Lufthansa.... SURPRISE!

 What a trip!

So frequent readers of this space might remember the boss's solo trip to Nice, France on Lufthansa Surprise. There are a few different categories ("Worth Seeing","Follow the Sun","The Great Outdoors" and a few others) - you select the category, and it gives you a list of 8-12 different destinations that you could end up with, for a reasonably low price. Once you've chosen the category, you can remove specific cities from the list of possibilities, but your price increases a bit, so it's a tradeoff.

We chose one of the categories which gave us a few different possibilities. I can't find the original list of cities that we were offered, but we specifically removed a couple that we'd already visited. Lufthansa ended up selecting Budapest for us - it had been on our list for a while, but we just hadn't made it there yet.

Airfare is the only thing that's covered, so we had to find our own hotel. Luckily, there's a Marriott smack dab in the middle of downtown. Luckily (again), the boss's status with Marriott gave her the opportunity to request an upgraded room. More about that in a moment though.

This is the second time the boss has done this, and both times the flight that she got booked on was a pretty late flight. Our flight didn't leave Frankfurt until after 9, and after riding the airport shuttle bus into town, we didn't get to our hotel until after midnight. 

Her upgrade was accepted, and they put us in a suite. Basically one of the normal hotel rooms with an additional (separate) sitting/dining room attached. Oh yeah, it was a corner suite with a balcony. Overlooking the Danube river. We didn't get to bed until really late, just sitting outside taking pictures of the riverfront.

When we visit a new place, we typically find a free walking tour. The tour we chose this time met at 10:00 and toured the downtown area. Y'all are reading this, so I'm assuming that you want to know what we learned. Our tour met at a statue of Sissi, whom you may (or may not) remember mention of during previous trips where I wrote about those pesky Habsburgs (or Hapsburgs, depending on what spelling you choose) from the Austria-Hungarian Empire.

Let me break from the narrative for a moment to get a little bit into the weeds - I need to share this to bring one specific detail into focus - please bear with me!

Languages are grouped into "families." You may have heard of a family of languages called "Romance Languages," like Italian, French and Spanish, or "Germanic Languages," which include German, English, Dutch, and most Scandinavian languages. These families are all part of the larger family of languages called "Indo-European Languages."

The settlement of Hungary in historic (and prehistoric) times came from nomadic tribes from the east, around the Ural Mountains in Asia. As such, the Hungarian language isn't related to any of the Indo-European languages. Hungarian is from the Uralic Family of languages, not related to Indo-European languages at all. Keep that in mind as we move back into our story.

Empress Elizabeth of Austria ("Sissi") was so enamored with Hungary and the Hungarian people that she learned the language. This marked a stark difference from most of the other outside rulers of Hungary, and the Hungarian people embraced her for it. 

I've gotta be honest with y'all - this trip was pretty last minute, and the only real touristy thing that we did (other than wandering around stimulating the economy) was the walking tour. The boss toured the Jewish Synagogue, but as far as the castles and churches? We didn't go inside any of them, so I won't be able to share much with you.

One interesting site that we did stop at on the tour: The Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation. Our guide pointed it out to us, and told us a bit about it. Evidently, it's quite controversial, as (critics say) it deflects any responsibility for the Holocaust by suggesting that Hungarians were all victims, and refusing to acknowledge that the government of Hungary was complicit in the atrocities. As such, there are displays in front of the memorial, set up by organizations or individuals, presenting the contrasting viewpoint.

In the same park, there's a monument to the Soviet Army, liberating Hungary from the Nazi occupation. Hungarians also find this a bit problematic, since (as I mentioned above) Hungary was a willing member of the Axis powers during the war, and then the Hungarians were fairly miserable during their time behind the Iron Curtain. The monument to the Soviet Army is in the square that faces the American Embassy, and is flanked by life sized statues of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush (almost like a thumb in the eye of the Soviets, huh?).

Complicated city. 

Our tour ended right outside the Parliament building, we stopped at a cafe and shared a langos. What's a langos? Glad you asked! It's a fried slab of dough with toppings. A little similar to a pizza crust, but fried instead of baked. We ordered a traditional one, topped with a sour cream style sauce and grated cheese... and now I've gotta find some place in Frankfurt that sells these things. The sell them at fairs and Christmas Markets, but we've gotta be able to get them year-round!

