Buda and Pest

May 20, Friday  Budapest

We had our best night’s sleep in a long time at the Buda Hilton, although John did get up at 5:30 to make coffee.  Too bad, it was Nescafe instant, but we enjoyed it, nevertheless.

This was the first official day of our Viking River Cruise package.  Hungary is part of the EU, but does not use the Euro officially, although both it and the dollar are accepted.  We decided that we needed some Forints (HUF), the Hungarian currency, for various items over the next few days.  

Rule #8:  Always carry a little local currency, even if for pay toilets and bus fare.

The exchange is about 180 HUF to the dollar.  This makes $55 US come out to 10,000 banknote (see photo)

There is nothing quite like sunrise through over a beautiful city to start your day out right.  Today was the day for that.  The Danube sparkled as we looked across the river to Pest, the flatter part of the city where most of the businesses are located. 

We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast buffet at the hotel and loaded ourselves onto a bus for a city tour.  Our experiences on bus tours were variable, at best.  Today’s tour was to be one of the finest.  Our tour guide was a young lady who spoke grammatically flawless English.  She informed us that Hungarian is supposed to be the second most difficult of all languages to learn (after Chinese). It really doesn’t sound like anything we have ever learned before!

As we went from site to site, Kinga, our guide was able to give us interesting information without the phony jokes and meaningless statistics which are so often part of tour packages and she seemed to know everything about Budapest’s tumultuous past.

When Hungary was not being invaded by Huns, Tatars, Mongols, Turks, Hapsburgs, Germans and Communists, she had picked the wrong allies in a series of wars. We were saddened beyond words to learn that during a period of two months in 1944, all but 50,000 of Budapest’s 400,00 innocent Jews were sent to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis.  Yes, the churches and castles of the city are magnificent, but they cannot diminish the tragedy.

Rule #9:  Watch who you pick as allies.  It can come back to bite you.

The end of the tour was spent in the heights of Buda’s spectacular historic quarter, overlooking the city and the river.  We visited the president’s house, which had no guards posted today.  We resisted his temptation to knock on his door.  Surely, it would not be appreciated.

Attached photos

Hungarian 10,000 currency

John and Donna at Heroes Square

Buda from Pest