Adventures of the Anonymous in Budapest
Unusually for us, we had a sensibly timed outbound flight and therefore
enjoyed the rare pleasure of a civilised start to the day. When we did arrive
at the airport, the signs at the car park shuttle bus stop indicated it was 5 minute
walk to the terminal. After about 10 seconds of walking, this changed to 4
minutes. A few seconds later it was down to 3 minutes, thus proving that time
passes more quickly when you’re on holiday.
On the plane there seemed to be a bit of delay, accompanied by plaintive
calls from the captain, due to the difficulty in getting everyone’s cabin
luggage suitcases to fit into the overhead lockers. As result, anyone with
smaller or squashy bags were asked to put these under the seat in front. Husband
and I did murmur that if the airline could be bothered to properly police the
cabin luggage size restriction, this problem would not exist.
Tiredness from work then caught up with me and I slept for most of the
flight, uncomfortably as the seats did not recline. I woke up as we neared
Budapest. The captain warned us of storms, and the sky outside looked dark and
threatening as the plane lurched alarmingly in the air. This was unlike any
turbulence I had experienced before and at one point the plane dropped so
suddenly that everyone’s stomachs leapt to their mouths and there was a
simultaneous adrenaline fuelled nervous noise of 200 people expressing fear but
with true British unemotional stiff upper lip bravery. I was impressed with the
two small children in the seats behind us who were skilfully kept excited and
energetic throughout the experience. Outside I could see lightening flickering
in the black clouds. It was nice to land.
Outside it was about 40 degrees despite the dark skies above. The storm
had done nothing to ease the oppressive heat and humidity.
We had planned to take a dedicated shuttle bus to the hotel, but unable
to find it, we took the scheduled bus to the underground from where we would
travel to the hotel. This decision was helped by a kind young man who gave us
two 24 hour travel passes thereby saving us from having to deal with the ticket
machine and also enabling us to get onto the waiting bus.
When we arrived at the underground, it was a relatively straightforward
process getting the correct rain as it was a terminal station. An officious
ticket checking man challenged us for not appearing to have validated a ticket
on the way in, so we showed him our 24 hour pass which he begrudgingly
acknowledged.
The underground train that arrived looked like something left over from
the communist era and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a museum - faded
blue, slightly rusty, brutally functional. Inside there were bench seats
running along the edge of the carriage, covered in a sweat inducing black
plastic. The rest of the carriage was open space standing room, with swinging
hand holds above. The doors shut with the speed and ferocity of a guillotine.
The train was built for the purpose of mass travel, without any undue
consideration given to comfort. The stations we passed through had their low
ceilings held aloft by dozens of thick squat pillars, the whole space dimly lit
by rows of square boxes of lighting strips on the ceiling, reminiscent of
offices from the 1970’s. Advertising was minimal.
We changed line at Kalvin Ter, and it was like changing century. The
dull green station walls were now mosaic patterned. The low ceilings now
stretched high above us into a maze of criss crossed concrete buttresses to
keep the deep space from falling in on itself. The multitude of pillars, all
conveniently placed to be right in front of the carriage doors, were now set
back away from the platform edge. It was light and modern, with electronic
boards of information and a light stripe along the platform that flashed to
indicate when a train was approaching. The light strip also sensed people
stepping over it, and any such infringement would initiate a PA announcement
asking you to step back from the platform edge. The train itself was new,
modern and air conditioned.
Two stops later we got off and emerged from the underground, right at
the door or our hotel, Hotel Gellert. As we walked towards it we felt the
ground tremble as the trams rumbled past along the road outside, their wheels
screeching alarmingly with the sound of metal on metal as they took the corner
at pace. The hotel was a large stone art nouveau monolith, heavily constructed.
The entrance led to a large lobby which rose up into a dome, with a circular mezzanine
level. It had probably been very decadent in 1910, filled with Edwardian charm
and the distinct feel that no one had bothered to maintain it since then. Stained
glass decoration up the stair well was lit from behind to give the impression
of a window which didn’t exist. A runkled carpet and fake marble walls lined
the corridor to our room, the door of which was large and appeared to have
suffered some form of assault. Inside, the room had been lovingly decorated
with brown velvet curtains and avocado tiled bathroom. There was no air
conditioning.
Adjoining the hotel was a large spa which, as hotel guests, we had one
free visit to. I read the instructions – swimming caps had to be worn in the
swimming pool. Also bathing costumes were compulsory. Husband thought that
wearing a swim suit would surely be a given considering you had to wear a cap.
After settling in, we went over Liberty Bridge in search of beer and
food. The bridge also shook beneath our feet as the trams across over it, and
people were sitting socialising and drinking on the metal girders where they
swept low before rising again to the suspending pillars, topped by carved Turul
birds. Cyclists rushed past us on the pavement with little warning of their
presence.
We located a bar with a view over the Danube, the bridge and our hotel
beyond. Budapest is a city of two distinct parts, divided by the Danube which,
despite the waltz written in its honour is murky and definitely not blue. The
river separates the medieval and Roman streets of Buda from the 19th
century boulevards of Pest. Moored on the Danube was a Viking cruises boat which
was a very long boat – this seemed entirely appropriate, and indeed could a
Viking boat really be anything other than long. After a couple of drinks we went
in search of dinner at a restaurant recommended by our guide book, ominously
called Fatal – fatal in fact being the Hungarian for wooden plate - which was
located in Vaci Utca. In medieval times the street had been the full length of
the city of Pest and was now a pedestrianised street of elegant buildings which
housed a multitude of restaurants and shops.
The restaurant served hearty traditional fare of a portion size that
made it particularly good value. One of the items on the menu was lung – from
an undisclosed animal. Disappointingly they were out of stock of said lung.
We started with a very alcoholic not at all sweet apricot liqueur
followed by a meal of gargantuan proportions. Husband’s burger was a huge steak
balanced precariously on top of a bun. You won’t go hungry in Hungary.
On the way back to the hotel a wedding party was posing for photos in
the middle of the road which ran over Liberty bridge. I wondered if posing on a
bridge so named was wishful thinking by one or other party. Passing cars hooted
–in congratulation rather than as an angry, get out of the road protest.
Back in the hotel room we put on the fan, opened all the windows and
prepared ourselves for a hot, sticky night’s sleep.
The following morning we went down for breakfast a the large dining room
overlooking the river. Huge windows with billowing net curtains lined one side
of the wood panelled room while the other was interspersed with heavy brown
velvet curtains over the door ways. Above us the ceiling lights were suspended
in a web of heavy chandeliers, each light covered by a bulbous glass light
shade – although these all varied slightly and it was unclear if this was
intentional of whether some had been replaced over the years and exact matches
had not been possible.
Hungarian breakfast consisted of elaborate cakes, but the hotel also
catered for every other type of breakfast available to modern man – bacon,
eggs, vegetables, salad, tuna, yogurt, cheese, cold meats, olives, fruit,
cereal, bread, croissants and more.
Fully replete, we took the underground to Arpad Hid from where there
was a shuttle bus to Hungaroring. Arpad Hid is a large underground station with
numerous exits coming out at various points around a large road intersection
above. From inside the station it was unclear which exit we needed (it wasn’t
until the following day that we noticed the small A4 piece of paper pinned to
one wall indicating Volunzbus this way).
We went outside hoping for inspiration regarding where to go. This was
not immediately forthcoming. The Volunzbus office was apparently ‘here’. I
remembered from our web search that the bus was yellow and in the distance Husband
saw a yellow bus. So with a bit of underground and over ground and road
crossing manoeuvring, we made our way to the bus depot, which was substantial
and at the same remarkably well hidden.
We got on the next shuttle bus and settled down for the trip. It was
hot. Rammed with F1 goers, the sun streamed in mercilessly through the windows.
Some had the curtains pulled over them but not all. Some windows were open,
allowing a vaguely pleasant breeze to enter although the heat inside the bus
was largely untroubled by this through draft. We both sat there, gently
dripping sweat from our faces – and everywhere else to be honest.
After about half an hour we arrived at Mogyorod – 2 km away from the
circuit. We set off slowly for the long, hot walk which barely had any shade or
respite from the midday sun, and needed to buy a Ferrari cap for me to help
keep the full force of the sun off my head. Along the walk were numerous huts
selling water and beer which we made appropriate use of. Also, bizarrely, there
was a family putting out a random collection of clothes, scarves and blankets
on a fence outside their property. It was unclear if they ever sold anything.