The tour ended a few blocks away from the hotel, so we headed back...  when we'd left the hotel, it was a bit chilly, and I (stupidly) wore pants. By the time the tour was over, I was regretting my clothing choice, and I really needed to change into shorts - I don't know what I was thinking in the first place.

On the way back to the hotel though, we encountered the Shoes on the Danube Bank. This is an art installation of 60 bronze pairs of period appropriate shoes, on the bank of Pest. In December of 1944 and January of 1945, members of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party took around 20,000 Hungarian Jews from the nearby ghetto and had them stand on the riverbank. They were forced to remove their shoes (as shoes were valuable and could be could be stolen and resold by the militia), then were systematically executed, their bodies falling into the Danube River.

Even in the most charming European cities and towns, the atrocities of World War II are never far away.

I was overheated (pants, remember?) so I wanted to walk back along the street, rather than on the banks of the river (which was in direct sunlight), so we split up, planning to meet at the hotel shortly. On the way back though, I encountered an amphibious bus. 

Most people are familiar with "ducks," those bus like rolling boats in tourist cities that are on a river... this was similar, but an actual bus instead of a repurposed WWII landing craft. When we met back up at the hotel, the boss mentioned that she might want to check out some of the boats along the river - so I told her about the amphibious bus. We looked at tickets, and we could take a tour of the city for a reasonable price, followed by a cruise on the river that afternoon, so we booked tickets online.

We just hung out at the hotel (cooling off) for a couple of hours until it was time to walk over.

Our bus tour took us through a couple of parts of the city that we'd already seen, and the audio track spouted tourist information at us as we wound our way over to the road that led into the river. We cruised up one side and back down the other side, then drove back up the same road and stopped at the same place we'd gotten on. Bit of a novelty, but nothing special to share about it.

The langos was ancient history at that point, so we needed to eat something. We'd passed a tapas restaurant during our walking tour, so we headed downtown. Turns out, there was some mechanical issue at the tapas restaurant, and the repairman wasn't going to be there for another hour or so... so we asked the guy working there where we should eat. He gave us the name of an "authentic" Hungarian restaurant, so we wandered over there.

I had a bowl of goulash, the boss had stuffed cabbage. Pretty good. The name of the place was Rézkakas Bistro, in case you find yourself in Budapest!

The night was still fairly young at this point (I think it was around 7:00pm), so we wanted to check out something that Budapest is (evidently) known for: Ruin Bars.

Back in the late 90s and early 00s (after the fall of the Iron Curtain), parts of the Jewish Ghetto were decrepit and abandoned, and four friends had the idea of turning one of the abandoned buildings into a meeting place for the locals. They didn't fix the buildings or anything, they just started hanging out there. These are literally just apartment buildings that are almost falling down, filled with people drinking and gently swaying to some sort of electronic music. At least, that's what was happening at 7:00 on that night. I'm assuming that the scene livens up a bit once the old farts leave.

Quick note: I have absolutely no idea about how or why the government of Budapest allows all of this - I'm just relating what I saw, and what I've been able to figure out online.

Now, there's a couple of blocks that's internationally pretty well known as THE party area of Budapest. The Ruin Bars are generally open for 12 hours a day, from 6pm to 6am. You can see for yourself in the video below that the whole place is just wild.

The next morning, we had decided to explore Buda.

I'll break here and talk about the geography of Budapest (since I haven't mentioned it up till now!). Budapest is the capital of Hungary, and the tenth largest city in Europe - just counting the cities themselves, not the metropolitan areas. Budapest sits astride the Danube River, the second longest river in Europe. The Danube begins in the Black Forest in Germany and travels through nine additional countries and four world capitals before emptying into the Black Sea. At one point, the Danube was the frontier for the Roman Empire. In 1992, the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal was completed, linking the Danube with the Rhine River, and creating a pathway from Rotterdam (with its access to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean) to the Black Sea. Over 100 million tons of goods are transported annually on the Danube.

