Hungary Diary

30-4-2012 Monday
We drove just over 500ks (ended up about 8 hrs due to slowing down through towns) to Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The border crossing into Hungary was uneventful again, thankfully, and the roads all the way here, were very good. We stopped for some shopping and couldn't believe when we saw a Tescos sign, one of the big shopping giants in the UK. It was like seeing an old friend again, and there were quite a few of them as we drove here. We arrived at our camping park about 6ks from the main city centre which is great - Zugligeti Niche Camping for about 4-5 nights, at a town called Buda, which is on the west side of Budapest and the Danube River. Pest lies on the east side. (Sounds like a joke but it isn't.) There are quite a few visiting nationalities here - Italians, French, Germans, Polish, Slovakians, maybe some Hungarians and of course, the Aussies in a Great Britain mhome.

The Hungarian money, the forint, is a bit hard to get used to. AUD$1 is about 226 forint so we paid about 5,000 forint for dinner which is about AUD$22, so gave a 500 tip (a little over $2). It's crazy money. We have notes with the value of 10,000, 5,000, 2,000, 1,000, and 500 ft on them, and coins of 200 or 100 ft ($1 and 50c). All the zeroes are really hard to get used to and you feel like you've got heaps of money (Monopoly money). Our shopping today cost over 15,500 ft! Dave says he's not going to let me go shopping on my own ever again!

1-5-2012 Tuesday
Breakfast at the onsite restaurant is included in the camping price - langos (traditional unhealthy Hungarian food) sausage meat, cheese, crepes, jam, yoghurt, sweet buns, bread, tea and coffee. We then rode about 6ks (each way) into the centre of Budapest. There was a bicycle path for most of the way which was good. There was quite a bit of bike traffic too. We bought tickets for the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus. The ticket also included a boat ride up and down the city on the Danube River, which is a nice different view of the city. Hungary has some magnificent old buildings. Parliament is a huge, impressive riverside building on the Pest side of the river, and was apparently modelled on London's Westminster Abbey, but with crazy spires. It reminds some of a huge wedding cake, some of a stunning cathedral.

Hungary has a population of 10 million people with 2 million in Budapest. It is a very clean city and doesn't feel hurried. We hardly heard any impatient horn blowing as in other countries and cars willingly stopped for you on pedestrian crossings, which was nice. The city has a nice feel about it and maybe that's because there's not a lot of people, and the layout of it on both sides of the Danube River appears spacious. The weather is heating up and we certainly felt it, riding. We had dinner back at the camp site restaurant - beef goulash soup. Now, we know goulash as a stew type dish and apparently outside Hungary, that is how it's also known, but inside Hungary, goulash (gulyás) is a beef soup prepared with a paprika roux (and it was nice - it also had carrot and potato). Our total bill for dinner was 3000 forint (the soup which was a meal, and 2 wines) only $14! We wouldn't get away with that at home! Paprika is used a lot in Hungarian cooking and the one they use here is hot like chilli, where the one we're used to is not.

2-5-2012 Wednesday
Rode the bikes into town again but this time we rode over the bridge, Margit, to the Pest side of town and ended up probably doing about 20ks. We were a bit tired by the end of they day. We noticed the roads were a bit busier today so realised that yesterday must've been a holiday. First of all we hopped back on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to do a different circuit that we missed out on yesterday. While riding we came across a beautiful church, St Stephens Basilica, which we didn't hear of on the bus because a street doesn't go past it. That's one of the advantages when riding the bikes - you get to see a lot more than you would just from a bus. The Basilica is Roman Catholic and named in honour of Stephen, the first King of Hungary (c975-1038AD) and whose mummified hand is housed in the reliquary in The Chapel of the Right Hand. It represents one of the very highly regarded historic objects for the Hungarians. It is a silent witness of the winding Hungarian road of history which was spiked with blessings and damns, cares and cheers, despairs and hopes, but which could never be so hard on the Hungarians to break the spirit of Hungary. The basilica was very ornate inside, like the churches we saw when we first came to Europe.

Rode to Hosok Tere (Heroes' Square), a large, impressive monument that honours various Hungarian heroes in many fields. A very large open square in front of the monument ensures good visibility of the monument from a distance. Moved on to Szechenyi Bath and Spa, one of over 100 natural thermal springs in Budapest, apparently known for healing. We enjoyed the indoor plunge pools, ranging from 20 to 40 degrees - it took a bit of getting used to sitting in the hotter 40 degree pool and then changing over to the, what seemed to be quite cold, 20 degree one. There were 2 other much bigger pools of temperatures in the 30's. People just sat enjoying it. These were indoor pools but there were ones outside as well, for those who preferred to soak up the sun. We felt quite relaxed after sitting in the pools for about 50 mins - allowed us to tackle the long ride home a bit better.

Our campsite houses an historical tram terminal; a tram line which in former days brought people from the heart of the city to the green of nature. The end of the line building, which is now a restaurant, serves as an historical monument displaying traditional folk pieces and collections.