The road to the circuit then took a distinct direction uphill, and in
the distance we could hear the whine of engines in a practice session.
Collecting the tickets was fairly painless, and we headed into the
circuit which was nestled in a valley surrounded by picturesque hills. In the
distance, one of these hills hosted a waterpark which looked like a tempting
proposition, had it been any closer. It was a nice atmosphere, not overly
crowded (but this was Friday of course) and a feeling of being wonderfully
impromptu. The food and drink stalls were fold up tables that had been
assembled for the weekend. Vast amounts of covered seating had been provided,
most of them under tarpaulin or umbrella cover which did at least provide ample
opportunity to eat and drink out of the glare and heat of the sun. At regular
intervals scantily clad stunning girls sat under umbrellas attending to ice
cream stalls. There were the F1 village and merchandise tents, but this
presence was minimal. Although this was the 30th year of the Hungary
Grand Prix, it felt like the early days of motor racing. There was something
relaxed, low key and non corporate about it.
There was only one covered stand – and we weren’t in it. Our stand was
a wooden structure perched on the hill, with plastic seats nailed to the wood
planks which had warmed in the sun so that they burnt your legs and bum when
you sat down. Beneath us was the grass of the slopes and a sure fire way of
losing forever anything you carelessly dropped.
The sun was ferociously hot, so we made use of the covered area in the
walkway above our stand to sit and have a beer – there was a view of the track
from there anyway, and also access to the walkway was restricted to people who
had seats for the stands along that corner so the crowd flow and demand for the
other seats in the shade was minimal. On the steep slope above us people with
no grandstand seats crammed in, trying to get the best vantage point. To be
honest, anywhere on the hill would give a good view, such was its steepness.
And the food outlets on the walk way between the hill and our stand were
temporary gazebo structures which were not high enough to cause much blockage
of view.
On a hill over to our right was a pylon, and a small crowd was gathered
at the base. This was an area not within the boundaries of the circuit at all,
where people without tickets were clearly congregating in the hope of seeing
some F1 action.
The objective of the day had been to collect tickets, learn the shuttle
bus system and orientate ourselves. These things having been achieved, we
watched the end of FP1 and then headed back into town, it being too hot to
complete staying there for the afternoon to watch the second practice session.
Due to the oppressive humid heat and relentless sun there were a couple
of tents erected within the circuit which sprayed a mist of cool water on
anyone who walked through. We did – it was not cooling or wetting enough and
the sweat still ran from our bodies.
As I burn easily, I was totally covered up – long trousers, long
sleeves, new cap. However, many others were wearing minimal clothing in an
attempt to stay cool. Several girls were in dangerously inadequate shorts and I
needed to occasionally speed up our walk back to the bus so as to overtake
these bare buttock displays. There were also a number of people starting to
pink and redden in the fierce sun.
The shuttle bus service was free, and due to an error in ticket
validation where I had given Husband the receipt instead of a valid ticket, we
had travelled from the hotel to the circuit and back to Arpad Hid for the
princely sum of 75p.
As we had the afternoon free we decided to try and get to the railway
heritage museum which was recommended to train aficionados as the park held
about 70 vintage steam locomotives and coaches. Apparently there was a 15
minute vintage shuttle from Nyugati station. The station itself was mildly
interesting. It was the city’s first and had been designed by the company run
by Gustav Eiffel. The shuttle service proved challenging to find. The station
is a normal, functioning station and none of the routes seemed to go to where
we wanted. It was also difficult to ascertain where the vintage service might
be as all the trains there looked – well – a bit vintage. Then I saw signs to
Information so we decided to ask there. This was a mistake. Despite the signs
being provided in English, the woman behind the desk spoke no English at all,
made no eye contact with us and went to every effort possible to refuse to
provide any assistance at all and really would much prefer it if we just went
away.
I audibly grumbled that there wasn’t a lot of point in an information
desk that wasn’t prepared to provide information unless you could speak
Hungarian, whereupon a Hungarian and English speaking woman behind us offered
to provide assistance. We showed her in the guide book what we were looking for
and she then had what appeared to be a far more fulfilling engagement with the
information desk lady. At any rate, there was a conversation which seemed a
huge advance on what we had achieved.
She walked back over to us and informed us that this was an operating
station and there were no vintage shuttle services. Instead we needed to take either
a bus or underground to Heroes Square and that was where the place we wanted
could be found. Helpful as she had been, we both disbelieved her. There was a
transport museum at Heroes Square, but this was not what we wanted. The
transport museum covered everything from horse drawn carriages to Soviet space travel.
We were hunting down the Heritage museum which was quite specifically steam
train orientated. We smiled sweetly, and wandered off, fully intending to
ignore her help. Husband mentioned that eastern Europeans quote often answer
very confidently the question they think you want the answer to rather than
what you actually want to know.
Feeling defeated, as well as suffering exhaustion from the heat, we
instead ambled slowly back hotelwards, hunting down food and beer on the way. I
wondered if we had wandered into the red light zone as there seemed to an above
average number of sex shops, and even something for the Cornish in the form of
the Sexy Tractor Hostel.
As we were passing, we went into the Italianate sumptuous foyer of the Opera
house from where we could see the opulent grand staircase leading to the
auditorium, painted rich red and gilded with gold leaf, its heavy presence
climbing up through frescoed walls.
From there we ambled to the pedestrianised Liszt Ferenc Ter where there
was the Liszt museum and a handful of interesting and stunning statues,
including one of the man himself nestled in between the trees and cafes. He was
portrayed in action, with huge flailing hands and wild, windswept hair.
We wandered on through the area of Romkocsma where ruin pubs
revitalised the old Jewish quarter giving rise to an alternative arts and
entertainment scene, including numerous sultry jazz clubs. Housed in the
courtyards and rooms of abandoned buildings the ruin pubs have added a hip vibe
to an otherwise run down area. It was too early in the day for them to be open
but we wandered into a couple of dilapidated entrances which led to empty courtyard
bars of mismatched furniture.
Realising the weather was not going to ease off imminently, despite the
repeated promise of storms, and acknowledging that we had packed totally
incorrect clothes, we found a cheap clothes shop and bought shorts before
taking a bus back to the hotel. In a street running along the side of the hotel
was a 100 bottled beers cellar bar which tempted us in. Despite being below
pavement level, it was boiling inside and we were starting to fall asleep with
the heat. Also we were so dehydrated with the volume of sweat running out of us,
that beer was probably not what we were most in need of. Conceding defeat, we
returned to the hotel, striped, showered and lay down in bed for a late
afternoon nap.
That we evening we went out in our recently acquired shorts. However,
we didn’t have appropriate footwear for our new look. Therefore we were both
wearing shoes and socks, and looking distinctly German. But we didn’t care.
Despite the earlier shower we were already sweaty again, but considerably less
moist now that we had less clothing on.
We found an Italian place for dinner. The waitress who showed us to the
table asked if we’d been there before. ‘No’, we replied in a way which clearly
implied an expectation of further information or explanation because she then
said ‘there’s no particular reason for asking, it’s just the same as any other
restaurant’.
From our table we had a view into the subterranean kitchen and
substantial pizza oven. We ordered mussels to start, followed by pizza –
although everything showed up at the same time which was a little odd.
Later that evening, back at the hotel, I noticed a cockroach in the
bathroom. Husband wanted to spray it to disarm it and stop it escaping into the
cracks while we obtained an implement to finish it off with. But all he had was
Issy Miyake aftershave, which he used to liberally douse it before he
bludgeoned it to death with a shoe. On the plus side, as least it died smelling
fantastic.
Unwilling to concede defeat over the Heritage Museum, we looked it up
on the internet. On its own website it said that there was a scheduled train
from Nyugati station. Perhaps the author of our guide book had misunderstood
and thought it was a vintage shuttle rather than a scheduled service because
the standard trains were so old. Easy mistake to make.
The following morning was clearly the start of another blisteringly hot
day. We found an empty table in the breakfast room and sat there feeling smelly
despite having showered only minutes earlier. A small boy walked past
cautiously, his wide eyes fixed on the plate he was holding tightly upon which
was balanced a substantial, wobbly and decorative cake. I wondered whether his
mother had sent him off to the buffet with permission to pick anything he
wanted, and whether the goods he was excitedly returning with was what mummy
had expected. We imagined the conversation to come ‘but you said I pick
anything I wanted’.
