Friday 23rd July

 

23/07/04 Day 20

I woke up in the middle of the night and the music was STILL going. This is the real city that doesn't sleep! He decided to get up early to avoid the heat but at 7.30 am, I think we were beaten. Still we walked along the Danai embankment to the chain bridge (huge stone lions guard it) Crossing it gave us some pretty cool views over the city and it was a really clear day too. We walked up Buda (quite hill for over better views - the Buda castle is very stunning then onto St Stephens Basilica which is pretty grande-bet has some jewel things. The strict)in my opinion was magnificent - deep red marble pillar, gold all over the place and very ornate. It was also free and cool - probably the best place to be at that time. We could have climbed the tower but seeing as it was over 300 steps and they were offering an elevator service... Lifts in a church - that over was?! The worse! were pretty good although you couldn't see the 'river' as it was just buildings after building. We took a trip up Andrassy street which is the most picturesque in Budapest, apparently and I'd well agree with that. The buildings were huge and each one so different (well, not different but more grand) than the last. The street was lined with trees giving it a pretty dark shade - replied to his cafe bar. We stopped at The "House of Terror" a museum dedicated to the victims of nazism in Hungary. This was the first really well organised and informative tourist things were done. We got a print-out from earth room, giving the historical background there was lots of video/audio footage, pictures, artefacts and maud really worked on each room to make it authentic. A nice dip of dead bodies being scooped up by digger was horrible (that's not a good enough word) and summed up the white plaza. We also got to see my dungeon where prisoners had been kept apart from a bit of a clean, they were really genuine - there way a cupboard-like cell where there would have been only room enough for our person to stand up in and a padded room - it a common joke but not when you see one for real. What shacked me was 'how long the 'terror' went on for. (I didn't realise there was a large hungarian which again damagedbuildings). And then walking out onto hey walking, clean and tidy street with the most picturesque buildings on either side was a really wild contrast and hard to imagine that this was only 50 years later and that some of those walking down the street would have remembered what it was just 15m squared by. Onto the park passed the opera house and it turned into residential homes but more like you'd find in California - automobile gates, huge driveways and ancient buildings. "The Heroes' square had scaffolding up which was a bit of a shame. The park was nice and we found a grassy spot to have our lunch. We 'michael' back to the main shopping street where the cafes were beginning to fill up with proper smart-shy Sinner user! proper smart style gucci + bacon eaten out of the European. I know the day would end

Take Bucharest, replace all its lovely Soviet-style building with its best ones and where its best ones with even grand ones. Then dispose of all the dogs tody in the streets, teach people to drive and ensure all every refreshing street will often and you have Budapest. A truly fantastic city. How many other capital cities can be so enjoyable to stroll around in 35.0°C? But I do have something to say about the tourist. I was grotesque - not even close to the 'awesome' category. I don't think I've ever seen such a contrast between magnificent exterior and mediocre inferior. Is it spend that long in any & church (with out a type in my head) I began to get angry, but at least a small plan and crown tower which rural church looks like obscene hypocrisy of a gular, tasteless monstrosity; smothered in gold and marble and designed with only wealth in mind - not taste, style or his way long way, love - that apparently is meant as a dedication to a god who preaches the importance of people and emotions over materialisticwealth. Five minutes in there I wanted to scream and demand to know how much it had cost to build!

The House of Terror was very well done, with just as much effort put into creating the right atmosphere and mood as the historical displays themselves. The great benefit of that being that after a while the history just becomes meaningless statistics - 3000 here, 100,000 there...

"Angry avenue tram was "the Gulag" - a long thin room with a map of Northern Russia (from Budapest, in the west to the Pacific coast in the East) and oppressive looking cones 'stabbed' into the map to mark the locations of the Soviet labour camps (Gulag) their size representing the number or proportion of Hungarians sent there.

Making it up to the park as well gave a a satisfying feeling of really having "done" Budapest.