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During our visit, we have been staying round the corner from two buildings. Firstly Magyar Radio from which a final plea from help came on 4 November 1956 when 1000 Russian tanks rolled into Budapest at dawn. By 8.10am they had destroyed the Hungarian army and captured Magyar Radio. Hungarian people fought them with machine guns. Some 4000 Hungarians were killed fighting the Russians. Wanting to know more we found this clip https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ihS_D0Bta z8

The other is the Hungarian National Museum which we wanted to visit as some of its treasures were shown in a recent documentary about the ‘Dark Ages’.

We saw the coronation mantle of St Stephen which is beautifully embroidered with silver thread and kept in a darkened room, then a floor showing the history of pre-Hungarian peoples with lots of beautifully crafted metalwork including a cauldron from the time of Atilla the Hun …

… and lots of gold!

It was so interesting to learn about the movement of people in Eastern Europe, the richness of their art, from a time and place we certainly didn’t cover at school, and which certainly can’t be called The Dark Ages. The second floor covered later history but we were already experiencing museum-wilt by this time and couldn’t give it our full attention. The museum is excellent and when we return to Budapest, we will definitely spend more time here.

We stopped at Hollo Folk Art shop and learnt about the patterned eggs in all the shops. Traditionally they were made of goose or duck eggs, blown and decorated with wax then dipped into red dye. In the Spring festival, the boys would spray the girls with water as part of a fertility ritual and they would give the boys the red eggs which they would hang from the fresh green branches of Spring. Despite this, we have bought one with a traditional design to hang from our Christmas tree, a promise of Spring to come and a souvenir of our trip.

Turo Rudi bars, in their spotty wrappers, have been favourites of Hungarians since the 60’s and we’d seen them advertised around town, in fact you can even get a spotty McFlurry so we had to give them a go! First problem was to find them, as we tried several shops without success, until we asked and were shown to the chill cabinet as they have a chocolate coating round a curd centre.

We picked up two, not knowing the difference but one said Pottyos Turo Rudi on the wrapper, meaning ‘Spotty Curd Bar’ and the other said Hajra Magyarok which means ‘Hungarians Go For It’ referring to sponsorship for the Rio Olympic Team. One had a milk chocolate covering but we preferred the plain, and both had a sweet, creamy centre, a bit like a chilled yogurt bar.

Our next stop was the Dohany utca Synagogue, the largest in Europe, built in a Byzantine-Moorish style popular in the 1850s, and showing the patriotism of the Hungarian Jews, with the brickwork in the same colours as the Budapest coat of arms. It belongs to the Neolog denomination of Judaism which accounts for 80% of Hungarian Jews today and has been recently restored.

Budapest was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe before WW2 but around 600,000 were killed during the Holocaust. Of these, 2281 were killed by the Arrow Cross and buried in 24 mass graves here, now covered with myrtle and ivy. Outside is another Holocaust Memorial, the Tree of Life, shaped like a weeping willow, with each leaf engraved with a family killed by the Nazis.

Passing a mural celebrating Hungary’s win over England 6:3 at Wembley in 1953 …

… we then stopped for lunch at a very busy little restaurant which seemed filled with locals, but had a daily menu in English including a white bean vegetable dish. Together with a shared tomato salad and fish gratin for me, it did very nicely for just a fiver for us both!

We found ourselves in time for the afternoon tour of the State Opera, and having seen the opulence of the foyer, couldn’t resist seeing more. The city were told the opera house could not be larger than the one in Vienna, but no one said it couldn’t be more beautiful, which the Hungarians believe it is! In its heyday, a ticket cost the same as two horses, so it was only for wealthy who went to see and be seen, and Sisi, the Empress Elizabeth, was a regular patron. It was one building that luckily escaped damage despite the conflicts Budapest has seen, so all is original, and we even got a song at the end.

This is definitely the smart part of town, full of theatres and smart shops. We looked into the foyer of the Tivoli Theatre …

I … and Mai Mano House, once the shop of a society photographer (spot the cherub with a camera) and now a museum.

There was also the facade of the once very smart Parisi department store …

… and the Liszt Music Academy.

There have been quite a few buildings we have passed with some architectural detail or other worth a picture that we couldn’t identify, so here is a selection.

After all those buildings, definitely time for our last Aperol o’clock, sitting in a pretty cafe people watching again!

Later we had dinner at Vendiak Etterem, not far from where we are staying, just off a pedestrian square, where it was warm enough to eat outside. We shared dips to start then Chris had porcini pasta while I had a local speciality of roasted goose leg with mash and red cabbage – another excellent meal.

Tomorrow we have a bit of a lie in, but off to the airport after breakfast for our 2pm flight. We’ve had a wonderful time in Budapest, and really thought 8 days would have been enough to see most of it, after all we managed to walk around 8 miles every day, but there seems so much left to see. In fact we’ve made a list of what to see on our next trip – Budapest History Museum, Museum of Ethnography, a better look at the Hungarian National Museum, twilight boat trip on Danube, Margaret Island, inside of St Matyas, Church, Szent Gellért tér Metro Station, Miksa Roth Museum, Cave Church and Citadella in Buda, the zoo to see the architecture, tour of the Vigado Concert Hall, Ruins of Aquincum, Memento Park and day trips to Visegrad, Esztergom and Godollo.

Köszönöm … Thank you Budapest for a lovely time and thank you for reading.

After thunderstorms through the night, we woke to a grey day with the promise of showers, but we had planned a trip by boat to Szentendre, an hour or so upstream and just had our fingers crossed.