Conscious of our footwear dilemma, we started the day in the main
shopping area of Andrassy to find sandals. The wide tree lined avenue was
dotted with designer shops and boutiques. The trees gave welcome relief from
the already burning sun. Husband was successful in his forage, but this did
mean that we needed to carry his shoes around with us all day. It also meant a
trip on Line 1 Metro, which was well worth a visit. The stations were tiled
with wooden benches and ticket office, low ceilinged, with cast iron decorative
pillars running along them. The platforms were remarkably short which seemed
peculiar until the train arrived – which was also very short at only 2
carriages long. The train was yellow and was like a noddy train inside with
single wooden seats lining each side that were a fraction too high – such that my
feet swung, unable to reach the ground. Yet another underground line from a
different era. It rather made us wonder what sort of rolling stock would be in
the Heritage museum given what was actively in use.
We made our way to the circuit. It was going to be another blue sky hot
day, and as we would be sitting in the unrelenting sun for longer, I bought a
Ferrari flag which I could drape over my head in order to avoid sun burn on the
back of neck and tops of my ears – really just a way for me to create my own
shade. Some people had come armed with umbrellas and sat under those in order
to keep out of the sun. Plenty of others hadn’t adopted any shade creation approach
so as a consequence they were gently and obliviously cooking.
Our seats were on the last corner of the circuit with views of the
track at the far end and the straight which led down towards the hair pin – the
hair pin itself was out of sight as it fell away into a valley. We could also
see the back end of the starting line up and the entry to the pit lane. In
front of us was a big screen on which the powers that be showed footage of the
drivers’ attractive wives. This was met by an audible ripple of a murmured ‘cor’
of appreciation from the male fans. In front of us one man queried why the wives
were being shown, to which his female friend responded it was to show you what
you could have if you were a Formula 1 driver. This seemed like a reasonable
explanation.
At one brief moment during qualifying, a small cloud lingered overhead,
giving some much appreciated shade before being blown on, to a general chorus
of disappointment. Shortly afterwards, another cloud appeared which lingered
slightly longer and gained temporary fame as it was shown on all the big
screens. But the 51 degree track temperature and 40 something degree ambient
temperature did not ease.
I was expecting the portaloos to become unpleasant in the heat. There
was no flush. Instead, there was a hole beneath you which led to a large, visible
container that collected all the waste, and your wee (or anything else you
excreted) thundered into this gently filling pool of horror. This was not a
place to drop your belongings. Anything you happened to drop in there, you
wouldn’t want to be reunited with. However, miraculously, it was neither smelly
nor filled with flies. The cess pit vat beneath was, though, obviously filling.
I wondered who was reasonable for calculating the size of the container. What
sums do you do undertake to determine how much waste will be produced by so
many people a day – taking into account the impact of weather and therefore how
much people would or would not be drinking, and also considering the different
usage of the various facilities. It was not a calculation you wanted to get
wrong.
We watched qualifying – excitingly Alonso broke down and came to a halt
just at the entrance to the pit lane and we saw him trying to push the car
along the pit lane in order to get it repaired and back out. This was some feat
to attempt. The pit lane entrance curved around an upward hill. After a few
minutes the marshalls came to his aid and between them they brought the car in.
The crowd cheered and Alonso waved back.
Once qualifying was finished, we walked back to the bus – along with
pretty much everyone else – so we expected a queue for the bus. The crowd of
people heading down the hill swelled beyond the confines of the pavement. so a
policeman on a motorbike rode up and down the road, hooting, to get people off
the road. That was his job – to mow people down – and he loved it.
When the bus arrived we managed to push our way on, and even get a
seat. The experience was slightly marred by a man trying to steal Husband’s
camera. He had managed to open the holder and remove it at which point Husband
felt the change in weight on his shoulder and therefore realised what was
happening just before it was taken. Knowing he’d been rumbled, the would be
thief promptly dropped the camera on the floor which Husband speedily
retrieved. The man was standing just inside the bus door, wearing a bright
orange cap, so not totally blending in – although in fairness, this was all you
noticed about him, so as soon as he took the cap off there was no hope of
recognising him. Before the bus left, he got off, presumably to repeat the
offence for the duration of the afternoon.
Soon after we got back to the hotel the promised storm finally arrived
with rumbles of thunder and substantial rain. We waited for it to ease before
going out in search of dinner. We had brought waterproofs with us – our pre
departure weather check had picked up on the rain threat, while not fully
absorbing the temperature. For the first time since we had arrived I felt
appropriately dressed for the weather. As we reached the Pest side of the
bridge, the rain again became torrential so we sheltered under some trees,
along with less well prepared people wearing only sandals, shorts and strappy
tops.
In the restaurant laden street of Vaci Utca that we were now regular
users of, the tables outside the restaurants were empty which was unsurprising
given the inclement conditions. We selected our venue, and sat inside from
where we watched the canopy over the outside tables billowing around alarmingly
in the wind. Musicians entertained us as the restaurant rapidly filled – being
one of few in the street with a substantial inside area. One group did decide
to sit outside, but a lady in the group kept exchanging glances of amused
understanding and sympathy with Husband as her back gradually got wet in the
sideways rain.
The food was spectacular – and surprising. Duck liver with hot tokaji
atzu jus and warm grapes was odd but delicious. I particularly liked the part
of the menu headed with ‘Food for Bandits’ from which I selected the dish for
which Hungary is famous – goulash, or rather gulyas.
The following day was race day, and the temperature was distinctly
cooler – if not a little chilly. The breakfast room was full early with a
significant proportion of people wearing their F1 team tops. Again, we managed
to get a seat on the shuttle bus. As we set off for the familiar walk up the
hill I noticed a sign saying it was 1 km to the circuit. Given that we had been
reliably informed that it was 2-2.5km, this seemed like a quickly achieved 1km
and reminded me of the walk to the airport on our way out here.
We noticed that the food stalls under the covered pit lane stand had
much better quality food than elsewhere, there the options range from fried
sausage to deep fried pizza base. Our food area did have what looked like
beetroot sausage rolls. We got some lemonade from a girl in one of these stands
who was wearing ear plugs and looking miserable. With the stand cover, the
noise of the engines bounced around and she was in it all day long. Husband
acknowledged her pain. GP3 was in full swing and noisily so.
It was much cooler with a breeze and dark clouds overhead. Now I needed
the flag to fulfil a blanket function and we donned our waterproofs to defend
ourselves from the chilly wind.
I had noticed women in the seats around us looking at their bums.
Shortly afterwards, I ran my hand over my bum and the fabric of my trousers
felt odd. I realised that the plastic seats were giving off a green dust. So I
too joined the chorus of women standing up and asking their men to look at
their bottoms to see if they were green. All the men took this opportunity to
slap the bottoms of their women in order to dust away the green. Husband rather
suspected this was a deliberate ploy on the part of the stand makers.
After watching the morning races we went for a beer and some food which
ended up with Husband accidentally launching his beer across the table onto me.
It warmed up as race time approached. Before the anthems there was a
silence for recently deceased Jules Bianchi. Everyone stood up, and was quiet.
This was followed by the anthem. Fortunately the Hungarian national anthem is
quite sombre so it was an appropriate following to the silence – in a way that
the Italian anthem perhaps wouldn’t have been. Everyone remained standing and
remained silent. This was unusual. I had never previously seen anyone really
acknowledge the anthems.
The race was spectacular with Ferrari getting a good get away and
leading for the initial laps. However, this quiet order didn’t last. At one
point the safety car needed to run through the pit lane to allow debris to be
cleared from the track meaning that the mechanic teams saw more of the race
than usual.
Vettel stormed to victory, and we made a quick get away to avoid
substantial queues for the bus. We got onto the first bus that arrived – and
again got a seat. We felt appropriately smug about this, but hid it well.
We got back to the hotel and quickly washed and changed as the mother
was due to arrive soon. I discovered that the double light switch in the
bedroom lit up different parts of the large and decorative ceiling light. I
found this exciting and wanted to tell Husband. He already knew and wondered how
I would react if we stayed somewhere more modern.
We waited in the foyer for the mother to arrive, which she did about 5
minutes later. After giving her time to freshen up, we went out for dinner –
starting with a drink at the bar which overlooked the river before tucking in
to a sumptuous three course feast, following by Tokaji Atzu dessert wine and
sponge noodle cake which, according to the menu, was accompanied by ginger –
this actually should have read cherry.
