Matt and Lisa's Adventures

28 December 2024

We Ubered to Doha airport and killed some time before our flight. We had a mix up with the length of our flight – somehow we had expected it to be eight hours and so we were relieved when we boarded and they announced only a five hour flight! It was a Qatar flight but on an Air Oman aircraft – it was a bit old but not very full. There were a few people with coughs which caused Lisa a lot of concern – she complained that it was a “hospital flight” and “it would be a miracle if we didn’t get sick” (spoiler alert: we didn’t get sick).  I had a bit of a nap and watched the first couple of episodes of One Hundred Years of Solitude. 

After landing we taxied into our hotel, the Hampton by Hilton which is very nice. We put on some warmer clothes but probably not enough, as we realised soon after leaving the hotel. 

We went for a wander:

• Started at Starbucks for a coffee and planning session. We booked in some walking tours for our time in Budapest. Our lack of sleep meant it was tough going. 
• Found Saint Stephen’s basilica which looked great from the outside. We didn’t go inside as it required a ticket. There were Christmas markets outside, the first of three markets we found. 
• The Christmas markets were very interesting but a lot of the stalls were repeated. The food stalls looked amazing – langos, chocolate, chimney cakes and a wide variety of meats. 
• There was an ice skating rink. We were in agreement that we wouldn’t be taking part – that would have surely led to broken bones. It was fun to watch people whizz about. 
• We wandered along the river where there were lots of statues and the view across the river looked spectacular. Looking forward to doing more exploring tomorrow with better light

29 December 2024

Lisa had researched best hot chocolates in Budapest and came across the New York cafe which apparently is very famous as the most beautiful cafe in the world. We decided to give it a shot – this was a mistake as when we turned up there was a massive queue. I overheard someone say it was a two to three hour wait to get in – crazy! Needless to say we didn’t line up especially considering it was freezing. Lisa later did some reading on the internet which said the cafe wasn’t even that good, but I think that was just confirmation bias to make us feel better for not doing the wait. 

Despite having ages we struggled to find an appropriate coffee location and ended up falling back to Starbucks again. Our goal for tomorrow is NO Starbucks. 

We turned up for our free walking tour: Essentials of Budapest. The turnout was massive and we were split into two different groups and even after the split our group was the largest free walking tour group I had been a part of. Our guide was Matt. He was a bit quiet at the start, especially compared to the other female guide who was very loud, but I came to enjoy his style and he was very good at telling stories and sharing information. 

• Hungary was founded in 896 by seven Hungarian tribes who came from what is now Kazakhstan. 
• Saint Stephen got a crown from the pope and in return converted the Hungarians to Christianity. The Hungarians had a good time until the Mongols turned up. The Mongols occupied the country for a while before the Hungarians got their freedom back. That lasted a while before the Ottoman Turks conquered the country. They were eventually expelled by a Christian army from Europe that was led by the Austrians. In return for “liberating” the country from the Turks the Austrians just stayed and occupied it. Eventually this turned into the Austro-Hungarian empire. They were on the losing side in World War One and lost a lot of their territory. 
• In World War Two they fought alongside the Germans in an attempt to get back the territory they had lost. They soon realised they were going to lose and tried to switch sides but the Germans invaded and kept them in line. Then after the war the Soviets took over. It wasn’t until 1989 that Hungary got its freedom back. A long time of being occupied by other countries. 
• The Austrian Queen Elizabeth known as Sisi is high regarded in Hungary. Half of the city is named after her including the statue where the walking tours start from. She pushed to give Hungary more recognition and a more equal role with Austria. She helped with more money and investment in Hungary. Also helped that she was quite attractive
• Hungary is well known for its wine production which is considered to be very good. The beer is less highly regarded – sad
• There are three types of architecture in Budapest. Buildings from the late 19th century when a lot of money and development was invested into the city, brutal Soviet buildings and modern buildings. It was quite easy to spot which period a building belonged to. 
• The Hungarian language is quite complicated with a lot of letters. The letter “S” is pronounced as “SH” unless it is next to a “S” in which case it is a normal “S” sound. Hence it is pronounced “Budapesht”
• The basilica of Saint Stephen is 96 meters tall which is the same height as parliament to indicate the city and state are equal. No other buildings are allowed to be as high. 
• We went to Liberty Square. This has a monument put up in 2014 that tried to paint Hungary as innocent in World War Two. This then had a counter protest next to it to try to provide a more accurate perspective. There is also a large Soviet monument that was directly across from the US embassy. Hungary is not allowed to remove the monument and so tried to hide it with trees. There are also statues of Reagan and Bush Snr keeping an eye on the monument.  

