Last Updated on March 20, 2023 by PowersToTravel
Oh, and we even found time to eat!
The Holocaust Memorial Center
We walked from our Regency Suites Hotel past Astoria out to the Holocaust Memorial Center. The Center presented pictures and movies describing the history of the Jewish people in Hungary, the events that led up to the Holocaust, and the Holocaust. To people like ourselves who feel somewhat educated about those events, it was an eye-opening experience. The holocaust didn’t just happen as a result of Nazis invading Hungary. Hatred of the Jews was deep-rooted in Hungary’s past, and continued into the 20th century; so many Hungarians were active participants in shipping the Jews to the concentration camps and death.
Jewish Holocaust Center – names on the wall
Movies showed the times leading to the Nazi period with book burning, denouncing of the press, and stifling of civil rights. Those against the Nazi wave were called “Anti-Fascists”, even as today the Left is often called “Antifa”, and those for the Nazis being called “Patriots”, even as the Right today calls itself the same. Scary stuff. It was a chilling mirror of our own times. The entire experience held an immediacy for me I would not have thought possible just a few years ago.
Dohány Synagogue
We walked back towards the city center, and headed to the Dohány Synagogue. While the Holocaust Memorial Center owes its existence to the civil government, the Dohány Synagogue and its memorials are of course the work of the Jewish people themselves. The Synagogue was packed with people, in tour groups. I felt we were too pressed for time to wait for the next group, so we wandered through on our own. The Emmanuel Tree in the garden, inscribed with the names of local Holocaust victims, is especially beautiful and moving.
Emmanuel Tree at Dohány Synagogue
Laundry
Next stop – Laundry retrieval. We walked the 20 minutes or so up to the laundry, were happy to retrieve have our clean laundry, and walked the 13 minutes back. It was really dumb that we didn’t think about bringing a wheelie suitcase with us since we did pass our hotel on our way there. Greg was forced to carry the huge unwieldy laundry bag through the city crowds. We could have done our laundry closer to the hotel, but that would have meant we would have to waste a number of hours actually doing the laundry. We prefer to drop it off, and do things we can’t do at home. All’s well that ends well.
Gringos Amigos
By this point it was now lunch time, and we searched for an inexpensive alternative. Greg was very happy to find “Gringos Amigos” nearby. Ahhhhh, Mexican food in this land of beef stew! The food was good.
Greg at Gringos Amigos Budapest
Chain Bridge (aka Széchenyi Bridge)
We next headed back through downtown past St. Stephen’s again, directly towards the river, to the “Chain Bridge”. It was about a fifteen minute walk. We crossed the picturesque bridge, with its awesome views, to arrive at the foot of the Buda Castle Hill funicular.
View of Széchenyi Bridge from Buda Castle
There we bought both a 24-hr transit pass, and the separate funicular ticket. I knew that we would want to take a bus from the top of the hill back to our hotel, and didn’t want to be scrambling trying to buy individual tickets on the bus, since we would be using the 24-hour pass the next day anyway.
Up we went in the funcular, after quite a long wait at the bottom. We strolled around the top, watched the changing of the guard (boy did they look like amateurs! Maybe they actually were honorary guards for the day?) We chose not to visit the museums as it was getting late in the day, and we were getting very tired.
Fisherman’s Bastion
Fisherman’s Bastion. Budapest
We wandered along to the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias’ Church. Having studied the maps beforehand, I had determined that the best photos of the Danube and the city, from Buda, would be found in the afternoon. I was right, however that also meant that we were not as fresh as we might have been. In fact, we were rather pooped. Many, many photographs later, we strolled to Disz tér, waited for the 16 bus, and rode it all the way back to Deák Ferenc tér.
Cyrano’s
That night we walked out again to the main pedestrian area between Deák Ferenc square and the river. We stumbled across a great prix fixe menu at Cyrano’s and were suckered in! After taking our soda order, we then found that the prix fixe menu had been “accidently” left out front from lunchtime, and everything was twice the price now. Oh, well. I chose the “Gipsy Lamb” and Greg chose the “Chicken Paprika.” The food was really good.
Budapest Eye
We finished off the day on the Budapest Eye, luckily getting on without having to wait in a line. We had eaten a little early; everyone was still probably enjoying their dinner.
Budapest Eye
We had walked a minimum of 7.2 miles, according to Google maps, and were quite tired.
Guaranteed next day we would be taking the trams and metro!
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