Budapest-Private Tour Day

All right, I am partially done with laundry, so it’s time for another blog post.

We wanted to maximize our time in Budapest, so we did something we had never done before—we hired a tour guide to show us around the city. I found Zoltan through Tripadvisor. After some negotiations, we arranged a very good price and decided to meet at 10 on our first full day in Budapest. Through email, I explained to him that I wanted to walk through the area that would not be covered in our Free Walking Tour (we’ll get to that later) on another day. So we decided to stick to Pest side of the Danube again. He asked me a few questions about who we were and why we were coming to Budapest. He asked me if I were Jewish, since many Americans come to Budapest to track down their Jewish roots. He probably also thought we were crazy for taking three youngish kids to Budapest to do sightseeing, but oh well-haha.

We began our tour by taking the metro to the Szechenyi Baths area. I did not know know until I was researching Budapest’s sightseeing that Budapest is a city of spas since it’s situated on many hot springs.  Originally, I was going to take the whole family to this spa—but after reading a number or reviews that described the baths and the towel rental policy, plus the increase in the ticket cost that occurred a couple of months ago, I decided against it. And we do not regret skipping it.  The building itself is very pretty and not quite what you expect a spa to look like. Very fancy.

Our guide suggested instead we stop by this small building nearby—it is a place where people come to buy mineral water, fresh from underground. You can buy it hot or cold, only a cup or several gallons. Our guide bought a cup for us to try.

Mark, Alex, Robert and I tried it.  It was nasty! It reminded me of all my trips to the Crimea where we would drink mineral water like this multiple times a day and get covered with gross smelling medical mud at least once a day-haha.

Next, we walked through the City Park to Vajdahunyad Castle. It’s quite and interesting place because although one part of it was modeled after Hunyad Castle in Transylvania (Drakula’s place) and is built in Gothic style,

the other side is  in Romanesque style

and one more part is a Baroque building, currently a Museum of Agriculture.

The Castle was built in 1896, just like many other famous buildings and places in the city, because that’s when Hungary was celebrating its anniversary of “being found”.

The City Park is famous for its Anonymys statue, sculpted in 1903. It’s not actually anonymous since we do know that this is  a statue of mysterious monk who lived in the 12th century and served as the notary of King Béla III. He is credited as the writer of the first book of the history of the Hungarians. Our guide told us that touching monk’s pen brings good luck in writing and studies-that is why the pen is still sparkling golden color while the rest of the monk is completely green.

The statue of the Anonymous Four Year Old.

Really close to the City Park you can find Heroes’ Square—a really pretty place with many monuments to former leaders of Hungary. This is the exact place where my mom posed for her pictures twenty five years ago.

Moving on. Exploring Pest side of the city, we walked past this famous Alexandra book store. The interior is just beautiful!

The ceiling was amazing. Wish we had time to get a snack there, but we had to keep going.

We stopped at the Budapest Opera Theater, a beautiful building, built during the late 1800s. We stepped inside as well and enjoyed the interior of the vestibule. I have to admit that my Lviv Opera Theater seems a bit more grandiose that this one (but I am biased).

From the theater, we walked to the Jewish Quarter, the area in Budapest where many Jewish people used to live. Now, a lot of houses are occupied by the gypsies. Our tour guide took us to a very non-touristy spot in the middle of that neighborhood—a real Synagogue. We were able to go inside and look around. None of us had ever been to one, so it was very interesting to see the inside.  It was nothing like the churches that we are used to.

 

Zoslan also showed us one of the houses given to the gypsies. The apartments looked very untaken care of, almost abandoned. It looked very much like some areas in Ukraine where very poor people get settled in old beautiful buildings but then cannot keep up with the repairs and cleaning. 

Finally we arrived to the place that kids really wanted to visit! This is a real Jewish bakery café. We had some yummy yummy cake…I had a real layered pastry made with apples, nuts and poppy seeds.

This is Zoslan and Alex. Zoslan looks quite Hungarian:).

After our dessert stop, we went to the Great Synagogue, just a couple of blocks away.  This synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe. It has 2,964 seats. It was heavily damaged during the wars, but restored in the 1990s.

This beautiful Tree of Life is located right next to the synagogue.

Each leaf has a name of  a Jewish person who was killed by the Nazi.

In 1944, the area where the Great Synagogue is located was part of the Jewish Ghetto. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto in the winter 1944-45 are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue.

 

Plaques with the names of people buried here are displayed on the walls.

I never understood why so many Jews in Ukraine had German last names. I learned that they were all forced by Austro-Hungarian Emperor Joseph to change their Yiddish names to German ones. I read even more about how Jewish got their last names here.

As you notice, there are no flowers around the memorial stone. It is because it’s believed that flowers will wilt and die but rocks will not--showing reverence for the departed forever.

The kids did surprisingly well walking around such a solemn place.

Our last stop with the guide was the Central Market. 

Honestly speaking, I was a bit disappointed in the market. I did not find anything special or fun about it. Yeah, it was good to find fresh produce and some pastries, but the souvenir section was crowded and overpriced.

The meal on the second floor of the market left a “sour feeling” in our mouths as it was the most expensive meal we had in Budapest, and probably the worst tasting one.

We said good bye to Zoslan, hopped on the tram that went along the Danube. We found the place where we needed to get off and cross a very busy street to get to the next place we wanted to see—shoes by the Danube.

I think this was one of the most memorable places for me in the whole city. Something so unique and poignant telling the story of how so many Jews were executed right there by the river. Something that definitely left the impression in my mind and in our (big) kids’ minds.

These shoes-statues lined the Danube bank for about 300 m across the Parliament Building.

And here is the Parliament. This building always shows up in most guide books and websites for Budapest. It is indeed a beautiful sight. You can choose to take a 45 min tour inside if you want, but at this point, our family preferred to stay outside—it was not rainy, kids loved walking by the river…and who wants to listen about “another boring building”, right? haha

It was so light outside, that we sort of lost track of time! And we had a dinner appointment on the other side of Budapest! Robert apparently had his watch still on London time or something. Anyway, since we have become quite savvy with Hungarian trams by then, we took a couple of them all the way to Buda side to visit the Fergusons. 

Rachel (formerly Wilson) is our great friend, who was my host sister when I first came to the US as a foreign exchange student. So basically, she has known me longer than Robert and we lived in the same house for almost a year. She is currently living in Budapest with her husband and three kids due to her husband’s job. It was great to see them and have dinner at their house.

We were exhausted after so much walking, so we were so happy to finally make our way back to our apartment. By 10 pm (!) everyone was finally asleep. Kids love the fact they get to stay up that late when we travel.

I’ve got more to tell you about the rest of our trip, so come back soon.