The tour finished outside the Hungarian parliament building which was very spectacular. Lisa was freezing and so we had lunch at the closest cafe we could find. I had beef goulash soup with bread which was nice and warm but didn’t have a lot of flavour. Lisa had a cheese scone – I swear you can take girl out of Papanui, but you can’t get the Papanui out of the girl! The scone wasn’t heated and there was no butter so I don’t think it could have been very good. 

Lisa had been to the House of Terror Museum a previous time and had raved about it. When we arrived there was a bit of a queue which was a testament to its reputation. 

• The museum was in the old secret police building. It told the story of the secret police and the terror under Nazis German and the Soviets. It was very well done with very immersive rooms and a great audio guide
• After Hungary tried to back out of the war the Germans invaded. The Germans put the Arrow Cross party into power. Before this the party was not well organised and this was a big promotion. After the Soviets took over a lot of Arrow Cross became communists and carried on with the terrorising
• Pretty much everybody was telling on everybody else and writing reports. I felt sorry for whoever had to read all of them! 
• There was a story of the boss of the secret police getting caught up and eventually killed by his own agents. It goes to show that these things can get anyone
• Towards the end we caught a very slow elevator down to the basement and it played a video of a man talking about how executions were performed in the building. It was very creepy. The museum used a lot of music and sound to create tension and it was very effective
• The basement level had cells setup as they would have been. This was the most terrifying part and really gave you a horrible sense of what the prison might have been like

In my research I had come across Budapest’s ruin bars which are cool drinking establishments in old ruined buildings. We went to the most famous of these called Szimpla for a couple of beers. It was certainly dingy and well decorated however Lisa said (and I agree) that it felt like it was trying too hard. The beer though was nice and it was our first non zero beer of the trip! 

From there we walked 100m to a restaurant called Fat Mama. We had paprika chicken which is a famous local dish – it was served with macaroni and sour cream. It turned out to be very bland and disappointing. We also had BBQ brisket and potatoes which was much better. 

30 December 2024

Breakfast was waffles again, which was delicious, again. The weather was forecast to be cold and so we layered up as best we could turn set off to walk to Hero’s Square along Andersly Avenue which is a very fancy street and a UNESCO world heritage site. The walk took about 35 mins and surprisingly wasn’t that cold. 

The square was very impressive, massive with two imposing museum buildings on either side. In the middle there was a large pillar with seven horsemen. Behind that were statues of the heroes of Hungary with each hero also having an engraving of their heroic acts. We recognised Saint Stephen (of the basilica) who bought Christianity to Hungary but he was the only one we recognised. Some more information would have been very helpful. There were lots of Hungarian tour groups and their guides were providing lots of context but unfortunately none of it was in English. It was disappointing there were no walking tours for that area of the city as it would have been fascinating. 

Each hero had their date of birth and death on the statue but not sure how accurate they are as there was one dude who was sixteen but looked about forty! 

From there we walked across to an old castle like building. Next to it was a large ice skating rink with a few people skating at speed, it looked terrifying. The castle area had several interesting statues that people could interact with, Lisa got a little friendly with one of the guys. Thankfully other people were doing the same so we didn’t look like complete idiots. There was a lake that was largely frozen over which fascinated us as this just isn’t something you would ever seen in New Zealand. Lisa desperately wanted to throw a rock onto the lake, but couldn’t find any which frustrated her immensely. We also saw a tethered hot air balloon, which didn’t make a lot of sense. 

We then caught the metro back to the city centre. This was the historic line 1 and the stations had been left in their original style. The metro in Budapest is the oldest in continental Europe, which is a source of pride but they always have to quietly include “continental” as the tube in London is older. 

We ended up at Starbucks (again) after being unable to find a better coffee option. We had a mad dash to find a Hungarian chimney cake as a pre tour treat. We found one eventually but it wasn’t fresh or hot, so it was a bit disappointing. 

Our first walking tour was about the Jewish quarter and Holocaust. Our guide was Andre and he was good but at times it was information overload. 

