borders and byways: Budapest 2 Departure to Paris October 30, 2017, 29th day of trip

October 30, 2017 Day 29 Leaving Budapest

The day dawned early for us, windy, cold, but no rain. I had previously made reservations for a tour of the Parliament building at 8:00 am. Needed the English tour, but because the tickets had to be printed and we did not have a printer I thought that we needed to get there early to get our tickets printed at the Visitor’s center. So, we got up at 6, packed the luggage and got out at 6:50. Walked to the subway station, the M2 line and purchased an all-day pass for 3300 fl. The subway is easy to figure out, three lines, denominated by color. This line was built during the Soviet era and it served a secondary purpose as a bomb shelter, it is 115 ft deep, so a long escalator ride down. There are no turnstiles, guards at each entrance to the escalators monitor tickets. The subway has clearly been modernized, at least in appearance, so it is strange that it still has that labor-intensive process. Took it three stops and when we got out the Parliament building was looming large in front of us.

We got there by 7:15, but the Visitor’s center did not open until 8. Even worse, while it was sunny, the wind was ferocious coming off the River. Almost painful to face the wind.

We entered a large square, Kossuth Ter Spin that is sprinkled with monuments, which along with the Parliament building, present an ever-changing and reshaping of history depending upon who is in power. It turns out that many of the monuments and many of the items in the Parliament have been altered or removed depending upon the history the then current ruler is pushing. Two big buildings complete one side of the square, the Dept. of Agriculture and the Ethnography Museum.

The tour began with a climb of 133 steps. The tour lady asked us if anyone in the group needed to take the elevator. That took us up to the building’s monumental and gilded entryway topped off by a 96-step stairway. 96 is a big number in Hungary since it was believed that the Magyars (the only major group of non-Slavs in Eastern Europe) entered Europe in 896. Turned out they entered in 895, but that has been overlooked.

Trump would love this 1904 building. There is gold everywhere in it, 22.2 kilograms of gold were used in its decoration, but it has been used much more tastefully that in the Trump properties I have seen. There is gold foil throughout the building and the many frescos are surrounded by gold trim. There is a golden dome under which is housed the original Hungarian crown and surrounded by statutes of 16 Hungarian monarchs. There are scores of stain glass windows, intricate decorations, dozens of steel brushed, mustachioed statutes of everyday Hungarians and even golden, horizontal cigar holders in the hallway outside the parliament chambers. Smoking was prohibited in the chamber, so the legislators used the holders to hold their cigars when they ran in for a vote. If a legislator made a good speech, it was known as a “Havana” since it caused the other legislators to leave their cigars.

There are two parliamentary chambers in the building which are connected by a lounge that has a very large and cushy carpet. However only one is in use now, since Hungary switched to a unicameral legislature, perhaps reflecting Hungary’s shrunken size following the post WWI Treaty of Trianon (how many Americans have heard of that?) when Hungary, having been on the loser’s side lost 2/3s of its territory and ½ of its former population.

After going through the building’s history museum, we exited back to Kossuth Square. The Square itself has recently been cleaned-up, scrubbed down and streamlined by the current right wing, nationalist, Eurosceptic and some might say autocratic government. We then loosely followed a self-guided walking tour. There was a big (they are all very big) statute of a lion being bitten and strangled by a snake. Then there is the Kossuth statute in honor of the unsuccessful 1848 revolution against the Habsburgs. Facing Kossuth across the square is the Rakoczi statue. He lead the 1703 unsuccessful war of independence against the Habsburgs. (In 1867 the Habsburgs gave in and included the Hungarians in a duel monarchy.) The costumed soldiers in from of the building do an hourly changing of the guard ceremony, but we did not wait. There was a low profile black wall marked with “1956” that will lead to as a yet unfinished museum to that failed uprising against the Russians. Down by the river there was a statute of Attila Jozsef, an early 20^th century Hungarian poet appearing deep in thought gazing out at the Danube:

“As I sat on the bank of the Danube, I watched a watermelon float by.

As if flowing out of my heart, murky, wise and great was the Danube.”

He committed suicide at age 32.

Right on the river bank there were 50 pairs of bronze shoes that looked real. This commemorated the 1944 shootings of Jews by the Nazi’s puppet Hungarian government, the Arrow Cross, at this spot and letting the victim’s bodies fall into the river.

