Buda and Pest capture my heart

Part of the beauty of living in central Europe is the proximity to the rest of this continent.  So when my friend Maggie asked if I'd like to meet her and her dear friend Sandy in Budapest, I jumped at the opportunity. Jeff is in Canada for three weeks working, so there were some logistical hoops I had to jump through.  What to do with my children, for one.  Well, actually that was really the only hoop - another beauty of living here is having the freedom to get up and go - no dogs, cats or donkeys to have to worry about.


As luck would have it, there were three beds available in the Boarding House and for a sum (not small, but definitely worth it), they could stay there while I travelled.  The kids were very excited and have, in fact, been asking to board since we arrived in September.  The boarding house is more like a frat house really, our kids come up with all sorts of excuses to hang out there after the school day is over.  Last Sunday, we packed up their uniforms, sports equipment, books, ipods and all the requisite charging devices and I dropped them off bright and early Monday morning.  Esmée was the most nervous - she would be the youngest boarder and was rooming with nice girls, but she didn't know them very well.  The boys barely said goodbye, eager to assimilate into the boarding culture, unpack and hook up with their roommates before heading to class.


I arrived in Budapest just before sunset and met Maggie and Sandy outside St Stephen's Basilica, a Roman Catholic church built in the mid 1800s-early 1900s and it houses the mummified hand of St Stephen, Hungary's first King.  It is a stunningly beautiful Neo Classical building and the most important Church in all of Hungary.  Ironic maybe, but that was where we started our whirlwind tour of Budapest.  

St Stephen's Basilica

Budapest was once 2 separate cities on either side of the Danube river, not surprisingly called Buda and Pest.  Although they were formally united in 1873, the two feel quite different, even today.  Historically, Buda was more residential, host to royalty and the wealthy while Pest was the more commercial centre.

sunset on the Danube
from Buda looking towards Pest

As Budapest locals for some 10+ years, we took our friends' Todd and Alex's recommendation and hired a guide for our first full day to help us get oriented and figure out where we wanted to dig a little deeper.  It was a wonderful way to get to know a new city that is not known to be tourist-friendly and Oliver was fantastic.  He was engaging and knowledgeable and drove us around while re-calling endless information about the country's tumultuous and cyclical past of domination, occupation and revolution.  The last Russian soldier left Budapest in 1991 - not that long ago in the grand scheme of things.  It feels like a lifetime ago that I studied Eastern European, WWI + II politics at Queen's and Oliver helped unearth the knowledge.  Some things even sounded vaguely familiar!  

We spent a few solid and intense hours at the TerrorHaz which commemorates the victims of terror under both the Nazi and Soviet occupations during and post WWII.  Until 1956, the building itself was used as a Police Headquarters under both regimes and many, many Hungarians were brought there to be interrogated, detained and killed.  It has since been transformed into an aesthetically beautiful, but haunting museum that includes among other things, photographs and lists of victims and victimizers (many of whom are still alive and living in Budapest today), a propaganda room, examples of weaponry and reconstructed cells and gallows.  


Another highlight was our trip to the Kiraly Baths.  Budapest is known as the spa city with several public baths left over from the Turks.  Kiraly, built over 500 years ago and supplied by thermal waters, was recommended by Oliver as his favourite bath in the city.  Once in our suits, we emerged into an underground cave-like room with a number of pools.  The ceiling was domed and the only natural light sparkled gently from the tiny circular holes in the roof.  It was magical, like bathing under a starlit sky. There were only about 10 or 12 others there – all Hungarian. There were no English signs to explain each bath, no one was speaking our language and Oliver’s recommendation that it would be the most local experience did not disappoint.

Maggie, Sandy and I 
on our last morning together

A really wonderful trip full of intense history, delicious Hungarian foods like goulash, goose liver pate and loads of paprika, beautiful scenery, art + architecture.  It was a real treat to see Maggie and get to know Sandy, we travelled well together and had a ball.   


All's well that ends well.  I arrived home to happy children who have made it known that they would like to stay at the boarding school again.  They even went as far as asking if I would please go away again soon!  I was aghast, offended, but once the bickering and fighting started among them, my mind started to wander.  Where could I go next......