Of a sunny day in Budapest

A story of how we spent a brilliant sunny day in Budapest.

After our first grey and overcast day in Budapest, the rays of sun that filtered through the blinds of our hotel room the next morning was such a welcomed surprise. Pulling back the blinds we were greeted by beautiful blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Not wanting to waste the beautiful weather, we quickly readied ourselves to step out, for another day of exploring Budapest.

Walking through the avenues in Budapest we began to enjoy the beautiful architecture of the city. Just opposite the Opera House there was this very beautiful abandoned building and looking up in front of it, we saw the blue sky and clouds against the dark hard stony exterior of the building. One of those sights which I thought was very beautiful.

The Terror house was located further down the Andrassy avenue towards the Millennium Monument and the Varosliget Park. The first thing that really caught our attention was the huge metal frame on the top of the building, The frame had the word Terror cut out from it together with the Arrow Cross logo casting a shadow on the building's facade. This building was occupied in dark succession first by the dreaded Arrow Cross, the Nazis and finally the Political Police under the Soviets. It is now an ultra modern museum which tells the stories of the previous dark occupiers of the building and the cost the Hungarian people incurred because of it. The main atrium walls were covered with the pictures of all the victims who lost their lives in that building. 

The exhibition inside was really well done, with a lot of them rather immersive in its display of remnants of both the oppressors and the victims. There was a rather controversial display of a maze made out of bricks of fat reminding the old timers of the harsh conditions of the 1950s. It was quite a harrowing experience, especially in the basement where they recreated the prison cells that were previously in the building. There was also a room in the basement filled with just crosses with lights in the middle of each one. Even recalling the sight now brought goosebumps in my body. It was really beautiful and yet so sad. It was a memorial for all the people that had lost something in that building, be it their time, their dignity or their lives. They also had a tank at the central atrium which was used by the Political Police under the soviets. I suppose at the end, the only comment we had was, there was a lack of English explanation panels and it was difficult to understand the context of some of the rooms because of it.

As much as it was an interesting and enlightening experience, I have to admit that I was quite glad when we finally stepped out of that building and into the glorious sunshine once again. Walking past Andrassy avenue, we came across once again with the Opera House. The Opera House is truly one of the city's most beautiful building and was done in a neo-Rennaisance style. It is decorated with statues of muses and great opera composers such as Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Mozart right at the top. We would be catching a show in the Opera House the next night, a performance of Gounod's Faust.

After a quick lunch at Mak Bistro, we then continued our journey to the side of the Danube. Huge clouds were rolling over Budapest creating interchanging periods of dark shade and blinding sunlight. It was by the riverside that we came across another monument to Budapest's dark past, the shoes on the Danube bank. The monument comprised of a scattering of iron shoes in different shapes and sizes and they serve as a memorial to the jews mudered by the Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944-45. The Jews were told to take off their shoes before being shot so that their body will fall into the river and be carried away. The shoes represented the actual shoes left by the victims on the river bank. When we were there we could see candles and flowers strewn over some of the shoes and by the riverbanks. After our experience at the terror house it was quite moving to see that the city never really did forget and still tried to honour the memories of those victims so unjustly killed by the perpetrators of the past.

Passing the shoes, we could not help but to take a detour towards the Parliament Building. I have expressed my love of the architecture of the building so many times that I think it was probably the single most photographed sight of Budapest I have on my phone at the end of the trip. If the previous day we were treated with a symphony of grey and earth colours, which was then turned to gold at night, I can't really describe the scene that we saw on that sunny day. The building just looked gorgeous against the backdrop of the clear blue sky. After taking more pictures, we hopped on the subway as a shortcut to get our asses across the Danube to check out other sights on the Buda side of the city.

When we got out of the subway station, I looked to my left towards the Pest side of the city and I couldn't help it. I told Benoit to give me 5 minutes, before running off towards the riverbank to once again took pictures of the Parliament Building from across the river. I know it was definitely an overkill on my part, but with a sight as beautiful as what I saw that day, how could one resist? As I was taking pictures, a cloud passed by and created that play of light and shadow on the building's gorgeous facade. Judge all you want, but I was really happy to have been able to witness such a beautiful moment and to be able to immortalise it in pixels inside my iPhone.

So, after the multiple detours, we finally found ourselves walking up the steps once again to the Fisherman's Bastion. We came here yesterday, but as it was rather gloomy and overcast, it was difficult to get a nice picture of the monument and to properly appreciate it. But everything just looked better in the brilliant sunlight and against the blue sky. The bastion itself was finished in 1902 in neo-Romanesque and net-gothic style and the 7 towers represents the 7 Magyar tribes which once settled on the Carpathian basin in 892, the site of the modern day state of Hungary. We also managed to capture brilliant pictures of the statue of Stephen I of Hungary. St. Stephen is largely seen as the founder of Hungarian state and therefore on his feast day on 20 August is celebrated as a public holiday in Hungary in commemoration for the founding of the state.  

In the sunshine we also got a much better look at the Matthias Church and the Trinity Column located in front of it. The Matthias church was the scene of several coronations including that of Charles IV in 1916, the last of the Habsburg King. The tower of the church is one of the most recognisable monument on top of castle hill and was one of the way we managed to find our way up from the Danube to the top of castle hill. The Trinity column in front of it was built to celebrate the end of the plague and citizens hoped that it would protect them from another epidemic. It was built between 1710 to 1713 and the sculpture on top is meant to represent the holy trinity hence the name of the column. 

After a couple of hours of sightseeing we finally reached our actual destination on top of Castle Hill, cafe Ruszwurm. Cafe Ruszwurm is one of the oldest traditional cafes & confectioners in Budapest.  We have visited this cafe yesterday, but alas good cakes and coffee knows nothing of repetition. It’s also one of the best cafes in Budapest, hence all the more reason to further explore their extensive cake selection. The cakes there were also absolutely delicious and mindblowingly cheap. A slice of cake would only set you back 300-580 HUF, which is about 75p to 1.50 GBP. On top of all that, the cafe itself was also utterly charming. Set inside an old building with furnishings that must have come from the days gone past in the 1980s, it felt like stepping into a cafe from another time. It was definitely worth a second climb up castle hill just to be able to experience the decandence of the cakes and the atmosphere of the cafe one more time.

That day we had the chocolate cake layered with delicious coffee buttercream and topped with a piece of caramel. I unfortunately did not note the name of the cake, so I have completely forgotten what it was originally called. However, I still remembered how delicious the cake was. The sponge was so moist and the coffee buttercream had just the correct amount of sweetness and bitterness. The touch of the chocolate sprinkles on the side made me really happy as it really reminded me of the cakes I used to have back in Indonesia, where they usually just slather some plain old sponge cake in plain buttercream and dump bucketloads of those chocolate sprinkles on top. It was awesome. The crunch of the caramel at the top added a nice contrast. Washed down with a good cup of black coffee, we were in cake bliss for a good 45 minutes at the cafe. 

So with our stomachs stuffed with sweets and coffee, we decided to embark on another climbing extravaganza. But this time around we had to hurry, as the sun was setting and our next goal was to catch the beautiful sunset from the top of Gelert Hill.