The trio of musicians came round asking for requests. We suggested the
Formula 1 champagne tune. They looked as us in a confused manner. We knew that this came from the overture of
Carman so proffered this additional information, which is what the trio played.
But it barely touched on the music we had in mind. We smiled sweetly and let
them carry on. About 10 minutes later we heard them play the overture again to
a different table who had most probably also asked for the F1 tune. Note to
Budapestian musicians – you host a grand prix. Learn the tune because after a
good race, people will ask for it.
At breakfast the next day the mother wanted us to look at her alarm
clock, which hadn’t gone off despite appearing to have been correctly set. Husband
identified that it was set to the year 2000 rather than 2015, so someone in
2000 was probably being woken up. We went to our rooms to get ready for the day
and I needed to explain to the mother how the door worked. On the outside there
was a knob which didn’t turn - the door only opened with the key. On the inside
there was a handle so you could get out – but the mother had felt that anyone
could also get in, so had been locking herself in. Husband realised why I found
double light switches so exciting.
We tried to de-weight the mother’s surprisingly heavy bag by deciding
that perhaps she didn’t need a bag of bags, bag of tissues and two big guide
books. She also had a torch and two cameras which I suggested were perhaps
surplus to requirement as well.
We started the day by stocking up on transport tickets as you can’t buy
them at every bus, tram and underground stop and then went to the Cave Chapel
which was next to the hotel. The mother waived her OAP card to see if she could
get a discount – and the cashier amusingly referred to it as her student card.
The church, built in 1926 for the Pauline order had been sealed up with
concrete during the communist era when those connected with the monasteries
were persecuted and imprisoned or killed. A large lump of the 2 metre thick
concrete rested outside the entrance.
Our visit was followed by a hot walk to the top of the Gellert Hill to
the Liberation monument in the now rising heat. I was starting to regret
bringing a jumper. The monument is surrounded by other statues which are not
visible from the ground due the growth of surrounding trees. It has been erected
by the Russians in memory of their troops who fell fighting the Germans and is
loathed by the majority of local people as a symbol of Soviet domination.
However, it was now too much of a city landmark to remove, although some
elements of the monument had been moved to Memento Park.
We wandered around the bullet holed citadel and looked out across the
city as our height gave us a great vantage point. The citadel had originally
been built by the Hapsburgs following failed uprisings in 1848 to deter future
rebellion. A World War II bunker was sited there and it appeared to have had
communist additions to it, with a semi circular windowed structure that looked
reminiscent of the baddies mountain top lairs in James Bond films. It saw no
action until the end of the second World War when German forces were trapped
there and kept the city under fire until they surrendered. It is also despised
by the Hungarians as a symbol of occupation by the Germans.
Along the outside of the walls were large photos of war damage,
including pictures of the city’s bridges, destroyed and resting in the Danube.
We intended to come down from the hill to where the re-built Elizabeth
Bridge joined the Buda side, however due to some navigational issues, this went
a little awry and after a while we looked out over the river only to find we
had overshot the bridge. On the plus side, this diversion did result in us
happening across a couple of interesting statues. One showed a king and queen
of Buda and Pest respectively, reaching out to each other over the river.
Another included a circle of various figures from Ghandi to a prostrate monk.
However, dark clouds were building overhead and having experience rain
in Budapest already I was keen that we get off the hill as soon as possible, so
we came down more or less vertically and back towards Elizabeth Bridge in order
to look at the Rudas baths. There was a new addition to the building where you
could look in and see people lying around in what looked, to all intents and
purposes, like a modern swimming pool. The older, Turkish dome roofed small
building was relatively well hidden and you certainly couldn’t see inside to
the octagonal bath within – unless of course you paid to use the baths.
We tried to find the statue of St Gellert and when we did, decided that
we would climb the hill to it another day. If we had come down from the citadel
by the correct path, we would have happened across it. At the base of the
hillside on which the statue resided, water cascaded through fern strewn cliff
into a pool below. And in this torrent of water was a man in his pants, having
a wash.
We took the tram along to the Chain Bridge and funicular. The Chain
Bridge was the first structure to cross the Danube. The area was a mass tourist
zone. Tourist buses and huge crowds were everywhere. The queue for the
funicular was long – but on investigation from some people near the front, it
only took about 10 minutes of waiting. However, at that moment, fat drops of
rain started to fall. We did wonder if this would result in the open air
funicular queue dissipating somewhat, but also decided that having seen it, we
were quite happy to take a bus to the top of Castle Hill. Other people had had
the same idea, and we clambered aboard a very crowded bus. Over a period of 800
years the long narrow plateau of Castle Hill has suffered 31 sieges and been
reduced to rubble on numerous occasions.
Once at the top, with the rain intent on lingering, we decided to find
somewhere for lunch and sit out the worst of the weather. We passed the plague
column and Matyas Church, awash with colour in the grey skies, then found a
bistro that Husband had been looking for and sat outside, under the canopy.
According to the guide book there was a place called Marxim which was described
as a ‘fun pizzeria with a communist theme’.
The mother had catfish – which she hadn’t tried before. She let Husband
try a mouthful and asked what he thought of it. ‘I think I got the fatty end’
he replied. The mother giggled and pointed out that fish doesn’t generally have
a fatty end, but then realised that the texture of cat fish was fatty. She
offered some to me but to be honest, the concept hadn’t really been sold. The
mother didn’t enjoy the rest of the fish quite so much as now all she could
think about was eating fat and decided that she probably wouldn’t have catfish
again.
The rain started to come down more vigorously and our backs were
getting moist, so we donned waterproofs. At last I was pleased to have been
carrying all this around during the hot morning. It amused me to see people in
flip flops and tiny shorts sheltering in doorways, totally unprepared for the
weather.
The mother’s camera battery gave up the ghost – which surprised her as
this was not a usual occurrence. Normally, of course, she would have had
another camera with her. But in the bag de-weighting that morning, I had
suggested that perhaps she didn’t need two.
Once the rain eased we wandered on to see the Vienna Gate which was at
the intersection of all four streets that run along the hill – the gate had
been destroyed during a siege to expel the Turks in 1686 and this one,
constructed in 1930, was little more than a small and uninspiring bridge over
the road. We circled back to look at Fishermen’s Bastion. This was supposedly
the area of Castle District defended by members of the Guild of Fishermen. The
extensive structure included a romantic array of turrets, terraces and arches
that were intended to represent the seven nomadic Magyar tribes that settled in
Hungary at the end of the first millennium. You could walk around one level for
free or pay to go to an upper level. It didn’t seem worth paying as there was
nothing extra you could see from the upper level – particularly given the grey
and moist skies.
We admired what view there was before going to visit the labyrinths –
partly because we wanted to and partly because it seemed like a good way of
keeping out of the persistent rain.
The labyrinths had originally been individual cellars or formed from
natural hydrothermal activity that were then joined together over time, and at
one point were used as a prison. Dracula had apparently been imprisoned here at
some point – and much pallava was made of this in the cool, damp, misty and
dimly lit tunnels. They had even gone so far as having a Dracula tomb in one of
the unlit caverns, as well as a wooden coffin. Husband rapped on it –
fortunately nothing happened and no one leapt out.
Taking pictures was
difficult due to the darkness and mechanically supplied mist. The mother
mentioned that usually she carries a torch with her, but that I had suggested
she wouldn’t need it today. Also, the camera she had left behind was better in
the dark. Some of the spaces had been filled with dummies dressed in costumes
from the opera house, playing out scenes of an opera while strains of
emotionally charge arias played though speakers.
In one part there was a tunnel which was deliberately unlit, but
furnished with a rope to guide you. According to the signage outside, people
had felt the air cool indicating the presence of other worldly beings. The
mother and I set off. It was indeed most odd having all visual sense removed
entirely as the tunnel was utterly black. Then Husband started taking flash
photos which showed what the path ahead involved. We told him off. It was more fun
to feel where the rope led, and find yourself coming up against a wall or going
round a corner unexpectedly. At times the rope would drop away towards the
floor for no reason at all other than to confuse and beguile. But we held it
and followed it. Then a couple of people came through with a torch. We told
them off too, and closed our eyes to wait for them to pass. Although it must
have looked a bit odd for them, walking through the middle, seeing various
people floundering in the dark, clinging to a damp, stinky rope.
The labyrinths were very extensive and we spent some time going round
them.
