Everybody's got a Hungary Heart... ugh... awful...

The Danube river stretches from the Black Forest all the way to the Black Sea. I have encountered it now in three cities. In Bratislava it flows past the Old Town and under the Communist-era New Bridge. In Vienna it separates the historic center from Prater, a huge park featured in the film The Third Man. And then it reaches Budapest. Nowhere else have I seen this river as beautiful as it is in this Hungarian Capital. One is taken aback by how vast, and how strong the Danube is here. Gulls landing in the river are quickly swept away by current, creating an endless waltz of flying forward and being swept backward. The river is so fast and wide, in fact, that it was nearly impossible to ford it. This meant that the settlements on either side of the river, Buda and Pest, remained separate cities until a permanent bridge was finally built in the mid Nineteenth Century.


This was just about all I learned about the city during an agonizing four hour walking tour. I even had to Wikipedia to fill in some gaps. Now, I tend to be anti-guided tours to begin with, but this Gabor fellow, who lead us round the city yammering on with misinformation about how economies work, practically ruined Budapest for me. Luckily just following the tour we did find an excellent restaurant that had a special half off everything deal going on. It was a magnificent meal, all for under ten dollars. Which brings me to the Forint, the Hungarian currency humorously abbreviated ft. When you look at a menu it seems that you've been given its length, an important factor in deciding a suitable meal. "Gulyásleves ----- 349ft"


Personally, I found the city to be very similar to Prague. Take a look at my album and decide for youself. Both have a castle district on one side of the river, then a central historic district on the other. And as you get further from the center the buildings becoming increasingly modern and dilapidated. What sets Prague apart from Budapest, and most Central and Eastern European cities for that matter, is that it was relatively unharmed by war. Budapest was invaded and destroyed several times in history, and in some areas the scars remain. One more thing of interest: The day we left Hungary it was their Independence Day, a time not of celebration but of mass demonstration and protest. Apparently every year the police tear gas everyone and put them in jail. All we saw was a group of people dressed in tradition Hungarian army uniforms, covered in green and white make-up to make them look dead. It's not everyday that you share a metro car with zombies.

If I'd had more time I could've explored the city a little further, I've heard of full scale bath-houses where I could have my back washed by hairy Hungarian men. Missed the boat there.

I feel cheated.