tried another more peripheral spa not far from the Danube, frequented mainly by elderly people which also houses a hospital and physiotherapy departments, a huge sun terrace and various swimming pools inside the courtyards of tall buildings. I didn't like this establishment very much but I still spent half a day there alternating the cool pools with the solarium terrace and a small steam sauna.
Furthermore, there is a play with the water in the sense that at Szecheny in a circular pool the water is moved by a technical structure that allows it to be carried by the current and turn in a circulatory direction while at Gellert waves are created that make the waters play guests like children at the seaside.
Starting from the wide Andrassy Avenue you arrive at the vast Hero's Square built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary in 1896 of the Hungarian conquest of the Magyar plateau, starting from the Urals.
There is a tall column, an important tomb and a circular colonnade which houses bas-reliefs and statues of the most important Hungarian kings which are also found at the base of the column.
On the sides of the square there are two large museums, an artificial basin under restoration, the Szecheny baths, the zoo and a complex of churches, museums and the Vajdahunyad castle on the edge of the city park.
But Budapest is not just spas, there are many beautiful buildings, squares, parks, churches and museums. In particular, in front of the enormous hero's square next to a huge artificial lake under restoration you can admire a spectacular complex consisting of a church, a large museum that looks like a castle entitled ............ ....
There are two other very important museums and art galleries nearby which I however left out, as well as the national museum in the center given the glut of museums I had had in Vienna and Prague and which I will then resume in a big way in Zagreb where I will visit no less than 5.
In Budapest I stayed in a nice central hostel a few steps from the Elizabeth Bridge, the white one that leads to Buda towards the castle.
Near the Astoria metro stop, the Vaci Utca shopping street which hosts elegant shops, bars and restaurants which at night become the meeting place for men in search of... erotic emotions given that prostitutes circulate there and there are strip clubs tease and night clubs.
During the day and in the evening, Hungarians love to crowd the many bars and restaurants in the vast pedestrian areas of the center and along the Danube crossed by tourist boats which also serve as restaurants.
In the middle of the Danube there is the large 2.5 km long Margaret Island which hosts the famous Sziget festival which in summer attracts thousands of young people from all over Europe.
In the past it was an island infested with rats and during Turkish domination it became the seat of the harem and later a recreational area.
There are many institutional buildings with elegant and impressive structures such as the Palace of Parliament located along the Danube which, due to its Gothic architecture, is reminiscent of the English Parliament or the Milan Cathedral. Immediately behind the beautiful building of the Ethnographic Museum and nearby other ministerial buildings, naturally the beautiful Basilica of St. Stephen and the very long Andrassy Avenue which leads to the Hero's Square and which houses the H ouse of Terror, the Opera House, and two squares at the intersection with other perpendicular streets.
Budapest is halfway between Prague and Vienna. It has in common the beauty of the palaces, the hill with the castle and the central river, the former has the appearance of an imperial capital with the grandeur and institutional spectacularity of the public buildings.
We must remember that Budapest was the capital of a very large Hungarian kingdom first and then was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire with equal dignity starting from around 1870 with the help of Empress Sissi, after the Hungarian revolution of 1848 when the Hungarians rose up against Austrian domination.
Budapest is home to a very important university named after Matthias Corvinus, the great Hungarian monarch of the 1500s, a native of Cluj Napoca, the now Romanian city that hosts his birthplace.
There are various buildings scattered around the center and especially along the river which house various faculties.
I had the opportunity to meet two nice university students with whom I exchanged an interesting conversation on the political and economic situation of the country, but also on the historical events linked to the Habsburgs.
A somewhat sad picture emerged as today Hungary has a lower standard of living than the Czech and Slovak ones while in the past it was the opposite.
The blame would be due to the terrible political ruling class that followed after the fall of the communist regime.
They have not been able to attract many foreign companies, especially German ones like the other two republics also favored by their greater proximity to neighboring and powerful Germany.
In the hostel a nice guy had us cook goulash which Hungarians eat as a rather spicy soup with paprika and a stew of mixed beef and pork and the addition of cumin and a simple and tender pasta prepared at home with egg and flour.
We were a mixed group made up of Brazilians, French, Japanese and myself who had fun preparing and tasting.
Then I tried it in an outdoor restaurant in the center and I liked it so much that I asked for a second portion except for having some burning sensations in unspeakable places the next day.
Strangely, Hungarian beer costs double that of Czech and Slovakian beer, while the rest of the prices are lower. It's probably a question of alcohol taxes.
I would have liked to visit Lake Balaton and the city of Pecs and then from there move on to Osjek in Croatia to continue to Zagreb, the last stop of my journey.
In about three hours you can reach Lake Balaton by train or bus, but then it takes six to reach Pecs.
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