When we emerged outside, the weather had improved, and we walked round
to the Castle Palace which loomed high over the river, to see the fountain of a
hunting scene. This was cleverly arranged so that the hunting dogs thirstily
lapping water were actually appearing to drink the fountain flow, while a proud
hunter stood aloft over the body of a stag.
Statues of lions guarded an entrance into one of the internal
courtyards, and the statues were strangely marked with stone plasters. During
the second world war, the Russians has besieged the hill as this was to where
the German army had retreated. Fighting was fierce and the palace was severely
damaged. We wondered whether the strange plasters were to fix damage from such
battles, but never fully resolved the peculiarity.
We wandered on, looking at other statues – Husband keenly noticing bare
breasted women along the top part of the building walls and making use of the
zoom on his camera. The mother found a very glamorously dressed young woman and
engaged in conversation. The girl commented that she loved vintage, ‘you know,
old clothes from the 60’s’, she explained. The mother jokingly warned her to be
careful about referring to the 60’s as vintage.
At one end of the terrace in front of the royal palace a large statue
of the Budapest mythical bird - a turul - perched on a pillar, looking out over
the city. I went to take a picture of it. The mother called out that I should
stand where the yellow man was. I looked – there was a man in a yellow jacket.
He was also of oriental origin. I went back up to the mother and whispered ‘you’re
not meant to call them that’ which set her off into a fit of giggles.
In one of the garden areas by the palace was a small archery set up
which, for a fee, you could try your hand at. We watched some of the people
having a go. The mother observed that they were doing it wrong, by standing
face on to the target rather than sideways. She informed us that in the past –
no doubt a vintage era – she had had archery lessons. However, these didn’t go
on for long as the recoil from the bow twanged her expansive bosom painfully.
With this gem of information, she then asked if I wanted a go. I wasn’t
entirely convinced that I wanted to put my remaining breast in such peril, so
declined the kind offer.
The earlier rain had seen off some of the hoards of inappropriately
dressed tourists, so there was now no at all for the funicular ride back down
the hill. The large sign with information and prices declared ‘discounts for
pensioners….’ Whereupon the mother proudly displayed her OAP card and demanded
her discount. The cashier refused. So the two ladies took it outside, and met
in front of the large sign where the cashier pointed to the statement about
pensioners, which continued ‘…are not permitted’.
Husband suggested that reading a whole sentence was the norm, and
confirmed that it was usually safe to stop once you came to a dot.
We got into the lower tier of the funicular car, and waited for the
off. The cabin was small – a bench ran along the back and there was a narrow
standing room area in front of it which we stood at, looking out of the window.
Two men then squeezed in with us, asking rhetorically if they could join us.
The mother responded that this would be acceptable and confirmed that we had
all washed – after all, in the cramped compartment you didn’t want to be rammed
up against a stinky armpit. One of the chaps then proudly and jocularly
announced that he and his friend had not washed, could not recall ever having
washed and indeed came from a long line of the great unwashed and undeodorised.
At the bottom of the hill was the KM stone from where all distances in
Hungary were measured. It looked like a butt plug – or fanny – depending on the
angle at which you saw it.
We took the tram back to the hotel and decided to make use of our free
visit to the spa. There were a variety of opulent baths fed by thermal springs
bubbling up from deep beneath Gellert Hill. We started in a warm pool near the
back of the ‘cathedral’ like interior elaborately decorated with mosaics and
glazed tiles, nestled at the darker end of the room, before going to the
swimming pool which was under a vaulted glass ceiling. The swimming pool was
much, much cooler and after the warm pool it was a bit of a shock to the
system. Along the edge were various water spouts and under water seating. At
one end you could sit in the water in a semi circled area underneath the marble
statue.
Outside there was another pool with a wave machine which was in full
swing. The pool was deep with vertical ladders down into it which we descended.
There were sweeping steps gently leading into the shallow end at one end of the
pool, but where was the fun in that. However, climbing down the ladder was not
without difficulty as the substantial waves came crashing towards you, bashing
you against the side of the pool. Once in, the waves quickly threw me towards
the end of the pool. They came in quick succession and it was hard to know how
to deal with them. Front on, and they tore aware my bikini top, providing an
alarming view for anyone who noticed – particularly as it looked as though the
wave had ripped a tit off. I saw Husband valiantly trying to dive into the
waves as they approached. In the end I just turned my back on them. It was a
fun way to feel at risk of drowning. As the machine was turned off an
undercurrent kicked in and pulled me back into the middle of the pool, bashing
into various other people bobbing about. I apologised but quite frankly had no
control at all. We waited in the now calm pool to see if the waves would
return, but they didn’t, so climbed back up the vertical ladder – which was a
little tricky - and then went into the outside thermal pool which had
considerably more vicious water spouts- so fierce that it was hard to stay
perched on the seat beneath it. It was a shame that the waves had stopped as we
saw a girl get into the pool with a totally inadequate strapless bikini, which
barely contained her and it would have been faintly amusing to see that try to
stand up to the force of the waves.
As we had had a large lunch, we went to a river front trattoria for
dinner in the hope of something a little lighter than Hungarian fare. Our
waiter was initially a little bit prickly and surly with us so we wondered how
the evening would pan out. There was squid on the menu. The mother asked if it
was whole and the waiter explained that you got the whole body but not the
tentacles. She asked if it was possible to have the tentacles as well, as that
was her favourite bit. The waiter promised to speak to the chef to see what he
could do. This kindness on the part of the waiter ignited the cougar in mother.
He then asked if we wanted anything on the side – to which the mother replied
‘you’. The waiter suggested spinach which she accepted instead. Despite all
this, he was now warming up to us.
When the food arrived it was scrumptious, but the mother – unused to
eating such volumes, struggled. I told her that as she had specially asked for
– and got – the tentacles, she was now under an obligation to eat it all.
That night, with all the windows open again, we were disturbed more
than usual by noises of staff echoing up through the small hidden courtyard
outside our window. Husband got up, filled a glass of water and threw the water
out of the window in an attempt to suggest to whomever it was below that they
be quiet. It seemed to work.
The next morning I only realised it was my birthday when I saw my
birthday texts and emails. Husband gave me his card, and we met the mother to
go down for breakfast which we decided to do arm in arm. Mother was on the
outside so I suggested that she move a little faster to keep up with the
smaller cornering Husband had to do as we went down the three flights of wide
stair cases. She broke into a small jog – which was then matched by Husband. So
the mother broke into a small run and before long we were coming down the
stairs at reasonable pace and carelessness accompanied by giggling and general
frivolity. Until we saw an adult coming up the stairs who looked at us with a
certain amount of disdain, and we decided to stop out tomfoolery.
At breakfast Husband decided to have grapefruit – as well his usual
cooked breakfast – and managed to squirt grapefruit juice over me as he tucked
into it, which seemed to please him greatly.
We started off by going to the semi circular structure around the
statue of St Gellert which we had looked for the previous day, but when we
found it, decided we couldn’t be bothered to climb the hill up to it. On a
rocky outcrop of the steep sided hill – on top of which stood the citadel, we
saw a tent and small campsite perched on a narrow ledge, by all accounts the
residence of a homeless person, and we wondered if this was the same homeless
person we had seen washing in the waterfall the previous day. The waterfall was
dry today indicating that is was a rain induced flow.
The mother wanted to know what St Gellert was the saint of, and I volunteered
that he was the patron saint of spas.
Gellert had been a bishop in the 11th century employed by
King Istvan who decided to adopt Christianity as the state religion. In a power
struggle following the death of the king, the bishop was nailed inside a barrel
and thrown down the hill by pagans. His statue, holding a crucifix, now stood
half way up that hill.
We crossed Elizabeth Bridge to the underground and made our way to Deak
Ter. The underground network was still largely old fashioned and Deak Ter stood
out for us on account of the particularly high speed wooden escalators.
That day we intended to go to Memento Park, or Szoborpark, and
according to our, now less reliable, guide book, there was a daily shuttle bus
from an unspecified location at Deak Ter. However, on our sandal shopping day Husband
and I had been to Deak Ter and we were therefore aware of the scale of the
place. It was an enormous junction of roads which went round a central area of
grass, buildings and concrete. Therefore we had allowed ample time to find the
departure point for this shuttle bus as I was expecting it to be less than
straightforward. First off, we asked a tour guide who was trying to funnel any
passing tourist into the perpetual stream of hop on hop off tour buses. She
didn’t know but did helpfully suggest a bus stop that it might run from. Then
we saw a tourist information kiosk in the central area, so navigated through some
road crossing to enquire further. The kiosk lady was extremely helpful and
looked it up on the internet – to no avail. She then called them – but got no
answer. Apparently matters were further confused by the fact that some bus stop
areas at Deak Ter were currently closed. She suggested that it may leave from
the Hop on Hop off bus stop as that was where all tourist stuff was, and
advised that we go there and check the signs.