We then turned away from the river, and its strong winds and walked into the Leopold Town neighborhood up to a small park which had a statute of Imre Nagy in the middle of a bridge (the middle way between the Russians and the west) looking as if he was a grandfather out for a stroll. He was a lifelong communist who was reluctantly drafted into leading the initial nonviolent movement in 1956 to soften the severity of the communist regime. When the Russians did not go for that, the movement turned violent and the Russians sent their tanks in, crushed the revolt, grabbed Nagy, shipped him to Moscow and convicted him in a sham trial. He was buried him face down in an unmarked grave. After 1989 the Hungarians exhumed his body and buried it at Hero’s Square.

We then walked up to Liberty Square, Szabadsag Ter. A wealthy looking neighborhood, it houses a couple of interesting monuments. The first was a statute of Ronald Reagan. That was normal size. It was recently erected, perhaps to blunt US criticism of the regime’s anti-democratic actions. In a tone-deaf move, the government then invited Secretary of State Clinton to the unveiling. Then there was a gigantic monument to the Soviet soldiers who liberated Hungary in 1945. It was guarded by two policemen (who posed nicely for me). That was the only monument so guarded, perhaps because it might induce vandalism? Passed the US Embassy, a heavily walled building and saw the statute of an American general, Harry Hill Bandholtz. I never heard of him. Google revealed that he was a member of the Inter-Allied Task force after WWI to oversee the removal of Romanian and Serbian troops from Hungary. His claim to fame was that he single handedly and without a weapon held off Romanian troops who wanted to loot the National Museum. The statue went up in 1936, but was removed by the Russians in 1945 for “repairs”. After 1945 it was restored. The last big monument on the square was dedicated to the Hungarian victims of the Nazis. It was recently put in place and consists of a black, screaming eagle attacking an angel holding a Hungarian double cross. It conveniently overlooks the active role some Hungarians played in assisting the Nazis to kill and deport Jews and the fact that for 4 years Hungary, in an effort to regain lands it lost after WWI, was voluntarily allied with Germany in WWII.

We walked up to but not into St. Istvan’s Basilica. It is Hungary’s biggest church and celebrates St. Istvan, Hungary’s first Christian king. The strode down Zrinyi Utca, a pedestrian mall. We passed the Central European University which is largely funded by George Soros. It has been the target of the current government and has protest signs on it. We walked past and into Gresham Palace, a grand building that was Budapest’s first major building following the establishment of the dual monarchy. It now is a luxury hotel that has been restored with gorgeous detail. It has very nice bathrooms.

We had to walk around a small park in the middle of the roadway to get to the Chain Bridge, Szechenyi Lanchid. It is a historic bridge that was the first permanent connection over the Danube between the then cities of Buda and Pest. Its original structure was completed in 1849, but was destroyed by the Nazis. It was quickly rebuilt. We walked over the bridge which gave us wonderful views of the Danube and got us to the Buda side for the first time.

It was now getting close to noon and we needed to go back to the apartment, pick up our luggage and go to the airport. We walked up to the Deck ter square, past a giant Ferris wheel and went to the airport bus stop. I had only 1600 HUF. I knew the bus cost 1800 HUFs for two and I wanted to see if the driver would take that or euros for the difference to purchase two tickets. He would not. I then solicited the passengers on the bus to see if any would change some excess Hungarian money for euros and I found an English woman who welcoming the opportunity to dispose of her Hungarian currency, took me up on my offer.

We then got back on the subway, picked up our luggage, locked the apartment and deposited the keys and hustled back to the subway to board the 1:00 pm airport bus. We arrived in time, but the line was too long, and the bus filled up before we could get on. Fortunately, I had left some spare time, so the 1:30 bus got us to the airport on time. Few were flying Easy Jet for the first time and the check in, which had to be done on-line, bag drop, high baggage fees, and security screening went smoothly. We had to walk a long way to a large hanger where the gate was located. The joys of discount airlines.

The flight was fine, and we arrived in Paris on time. There was an extended wait for baggage during which we spoke with a Danish citizen, who had married a Hungarian woman. They were there for their first visit to Paris and were asking us for directions to the train. We could actually help them.

The process of getting to Cagney and my step daughter’s residence was complicated. We got in too late to Charles De Gaulle airport to get a train from there, so we had to ride into Paris to get a train. We thought that we had plenty of time, but the Paris bound train was delayed on route. Then we had to change to a subway to get to the train station. There were lots of steps and we had heavy luggage. Fortunately, several people helped us, and we got to our Amboise bound train with only a few minutes to spare. But that train was on time and we were joyfully picked up at the station. Long day.

Sadly, we did not get to partake in, or even visit, the Budapest baths. Next trip.