The trip through the city was interesting, under the Chain Bridge, past Parliament and alongside the 3kms of Margaret Island before the buildings ended and there was just a tree lined river ahead.

We went inside for coffee and got chatting to the only other two passengers on the boat, Caroline and Brent, who are on a two month trip round Eastern Europe from Auckland. Having spent an enjoyable hour trading travel tales we reached Szentendre and parted ways. We walked through the pretty town to the bus station and found we had just missed our bus so retraced our steps to get some lunch.

Just like hummus bars are all over the city, so are soup bars, so we decided to try one. The choice changes daily and we had one porcini and white wine and one Dutch cheese … both hot and tasty on a grey day!

Finally we were on our bus, and dropped at the largest open-air museum in Hungary, where buildings from all over the country have been reassembled to showcase Hungary’s rural past. In two hours we only managed to see half the museum, that was enough to get a good idea. Some of the interiors were interesting with high beds pushed to each side of the rooms and often a large stoneware stove in the corner covered in beautiful tiles.

One exhibit about how people in Eastern Europe were ‘reorganised’ and relocated after WW2 was quite poignant.

We returned to town, which became an artists colony in in 1920’s and still has a number of galleries and art shops which we checked out, then bought tea and cake to eat on the trip back to Budapest and as we boarded the boat, the rain started. We were so lucky it had remained dry so long but it rained all the way back.

That evening we returned to Heroes Square and had dinner in Bagolyvar which means Owl’s Castle. It is a typical family restaurant with traditional Hungarian fare and I finally had the Gulyasleves or goulash soup which was so filled with meat it was almost a stew, followed by another version of Chicken Paprikash, and Chris’s vegetarian menu offered asparagus soup and rice pilaf with ewes cheese.

Well I might just mention here that although we ate so well in Budapest, it was down to a bit of detective work as there were few Hungarian restaurants that offered a vegetarian choice at all. Anyway, we finished off with a couple of local liqueurs, Unicum which we have seen on sale everywhere in a round bottle which is a herbal digestive … and despite my love generally of such liqueurs … this was truly dreadful – and a house green walnut liqueur that was quite nice, but neither will find a space in our suitcase home!

Our first destination was Hosok ter or Heroes’ Square, which together with the Varosliget or City Park were created in 1896 for the nationwide celebrations of the Magyar conquest of Hungary. We arrived from the centre of the city on The Millennium Underground which has been beautifully restored with its heritage tiling and fittings, but is the oldest metro line in continental Europe.

Hosok ter is dominated by the Millenniary Monument, Budapest’s version of Nelson’s Column, with the Archangel Gabriel who according to legend appeared to Stephen in a dream and offered him the crown of Hungary.

Around the base are Prince Arpad and his chieftains who led the seven Magyar tribes into the Carpathian Basin. Behind are an array of Kings of Hungary.

Vajdahunyad Castle in City Park was only intended to be temporary, but became such a favourite that it was replaced with a permanent building and is made up of architectural styles and features from several buildings in Hungary.

There is also a statue of Anonymous, the nameless chronicler of medieval Hungary.

Passing the Széchenyis Baths …

… and the wonderful Art Nouveau entrance to the Zoo we retraced our steps to the Metro.

Now from one extreme to another, our journey took us to Fovam ter metro station, one of the newest and with some stunning modern architecture.

Incidentally, most of the metro is somewhere in between, either running older trains that have seen better days, or with stations built with soviet help, and look like it. The trains and the trams are incredibly frequent and also cheap.

We exited by the Great Market Hall, a huge wrought iron edifice filled with goodies, where we browsed briefly through tourist souvenirs, and at more length through the produce where we picked up sweet and hot paprika to take home.

Apparently, 10,000 tonnes of paprika are produced annually with over half being exported but Hungarians manage to eat 500g/year, richer in vitamin c than citrus fruits.

We also had lunch here, queuing for langos, another local speciality. A disc of dough is deep fried till fluffy and crispy then topped with a variety of flavourings, although the most traditional is just sour cream and cheese. Had to be tried, but maybe not again … fortunately we opted to share!

Exiting the market, we walked over Szabagsad or Liberty Bridge to Buda and then had a conundrum … it was 3pm and best part of 30 degrees … do we climb the side of the hill and visit the Cave Church and Citadella … or just go and chill in the baths …. !!

The Gellert Baths are attached to the hotel and were absolutely stunning, especially the Zsolnay tiling and stained glass.

We paid for our ticket and then were challenged by the labyrinth of corridors round the various pools and connecting them with male and female changing areas. We got changed and went on a bit of a photoshoot round the outside areas …

… then the thermal pools …

… then put the camera away and concentrated on relaxing in the pools of different temperature, interspersed with steam room and cold plunge which Chris refused to try!

Lastly the outdoor pool has a wave machine that suddenly starts up from time to time and almost washes you off your feet! Such a contrast with Kiraly baths, and we are really pleased to have visited both, but we certainly made a sensible choice to have our massage at Kiraly – at half the price it would have been at the swankier Gellert!

There was just time for an Aperol moment at Central on the way back. We had a fabulous dinner at Fulemule, just round the corner from our B&B, where we experienced a menu from a Jewish kitchen. I had a goose liver and egg starter followed by cholent with home smoked meats. Cholent is a bean stew prepared in advance, kept on a low heat and traditionally served for lunch on the Sabbath without any labour. Chris had humus followed by fried cheese with rice and salad and we both enjoyed our meals, together with a very tasty bottle of local red wine.