Naturally, this hadn’t previously occurred to us. Back we went and
looked at the many many posters on a handily placed lamp post. One of them
referred to daily trips to Memento Park, departing from here. Problem solved.
To kill the remaining time we went off for a quick coffee. Down the road we
could see a ferris wheel. ‘Ooh look’, I said to Husband excitedly, ‘the ferris
wheel is turning’. He observed that this was the least he expected of a wheel.
At the appointed hour we returned to the bus stop and dutifully
lingered. After a few minutes a girl came along and asked if we were waiting
for the Memento Park. How she knew that we were after that, rather than the hop
on hop off, given how many people were there, is a mystery.
It seemed that considerable numbers of people had pre booked the trip.
We hadn’t but were informed that she would sort out the tickets on the bus. A
little while later, the minibus appeared. We all clambered aboard – and filled
it entirely. It became apparent that there had only been around 4 or 5
available spaces once the bookings were taken into account, so we had been
quite lucky and additionally lucky by getting there early. The mother had seen
another couple turned away. As the bus only ran once a day, missing this would
have meant a re-organisation of our loosely arranged plans.
The park was a 30 minute drive outside the city and was used to house
some of the communist statues and imagery. Unlike many other former eastern
bloc countries, Hungary preserved rather than destroyed the statues that once
looked over its squares and boulevards. There are 42 works on display, varying
from enormous statues to small reliefs. The entrance gate was a large imposing
brick structure but it also had the air of awkward embarrassment. The park was
large, quiet and relatively unkempt. Grass and weeds escaped freely from the
circular lawn settings onto the surrounding gravel paths. Bushes and shrubs had
grown up around the edge – photos of it when it was first established indicated
that it had been completely open around the perimeter. No shrubbery at all. Now
it was hidden from view, again emphasising a mild feeling of shame.
The curious mood of the place was further enhanced by the slightly
overcast, cool day. The statues were huge and powerfully emotive. It was easy
to see how they could incite an eager youth.
An old Trabant was parked at one end, gently rotting away, which
visitors were welcome to get inside. I did. It was mildly revolting, and mighty
crumbly.
There was a small museum in the wooden shack outside which had formerly
been a barracks, the outside of which was adorned with copies of poster and
quotes from the communist times. In the information about the creation of the
park in 1994 was a quote which said ‘this park is about dictatorship – but as
soon as this can be declared, written down and built, this park will be about
democracy. Only in democracy can we think freely about dictatorship, or
democracy – or anything in particular’.
The minibus took us back to Deak Ter and we were now peckish so foraged
at a stall in the underground station which was selling hot pastry snacks. This
did run the risk of becoming lunch surprise as we obviously couldn’t read the
Hungarian and therefore had no idea what the various fillings were. So there
was much discussion with the lady serving who seemed highly amused by the
process. Armed with a few bags of goodies, we took line 1 to Vorosmarty Utca.
Eating and drinking is banned on all public transport, so when we arrived we
found a bench on the expansive avenue of Andrassy Street to eat our wares. The
chicken liver pasty was particularly delicious.
This arrow straight boulevard running between Heroes Square and Deak
Ter had first been called Stalin Street during the Communist period and then
Avenue of the People’s Republic. It became Andrassy ut once more after the
political change in 1990.
The avenue had once been the site of smoking factory chimneys and
industry which were entirely swept away and converted into a boulevard of high
end shops and cafes. It was also home to the House of Terror museum, sited in
60 Andrassy Street.
According to the ticket information EU citizens were half price,
provided you had proof. The mother had her passport – she carried it with her
all the time while on holiday – and Husband had his driving licence photocard.
I didn’t have anything. Husband offered to treat the mother to the entry fee.
This turned out to be the princely sum of nil due to her age. The mother
quipped that they hadn’t felt comfortable charging as they weren’t entirely
sure she would live long enough to get round. Although I didn’t have proof of
EU citizenship, as I was in the presence of two EU persons, the girl behind the
till made the safe assumption that I was probably also an EU citizen and
applied the discount anyway. Therefore three of us got in for the price that
would be paid to admit one American.
The museum was vast and a graphic reminder of what had happened here,
charting the brutal methods employed by the two regimes that terrorised Hungary
during the 20th century. The building was the place where the first
Hungarian Nazis and later the communist secret police incarcerated, tortured
and often murdered their victims. A soviet tank dominated the central
courtyard, the walls of which were filled with black and white photos of
victims. There were a considerable number of videos throughout, playing films
of interviews with dozens of people who had suffered under the various
oppressive regimes that Hungary had been subjected to. It was impossible to
watch all of them. There were harrowing accounts of people being taken away,
children being killed, women attempting to find their husbands only to discover
they had died a few months previously. One woman described how at 21 her second
husband was taken after the state had taken his business, and referred to
herself as older, wiser and less naïve by then. The farmers related stories
about the quota they had to give up to the state, which was not based on how
much food they actually produced, leaving them with little or nothing for themselves,
their families or farm animals.
The security staff were dressed a little bit too much like Nazi guards
for comfort. After visiting the top floors we joined the queue for the slow
lift down into the basement – guarded by a pair of officious looking museum
security staff. At one point a tall American girl with a bandana tied on her
head came barging through, wondering what everyone was waiting for, marched to
the front where the curators stiffened and told her there was a queue for the
lift.
In the basement were the former coal cellars which had been converted
to prison cells. After the ‘liberation’ of Budapest by the Soviets in 1945 the
communist political police took over the building and joined the cellars
together creating a maze of cells in which to imprison, torture and interrogate
political opponents. The basement was concrete, slightly damp and oppressive.
Most of the rooms had no window at all. One cell was only 4 foot high making it
impossible to stand up in. Another was an internal, windowless ‘cupboard’, with
room to stand but only a couple of feet wide so no barely space to sit down.
One cell was padded and others had small wood pallets which served as a bed.
Being held here for any length of time would be unpleasant. There were a couple
of rooms kitted out with simple but effective gallows. And then the memorial
areas – one of which was darkened room filled with a forest of black poles each
topped by a small electric flames, elsewhere there was a corridor wall of
photos with the name, date of birth and date of death of hundreds and hundreds
of people.
When we came out we walked to the Jewish quarter to see the Dohany Street
Great Synagogue. Behind it was a memorial park on the burial place of many Jews
who died of disease and starvation when this part of the city was sealed off as
a ghetto. It was too near closing time to get in, but a nearby bar afforded a
good view of the impressive building with its Moorish onion domes glowing
warmly in the late afternoon sun so we settled there for a couple of drinks.
The waiter who attended to us was particularly gruff and we waited to see if he
would warm to our infectious charm. We used some of this time to refer to our
guide books and looked up the New York Café. According to the mother this was famed
for having the surliest waiters in Budapest. Given the people we had so far
experienced, these waiting staff must really be jolly grumpy if it was famed
for this. The mother was convinced that we could make them cheer up. My guide
book, however, made clear that it had once been so famed – which made us wonder
how old the mother’s book was. She did, after all, source a lot of her guide
books from charity shops. We also discovered that the café was now part of a 5*
hotel which immediately put all of us off.
As we stood up to leave, the mother realised she was drunk. We took the
tram back to the hotel which rumbled over Liberty Bridge.
All in all it had been a good birthday – communism, terror, holocaust
memorials. Husband commented that he knew how to float my boat.
Back at the hotel I noticed a well made up woman, in a short, low cut
black dress sitting in the foyer. By the time we had collected our keys and
gone to the lift she was also there, but now accompanied by a man. They got off
at the same floor as us and walked in silence towards his room. The mother
queried the oddness of their relationship, and Husband and I pointed out to her
that it was quite likely she was bought and paid for – by the hour- hence their
awkwardness and silence.
We freshened up and went out for birthday dinner, back to Fatal
restaurant. On the way there we passed a man who was in the street trying to
lure people into his restaurant. For unclear reasons, he was holding a whip.