3-5-2012 Thursday
Rest Day which we needed after our long bike rides over the last 2 days. There is a chairlift at the bottom of the camping park. It is just over 1k long and takes 15 mins each way. We had a peaceful, pleasant, ride up just watching the greenery of the trees below and listening to the birds chirping. After then walking the 600m steep road, we came to Elizabeth Tower, on the top of János Hill. It is Budapest's highest peak with its 527m. At the top of the tower we had a beautiful 360 degree panoramic view of Budapest and the surrounds.

4-5-2012 Friday
Rode the bikes into the city again today to see a few more things we didn't have time for in the last few days. First was the neo-Gothic Mátyás Templom (Matthias Church) which was being renovated inside and detracted a little from it. It had a colourful, tiled roof and lovely murals inside. Just outside across the square, was the Halászbástya (Fishermen's Bastion) which takes its name from the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages. It is a viewing terrace (wonderful views over the city), with many stairs and walking paths.

Next was Cave Church - This cave on Gellert Hill was originally home to Saint Istvan, a hermit monk who cured the sick with thermal waters that sprung in front of the cave. The Cave Church was founded in 1926 by expanding the hermit's cave. The church was further enlarged in the 1930s by the Archbishop of Kalocsa to hold more worshippers, using the grotto at Lourdes as a model. In 1951, the Communist secret police arrested the entire order of Pauline monks. The superior Ferenc Vezer was condemned to death, while the others received 5-10 year prison sentences. The chapel was blocked up with a 2.25m thick concrete wall, behind which it stood silent for nearly 40 years. After the fall of Communism in 1989, the Cave Church was returned to the Paulite order and immediately reopened.

We then rode to the Central Market Hall which is a very large building with many shops inside, selling meats, cheese, fruits and veges, etc. Upstairs were many souvenir shops. Lastly we visited the Nagy Zsinagóga (Great Synagogue) which was very beautiful inside - we just sat for a while trying to take it all in. The complex consists of the Great Synagogue, the Heroes' Temple, the graveyard, the Holocaust memorial and the Jewish Museum. The Heroes' Temple is a memorial to the Hungarian Jews who gave their lives during World War I. The graveyard was the result of tragic historical events during World War II. In 1944, the Dohány Street Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto for the city Jews and served as shelter for a lot of people. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during the winter 1944-1945 are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue. The Holocaust memorial is made from metal and is similar to a weeping willow tree, with the metal leaves showing the names of the donors to the memorial and families of the victims. The Jewish Museum holds the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection, a collection of religious relics of the Pest Hevrah Kaddishah (Jewish Burial Society), ritual objects of Shabbat and the High Holidays and a Holocaust room.

By the way the 2,872k long Danube River isn't blue (like we know we've heard somewhere, but can't remember where), it's brown, a bit like our Brisbane River. This river starts in the Black Forest in Germany and runs through 8 countries in Europe, and empties into the Black Sea. For some countries, it's the border - we crossed it to go from Bulgaria to Romania. In Budapest, we saw many large, long cruise-like boats docked, low-level ones, not high like the big ocean-going ships. They have to be low-level to go under the bridges. These had accommodation for those who just want to travel up and down the Danube, and maybe disembark at some other country - sounds nice, a cruise along the Danube.

5-5-2012 Saturday
When we paid for our stay this morning, the lady manager gave us a bottle of Egri Bikavér (Eger Bull's Blood) - an Hungarian full-bodied red wine. Drove only 25ks north of Budapest to a town called Szentendre (St Andre) because we've heard it was a nice place to visit with an old part to the town with the cobbled streets, etc. We're at a Pap-Sziget Camping, for 2 nights. It seems a nice park with plenty of shady trees and is situated on an island in the Danube, but it is a small island and the camping occupies a good portion of the island - so we are on an island surrounded by the Danube river (sounds romantic doesn't it!). It must be popular with the younger crowd as there are a few of them here in the bungalow accommodation.

6-5-2012 Sunday
Rode about 1k to the old town of Szentendre right across the road from the Danube, not high up on a hill like other old towns (for defence purposes). The town has cobbled streets and narrow alleyways. We walked around for a while, looked at a couple old churches and noticed how tourist oriented the town is with many souvenir shops and eateries. We we drove in yesterday we noticed a sign on the side of the road saying 'Town of Painters' and there did seem to be quite a few museums and galleries of famous artists and their work (we didn't visit them). There were a few sketch artists sitting in the streets ready to sketch your likeness or caricature. We found a place for lunch where we got some nice veges with our meat (nice change). Apparently Hungarian like their meat and meals often don't have much vege. We saw people with giant langos (deep fried dough) about 4 times the size of the ones we had at breakfast at the last camp site, and they were topped with sour cream and lots of grated cheese - now there's a coronary waiting to happen!

The Danube must flood at times because we've noticed levee banks around the park and also across from the old town. When we got back to the camp site we rode around the island and noticed how in a few places the land and the water were at the same level like a beach, instead of a river bank, where there's a drop down from the land to the water - another indication of potential flooding, maybe due to the melting snow up in the Black Forest in Germany where the river starts. We noticed the water is running fairly fast here as it was in Budapest. We also stopped in at the shop and bought some pálinka. Hungarian strong, firewater-like brandy most commonly made out of plums or apricots.