• Budapest has the second largest synagogue in Europe. It doesn’t have a name so is just named after the road it is on, which is Tobacco Road – not very religious. It was built in the 1850s and was influenced by Spanish styles. 
• An add on was built to the synagogue in the 1920s to honour the Jewish soldiers who fought for Hungary in the First World War. After the Holocaust unknown victims were buried in the courtyard. 
• Many Jews had fought for Hungary in the First World War and Jews in Budapest were very integrated into the wider community. In rural areas it was quite different with less integration. Most of the Jews transported to the camps were from rural areas as they were able to be more easily identified
• About 25% of Budapest were Jewish at the time of the Second World War. This meant propaganda was not very effective as it is easy to demonise small groups (Jews were about 1% of the German population) but harder to convince people that many of their friends and colleagues were evil
• 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to extermination camps. It is amazing as this mostly happened within less than two months. Another 160,000 died in the ghettos from various causes. 
• Most Jewish people lived in the Jewish quarter already. When the Nazis took over they moved the remaining Jews into the quarter and put up walls to turn it into a ghetto. There were markings on the pavement to indicate where these walls used to be. 
• There were stumbling stones across the city in the pavement outside houses where Jews were taken from. These contain the names and details of the victims. 
• The number of Jews in Hungary has decreased massively. The main synagogue could hold nearly three thousand people but now uses a smaller venue as they only get 50 people. At the most recent census the number of Jews was less than ten thousand. There are lots of reasons for this but our guide thinks part of it is people not wanting to identify as Jewish out of fear

Yesterday we had missed out on seeing the shoes on the Danube. This is a memorial to the Jews killed in the Holocaust and consists of different shoes in bronze along the edge of the river. It was very poignant. 

We caught the metro to our walking tour of the Buda castle district with our guide Lara. The tour started at 3:30pm which was quite late and so most of the tour was in the dark but that did give some spectacular views of the sites lit up. Unfortunately the evening was foggy which didn’t help for photos. 

• Most of the castle district had been destroyed when the Austrians had forced the Ottomans out. There had to be a lot of rebuilding after this to restore the castle district 
• It used to be rich people who lived in the castle district. During communist times the government forcibly acquired all of the land. The apartments were split so that more people could be housed. And only the most loyal communists were given these apartments. After democracy returned the government didn’t want to force families out again so instead the existing tenants were given cheap rental agreements. This made it quite inexpensive to live in this area. 
• When the communists took over they were not a fan of churches. An old church was mostly knocked down except for the tower. The Hungarian dictator planned to be put in a mausoleum there like Lenin was. But nobody liked him and so after he died he was instead buried an unmarked grave in the large public cemetery in the city
• After the Mongol rule there was a lack of population. Hungary invited immigrants from Italy, France, Germany and Jews to move to the Buda castle district. This led to each of these groups having their own district and churches inside the district. 
• The Mataius church is spectacular and very impressive. Around it is the Fisherman’s Bastion which was created for the millennium anniversary of the founding of Budapest. The anniversary was in 1896. There are seven towers, one for each of the seven Hungarian tribes. 
• The Hungarians originally came from what is now Kazakhstan. They settled in Budapest because of the good water and the thermal water easily available under the city
• The Royal castle was built for an Austrian queen. She said she liked it but only visited once – typical ungrateful royalty
• There was a lot of restoration and redevelopment going on. Lara said to come back again in five years when everything is complete
• Lara was a pretty fast walker and had a large group (every tour we did in Budapest had about thirty people in it, which is far larger than the normal group sizes). She would keep reminding everyone to keep up. We walked quickly to avoid being told off

Following the tour we walked down from the castle and across the famous Chain Link Bridge. For dinner we went to Madhouse for Mac & Cheese and BBQ pork. It also served lots of craft beers. There was even a New Zealand one, but not one we had heard of. 

Overall thoughts on Budapest

• Fascinating city with lots to do and learn about. Probably could have done with an extra day there. 
• Very easy to get around. We walked twenty kilometers most days. The public transport is also very good with buses, trams and the metro
• Not as cheap as I had expected and food seemed to be quite expensive. It didn’t help that they don’t use Euros and so it made doing conversions difficult. 
• Everybody appeared to speak English and it was very easy to communicate. I’m impressed that they were able to do both English and Hungarian as Hungarian looked difficult! 
• There are loss of amazing buildings. Clearly a lot of money was spent on the city but it had paid off. 
• There were lots of statues across the city , which I loved. Especially the ones you could interact with and pose with, it made for some fun shots and always interesting to see what was around the corner. 
• Very cold though. Another city that would have been quite different in a warmer month. 
• Budapest had a LOT of ATMs and Thai massage places. Not sure why but it felt like they were on every block