The mother – who was possibly still a little bit drunk, pointed to the whip and
asked if this was his method for getting customers in. He smiled, eagerly
acknowledging this. She then went on to embarrass him by suggesting that
actually it may just be a reflection of his interest in bondage. We weren’t
going to his restaurant, and it’s possible that he was relieved about that.
We started dinner with a glass each of the local spirit, the
unfortunately named Unicum. It was a herbal liqueur and was pretty revolting.
I’ve had medicines less disgusting. The mother had tried it before when was she
last briefly passing through Budapest and had been upset when she passed it to
a friend to try a sip of and he consumer nearly all of it. We were curious as
to why she had been upset by that – and also why she hadn’t warned us how nasty
it was. Which she now seemed to remember much more distinctly.
Our starters were delicious. The mains were, as expected, enormous.
Mother opted for stuffed cabbage. I had had this dish in Berlin and therefore
had a concept of how huge it was. As the name implies, it is a whole cabbage –
stuffed. Even the waitress expressed an element of surprise. It served in a
dish that to all intents and purposes looked like a saucepan, filled with a
volume of food that would probably feed a family of 4 quite comfortably. After
about half an hour of eating she was as stuffed as the cabbage – and the
contents of the saucepan barely looked touched. There had been an item on the
menu which was described as being ‘an enormous portion..’. Fortunately none of
us had ordered it, but if the stuffed cabbage was not so described, I juddered
in dread at the quantity of food that one would be faced with if you did select
that dish.
All feeling somewhat full, we decided to share a pudding and ordered
something Hungarian which was described as ‘don’t ask’. A few minutes later an
enormous coupe arrived filled with sponge, ice cream, cream and chocolate. I
double checked with the waitress that this was the service size for one person
and assured, that yes, it was. Between the three of us, we were unable to
finish it. We washed it down with a glass of Tokaji Atzu, 3 puttonyos dessert
wine which was particularly delicious. Husband and I had first come across this
wine at Butler’s Wharf in London where a place we ate at suggested different
dessert wines for each pudding. I liked its description of being the wine of
ancient Hungarian kings and it has been a firm favourite ever since. To now be
in the country of its creation, and have it so readily available, was a
particular treat.
There was a storm in the night and we woke early, a short while before
the alarm was due to go off. Husband therefore turned it off – but soon
afterwards we fell asleep again and were woken by the sound of the mother
knocking at our door as it was 8am, the time we had scheduled to meet for
breakfast. This was a slight problem as breakfast was now in a different,
smaller room and guests had been asked to avoid the 9am rush, so the mother
went down to bag a table while we readied ourselves. When we finally emerged
downstairs she greeted us with ‘and what time do you call this’.
She was a little hung over from the previous evening, and the sight of
the unctuous breakfast cakes made her queasy.
After breakfast we returned to our rooms to gather what we needed for
the day and agreed to meet by the stairs a short while later. When the mother
appeared she was soaking wet. It transpired that she had had poo and then
wanted to clean her bum. As her room didn’t have a bidet she had used the
shower head – but hadn’t taken any clothes off. So a small slip of the hand
later, and she had comprehensively showered herself while fully dressed. This
reminded me of the time when she had ironed a wrinkled shirt collar – while
still wearing it – with predictable results.
We went to Nagycsarnok Great Market Hall at Fovram ter. This was housed
within a spectacular late 19th century building and the inside was
equally impressive behind the art nouveau behemoth façade and patterned roof.
With a high ceiling, upper mezzanine level and cast iron columns throughout,
the market sold everything from tourist tat, elaborate textiles and handbags to
delicious looking fruit, vegetables, caviar and meat. The food stalls were
everything you never see in England. Fruit and veg piled high, with not a
plastic punnet in site. It looked as though it might actually have still been
growing until quite recently. And the meat stalls were fabulous, laden with
produce that looked like it had actually come from an animal – trotters, lamb
neck, offal, blankets of tripe, trays stacked high with lard, chunks of pork scratchings
that hadn’t been checked for hairs and on one stand, the skinned head of an
animal, complete with eyeballs and its’ tongue hanging out. We tried to work
out if it was a goat or a sheep. There
was also goose liver, labelled as au naturel. I wondered how natural a force
fed fatted goose could really be.
The proof of the pudding of the quality and provenance of the food was
the huge number of sturdily built Hungarian women who were here doing their
shopping.
The mother bought some cherries, but in her enthusiasm to get the
cheapest ones (all of them were cheaper than the UK), she bought sour cooking
cherries instead.
Hungary is apparently well known for paprika, and we bought some whole
dried paprika to grind up at home (which we have since done and it is
delicious, far more flavoursome and warming than the pots of powder usually
available). It was also interesting to see what a paprika actually looks like.
I did stumble across a rather nice handbag and reminded the mother that
she had said if I saw anything I liked she would get it as a birthday present
for me. Husband had at the time cautioned her about the use of the word ‘anything’.
But at 8000 Hungarian florins (or hufs for short) it wasn’t cripplingly
expensive.
We then travelled over to St Stephen’s Basilica, or St Istvan as they
say in Hungary. As we stood in the large square in front of the church, looking
up at its impressive façade we noticed a young person walking along the ledge
around the upper spires. I wondered whether we had happened across a suicide in
action or whether someone had got grievously lost. It certainly seemed like an
unplanned and perilous wander. We needed the loo so went to a nearby coffee
place and sat outside. The mother went in to use the facilities while we waited
for someone to serve us. There was a door code to get into the loo but she got
this from someone behind the counter, saying that we were outside, about to
have coffee. No one came to serve us. Then I went to the loo, using the code
she had handily provided. As Husband went I realised that this was not a table
service café, but rather one where you needed to go inside and get your drinks
from the counter. However, we had now achieved the primary objective of coming
here, so, feeling a little guilty, we decided the leave. The mother said we
shouldn’t feel guilty – if they had come to serve us, we would have had a
coffee. Our intentions had been sincere.
You didn’t need to pay to go into the main church, but donations were
welcome. A priest hovered at the entrance, gently pressuring everyone to
putting money into the donation box.
Inside, the church was dimly lit, quiet and impressive in grandeur, richly
decorated with lashings of gold leaf, the roof rose high above the black and
white marbled floor. The mother asked what St Stephen was the patron saint of.
I suggested that he may be the patron saint of very large houses, given the
size of the basilica. Husband thought that, like all Stephen’s, he must have
been a top bloke in order to have such a building constructed in his honour.
Apparently – we later discovered - Stephen is the patron saint of the arts.
From there, we walked to Freedom Square, formerly the site of an army
barracks, where there was what appeared to be a relatively modern peoples memorial
to the victims of the Hungarian holocaust – laminated articles and photos, rows
of shoes, suitcases, teddy bears and other such personal items.
We then moved
on to the Parliament, just in time to see the changing of the guard – which was
done to rather jolly music blasted out through a pair of loud speakers.
The
Parliament building stood in the huge open space of Kossuth ter in which burned
an eternal flame to the memory of the victims of the 1956 uprising when 50,000
students and workers marched on parliament to air their grievances. They
toppled a giant statue of Stalin which stood in Heroes Square. Soviet
retribution was swift and devastating as the rising was suppressed by Soviet
tanks. The revolutionaries of 1956 have no other memorials as they were buried
where they fell. There was also the new addition of large water feature to
commemorate the uprising.
The Parliament building was considerably less impressive close up. It
was only the upper roof part of the building that was decorative and
interesting, topped by dozens on thin, pinnacle spires, while the bulk of it was
constructed from unadorned flat pale stone. We investigated when the next tour
was due, but the next available one was too late for our plans.
We had separate
schedules for the afternoon – Husband and I wanted to re-attempt getting to the
Heritage centre and the mother wanted to visit things at Heroes Square. We
wandered back to the nearest underground station together – on the way
happening across a statue of a bridge with a man standing wistfully on it. This
was interactive art to the extent that it was possible to climb onto and walk
over the little metal bridge and stand next to the man. The man was Nagy Imre
who died in 1958, not from natural causes.