With Budapest's location in the Carpathian Basin, the location has been strategically important for centuries, and was the site of three different settlements: Buda, Pest, and Óbuda before they were combined and unified into Budapest in 1873. The area was pillaged by Mongols a few different times, and for a time was the co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

The locations of Buda and Pest on opposite sides of the river are still referred to today, although I discovered an interesting phenomenon regarding the pronunciation of the cities: When speaking with native Hungarians, Pest by itself is always pronounced "Pest," but about half the time, the pronunciation changes when they say the full name of the city. Some Hungarians say "Budapest," while some say "Budapesht" - I found that interesting, but your mileage may vary.

All of our exploration thus far had been on the east side of the river (in Pest), so we decided to visit Buda (almost universally pronounced "Buddha" as in Zen rather than with an 'eau' sound as in "beautiful") and the majestic Castle Hill. Legend says that the town of Buda was originally named after Bleda, the brother of Atilla the Hun. 

To cross the river, we had originally planned on taking a bus over, but it was a nice morning, so we decided to walk across, on the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The bridge was designed by an English engineer, as a larger version of a bridge crossing the Thames River (about 30 miles outside of London). The bridge is quite picturesque, as you'll see in the pictures below (one from that morning, and one from the first night we were there). One thing I'd like to call your attention to... the top picture shows the Chain Bridge, and flying on the bridge, you'll see the Hungarian flag, red, white, and green stripes (from top to bottom). Take a close look at the flag in the foreground of the first picture, and you'll see a big hole in the middle of it.

In 1949, when the Communists took over, they changed the flag and put the Communist red star in the middle of the flag, in the middle of a symbol containing sheaves of wheat, a hammer and a sword.

During the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, revolutionaries cut the symbol out of the middle, making the point that the flag with the symbol in the middle didn't represent the Hungarian people. On special occasions, defaced flags are flown... but I haven't been able to determine what special occasion the flags were flying for while we were there.

(In my research for this section, I encountered a wonderful site that covers the anti-Soviet uprising - if you're interested in reading up on the revolution, this would be a great place to start: https://www.freedomfirst1956.com/)

The hill on the western side of the Danube contains the Royal Palace and Matthias Church, looking out over the scenic Danube. On the edge of the hill underneath Matthias Church is Fisherman's Bastion, a well known historical site. Fisherman's Bastion was so named for two reasons: the fishermen set up their markets there to sell their wares, and they were fiercely loyal to the city, using this site to defend the city during siege. Now, it's just a promontory that overlooks the river below.

The church wasn't open for tours, so we skipped that and just explored the area on top of the hill, stopping at a convenient biergarten to share a focaccia and a couple of beers.

We caught a bus back down the hill and headed back over into town, splitting up at that point. The boss wanted to tour the synagogue - I'll post pictures below, but I've got nothing to tell you about that except that it's the largest synagogue in Europe, and either the second or third largest synagogue in the world, depending on what you're measuring. Afterward, she toured St. Stephen's Basilica - I'll throw in some pics of that too. If you want any more information about the synagogue or the church, you'll have to ask her... but here are the pics she sent me:

Me, though... I headed back over to the Ruin Bars. The same bar that we'd visited the previous night hosts a Farmer's Market on Sunday mornings - and y'all know how I love me a Farmer's Market! Plus, this gave me an opportunity to really look around the building, without having my eardrums attacked by EDM. After seeing it in the light of day, I'm even more amazed that the building hasn't been condemned; more likely, it actually has, but that just doesn't stop people from gathering there drinking. These pics were all taken the morning of the Farmer's Market - these spaces were all filled with middle-aged people drinking while we were there. I assume these rooms were jam packed later in the night (after we left) though.

I stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel to get some paprika; Hungary is known for it, but I didn't want to pay tourist prices... and I figured if it's good enough for the locals, it's good enough for me!

We had a bit of a low-key day. We went out to get some souvenirs and for me to look for a poster for my collection. I didn't find one in the same size and format that I've already been collecting, but I saw I can get them online, so I didn't stress too much about it.

We had dinner in the lounge (thank you, Marriott!), and watched the Packers lose to the Panthers on my phone that night, before heading to the airport (and home) the next morning.

Watch this space for Christmas Market updates starting in just a couple of weeks!