Budapest IV -- Buildings

We've already mentioned the Palace, which is probably Budapest's most prominent building, sitting, as it does, atop a hill right on the bank of the Danube. It's immense and very imposing and, as already reported, contains two important museums, including the Hungarian National Gallery.

However, the city is properly proud of a number of other buildings that are imposing, beautiful and, in some cases, quite large. The Parliament building was fully opened in 1902, after decades of construction. It's in the neo-Gothic style, the same style as Britain's Parliament on the banks of the Thames in London and, in fact, it is widely acknowledged to have been inspired by the British version. At the time of its construcion it was the largest Parliament building in Europe. It was actually dedicated in 1896 -- the thousand-year anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian nation, when only the central portion was actually ready for occupancy. The two wings were completed six years later. At the time of its completion, Hungary had a two-house Parliament, with an upper and lower chamber, so the building is completely symmetrical about the center portion, with an identical wing for each chamber. However, in 1944 Hungary changed its government to include a single house of Parliament, so the upper chamber's wing is no longer used. This works well, as it is the wing that tourists are shown, since it is identical to the wing actually used.

The main entrance and stairwell are spectacular, showcasing all-Hungarian construction materials and skills -- with the exception of 8 granite pillars donated by the King of Sweden. Gold leaf abounds. The staircase leads to a grand Domed Hall, with 16 pillars supporting the dome, each adorned with the coat of arms and a statue of a significant Hungarian ruler. The Hall is also the home of the country's most precious treasure, the crown of St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary.

Another building we'd like to highlight is St. Stephen's Basilica. This, too, is a building of great beauty with more fantastic marble of a variety of colors, with soaring vaults, again with "acres" of gold leaf and with beautiful altars. Unfortunately, we visited this great church at twilight and, even with the flash (which, amazingly, was permitted) we were unable to get any decent photos. The basilica, too, has an impressive dome. An interesting fact is that the dome of the basilica and the dome of the Parliament building are the two highest structures in Budapest and no building may be built that would be higher. Also interesting is that in each case the height is 96 meters -- again recalling the founding of Hungary in 896. These two buildings represent an interesting juxtaposition of Church and State in this predominantly Catholic country.

The third building we want to highlight here is the Great Synagogue of Budapest -- the largest and most spectacular in Europe. It's in the Byzantine style, was built between 1854 and '59 and can hold 3000 people. Since the 1930's it has also housed a museum of Judaica which now includes memorabilia of the Hitlerian Holocaust. Here we were able to get some good pictures. Kathi had never been in a synagogue before and the only one Chuck had been in is the small one in Newport, R.I., that is, if memory serves correctly, the first in the United States. One of the things that struck us was the great beauty of the building -- beauty in a different tradition than we are used to from our visits to so many churches. The other thing was the numerous memorial tablets and other memorials of victims of the Holocaust. Though they were written in Hungarian, which neither of us could make much of, there were those horrible words that we all know that kept repeating themselves -- words like Dachau and Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka and Auschwitz. In 1935 there were about 201,000 Jews in Budapest -- in 1946 the number was about 96,000. It is a most unsettling feeling to be awed by the beauty of this synagogue while, at the same time, being reminded of this most ugly period of history.

Budapest III -- Culture

We haven't done any actual counting or comparing, but it did seem to us that Budapest has more museums per square mile than most cities -- and, for that matter, that there are more square feet of museums. Several of them are really enormous and would truly take more than a day to appreciate.

The Hungarian National Gallery is housed in the former Royal Palace which overlooks downtown Pest from the Palace Hill on the Buda side of the Danube. (http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/2297714/1/120085106) The Palace site first contained a castle as far back as 1255, with several replacements built through the years. The current one, dating from the Hapzburg dynasty in the 19th century, is the largest Palace in Europe. Royal residents have been replaced by art treasures in the Gallery, which occupies most of the Palace building. As our guide book says, in one place, "it houses every significant work of Hungarian art from Medieval times to the present". (Makes one wonder if the buyers for the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art had maps that didn't show where Hungary was.)