At Deak Ter we separated onto different lines, and we returned to
Nyugati station. Initially we looked at the train signs for the local services
but couldn’t see the station name for where we needed to get to. Then we saw a
small office with a poster about Heritage Park train trips. With the certainty
that they couldn’t be less helpful than the information desk, we went in and
asked how we could get to Heritage Park. Apparently the shuttle service stopped
running 3 years ago – obviously a detail that our recently updated guide book
had failed to note. The lady went to get her friend, who came out and started
off with the unnerving words ‘well, it’s a bit complicated’. She wrote down the
directions. A trolley bus from outside the station to the corner of Heroes
Square. Then cross the road and get bus number 30 to Rokolya utca. This was a
in a residential area, but walk along the road, turn right, keep going for 5
minutes and you should arrive at the park.
We thanked her profusely and set off. The trolley bus stop at Heroes
Square was nearly missed, primarily because the bus put the names of the stops
in Hungarian rather than English – weird things that foreigners do. We realised
at the last minute and leapt up, asking for the door to be opened just before
the driver set off again. He did let us off but was clearly deeply put out by
the whole situation. Husband suspected he would need a good 10 minutes to
recover from the experience and would probably remain out of sorts for the best
part of the afternoon as a result.
We wondered whether we would see the mother at Heroes Square and it did
occur to us that if we had known, we could all have travelled here together. I
also realised that part of the instructions previously provided by the helpful
pass by last time we had tried this trip had actually been correct.
I looked at the bus map to see how many stops it was to Rokolya. The
bus arrived. It was very much a bus used by the locals, going between the city
centre and sombre looking, concrete housing estates on the edge of town.
Fortunately the bus indicated the stops in a language that I could understand.
Counting the stops was pointless as it didn’t stop at them all if there was no
one getting off and no one wanting to get on. We looked around the bus trying
to identify other train spotters. There were a couple of contenders, but the
only other people who got off at our stop were a couple of young lads – who
were not going to the park.
It was indeed a short and easy walk to the Heritage Park, which was
virtually empty, located on the site of the former north depot of the Hungarian
State Railway. Seeing a train, we walked in that direction and arrived at the
back end of an engine, which was parked next to another. Husband started
excitedly taking pictures while I wandered between the engines to see them from
the front. But when I got there I looked around, and gasped. Then I waited for Husband,
and watched his identical reaction. We were in the middle of a turntable. There
were lines running away from the turntable covering a full 360. And there was
an engine on almost every line. Huge black steam trains, looming high above us.
We were both slightly speechless.
The engines had steps set out next to them
allowing you to freely climb up and into them. Being so quiet, this was easily
done without needing to queue or wait for excitable children. We walked around
the various engines, in varying states of decay, covering a range of eras. Then
we heard a call from a man on the turntable. The few people who were about
gathered – and he started up the turntable, taking us a full circle. It was
very exciting.
Having looked at the large engines, we then went over to look at the
lines of carriages and other trains, lined up on the other side of the circle,
gently mouldering away and with weeds growing up around them. There were
several types of snow plow from a tiny, totally functional one which was pretty
much a large scoop with a tiny engine on the back, to something that resembled
a tunnel boring machine.
There was also an automobile, a Soviet Chaika that once served as an
official car of the Hungarian Prime Minister Jeno Fock but was later converted
to travel on rails.
We were hungry but the tea room was closing, so we carried on to the
other circle of lines. These led to the engine sheds in a 34 bay roundhouse.
Most were closed but when we looked around the edges of the engines in the bays
that were open it seemed as though the sheds were full behind the closed doors.
The steam train foot plate rides weren’t functioning but we did see
people having a go on the hand powered cars.
I went into a building that looked like a small souvenir place. That
too was closing, but there was a walkway through the back which I followed. And
called to Husband. This led into the back of the engine sheds, which were
filled with rolling stock. Pullman coaches, post coaches, a teak dining car
buils fo the Orient Express - everything you could imagine. Again a number of
these were open for free access – but it was all unlit. We took photos, but had
no idea what the interior looked like until we saw the camera images, taken
with a flash.
We walked around the inside of the shed, looking at the vast number of carriages.
There was almost too much there – it was overwhelming.
As we left we saw the platform where the old shuttle service had run
from. The signage indicated that trains ran to Budapest, and a train was now
permanently parked at the mini station.
All trained out, we wandered back to the bus stop to get back into
town. Sitting opposite us on the bus was a very serious looking toddler with a
face that implied he would one day grow up to be a surly Hungarian waiter. He
maintained this expression until his mother asked him to push the button for
their stop. The excitement of this responsibility broke his face into smiles
and dimples. However, he was slightly disappointed that there was no
discernible impact from pushing the button. The mother checked that the Stop
request had been acknowledged, but the finer details of this were lost on the
child – who kept pushing it, clearly hoping for something more noticeable or
interesting to happen than just a light turning on over the doors. When they
got off the child who took his seat was a very anxious little girl, frantically
sucking her thumb which did nothing to ease her deeply furrowed brow. Hungarian
children are sombre, worried beings.
We took the bus to its terminus at Keleti station intending to catch the
underground from there. There was subway tunnels leading under the road to the
metro station, and these tunnels were filled with dozens of refugees who had
clearly made this ‘home’. They weren’t just sitting along the edges, begging
for money. People walking through were largely ignored. Instead they had laid
out rugs, even set up tents which children were inside, played football, drank
tea with their ‘neighbour’. We were clearly walking through their living rooms
and needed to step carefully to avoid treading on them or their meagre
possessions. When they stood in nattering groups in the way, they made no effort
to move so that people trying to use the underpass for its intended purpose
could so unimpeded. It wasn’t an uncomfortable or threatening experience, but
it’s possible that I wasn’t bothered by it because of the presence of Husband.
The underpass wound its way under the road for several metres, and the refugees
of unknown original filled every centimetre of it, in throngs. We wondered if
this really could be better than whatever life they had left behind.
We went to the bar overlooking the river at Fovam Ter and shared
sausage and chips – it was nearer to dinner time than lunch, but we had not
eaten since breakfast and needed something before dinner which we were shortly
due to meet the mother for.
We returned to the Italian place Husband and I had visited earlier in
the week, and the waiter commented that we had been before. Over dinner the
mother told us tales of how restaurants abroad recognised her, even a few years
later. We suggested that there may be a reason for this rather than simply a
good memory on the part of the staff; such as, unlikely though it may seem, the
mother having done something memorable (or embarrassing).
We shared a bottle of wine, and the mother scolded the waiter for
refillling her glass last. He learned from this, and on all future refills,
attended to her first.
That was our last night in Budapest. The next morning was rainy. We checked
our stock of public transport tickets, and then took a combination of metros
and trams to Margaret Island where there was a large water feature
choreographed to music.
Known as the Island of Hares in Roman times, it had
been the site of a Turkish pasha’s harem before becoming a hub of monasticism. We
contemplated hiring a pedal powered buggy, but decided instead to wander along
the island to the medieval Franciscan church ruins. After a while we happened
upon a high wall, which was all that remained of whatever building this had
once been. There were also ruins of the foundations of a Dominican church and
cloister which apparently had less remaining than that was left of the priory.
The mother didn’t see how there could be much less, so after a little more
ambling through the park, we had a drink and caught the bus back.
We went for lunch in a place in Akacfa utca, an area which was
reminiscent of Shoreditch in terms of its trendy but still a bit gritty and
edgy feel. A little run down, a little dirty, a little graffitti’d but filled
with bohemian music types who still believed that they could change the world.
We had a burger lunch, attended to by more surly waitresses –
accompanied by small dogs. The mother needed the loo and one of the waitresses
grumpily suggested that she would use the loo and leave. The mother tried to
explain that this was not the case (as if we would do such a thing!) – and
having tried to explain that she didn’t really have time to debate the matter
as there was a risk of wetting herself, ignored the waitresses protestations
and went to relieve herself.
We went back to the hotel to collect our luggage and then set off on
the metro and bus ride back to the airport where I brought to full circle the
generosity shown to us on arrival, but handing our unused tickets to a couple
of chaps who had just arrived.
During the metro ride, on one of the older trains with the viciously slamming
doors, the mother and Husband sat on the black plastic covered seats that lined
each side of the wide carriage and I stood, reading a large notice next to the
door. It included instructions about the limitation on the number and size of
suitcases that could be taken on without additional permission. It also made
clear that no luggage was permitted which might soil the train. And then I saw
some information which made me gasp. An EU citizen over the age of 65 was
entitled to free travel across all Budapest public transport provided they
could evidence their age and EU status. I whispered this gem of information to Husband.
We both agreed it was probably best not to tell the mother. We won't let on it you don't.