On another page the guide book said, perhaps more accurately, that the museum houses the cream of Hungarian art. Whichever statement is true, the museum is huge and uses its large area to display a dizzying number of beautiful works in spacious displays -- paintings, sculpture, altar pieces from churches and other art objects make it a special place. Hungary (the first syllable memorializes the Huns -- Atilla's pals) has had a history filled with wars and conflict and this is graphically brought home in the Gallery where there are numerous very large paintings of battle and war scenes, of kings and noblemen dying in the arms of their retainers while the battle rages in the background. One would have to know a great deal of Hungarian history to truly appreciate the meaning of these works to Hungarians.

Also contained within the Palace is the Budapest History Museum, with a large collection of historical documents as well as artifacts. We spent too much time in the Gallery to permit visiting this museum -- it will have to be saved for our next visit. The Ethnographic museum, located next to the beautiful Parliament building was something of a disappointment, though it did have a fascinating temporary exhibit on plastics -- their history, manufacture and use. Our disappointment was probably due more to the fact that it was the only place where we encountered unhelpful staff and that we were very hungry and the museum cafe was closed for unexplained reasons.

The Museum of Fine Art and the Palace of Art are located near each other, on opposite sides of Heroes' Square. The former is in another gigantic museum building; the latter in a more modestly sized building, with the building itself being a work of art. Unfortunately, we have no pictures to share with you of these two museums as the former doesn't permit cameras and the latter was having a special exhibit of modern Scandinavian art, consisting of films of people cooking dinner, blind people feeling naked models and weird displays of articles of underwear. We didn't "get it" and didn't bother to waste the film -- or the digits, given that our camera is digital.

Budapest II -- Serendipity and Sightseeing

Christmas Day was our first full day in Budapest and, after the beautiful breakfast the hotel provided we began a modest walk around the quiet city -- on Christmas morning most people were at home and, of course, stores were closed. The most active site we saw was the skating rink in front of the Hungarian Academy of Science building on Roosevelt Square (named by a grateful city for the wartime president of the U.S.). As the day wore on, the number of skaters increased.

We continued our exploration (we hadn't even looked at the map at this point or done any planning) and had our breath taken away as we glimpsed, down a street leading off of Roosevelt Square, St. Stephen's Basilica. The dome of the basilica is tied with the dome of the Parliament building for the honor of being the highest structure in the city; but the church's interior is the real jewel. It's only about 150 years old -- young by European church standards -- so that the beauty of the various colors of marble that make up most of the interior is unmarred by the passage of a long period of time.

From the basilica, we continued our rather random exploration of the area near the hotel and more or less stumbled on the Opera House. We were checking the signs about tours of the building, debating whether or not the advertised tours would operate on Christmas, when we noticed that a lot of nicely-dressed people were walking toward the building. When we approached the front entrance we realized that there was a performance of something about to happen and when we checked we discovered that it was the perennial holiday favorite, The Nutcracker, and that there were only two seats left together in the whole theater. We took them.

So there we were, on Christmas Day, in the city of Budapest on the Danube, in the heart of central Europe and the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, enjoying a performance of The Nutcracker ballet in the company of a very appreciative Hungarian audience. It was almost dreamlike. And the pleasure of the experience was magnified by the fact that Kathi had never had a chance to see this classic, most-seen of all ballets, performed. What a great Chistmas treat that was. What serendipity!

Budapest, Part 1 -- General

We spent Christmas day and the following week in Budapest, the capital of Hungary -- flying there on Christmas Eve and flying back to London on New Year's Eve. While we had heard good things about the city from others, we really didn't know what to expect -- and what we found was a very beautiful city in a great setting on the Danube River. In fact, we liked Budapest so much, we've decided to stop trying to identify our favorite European city. If you remember, some months ago we raved about Barcelona, calling it our favorite. (We loved Prague, too, but were there less than 48 hours and felt we couldn't really say it was a favorite on such a short acquaintance.) But now that we've seen a good bit of Budapest, we've decided it's too hard to pick a favorite. And remembering Vienna just adds to the complication. Just let us say that we liked Budapest very much.

The trip there was without problem, thanks to KLM (London to Amsterdam) and Malev (the Hungarian airline -- Amsterdam to Budapest). We arrived on Christmas Eve at about 6 pm and were a bit surprised at how cold it was -- but the weather stayed pretty cold the entire week, with the lowest being about -3 (C) or about 27 (F). We were prepared, though, for the temperature -- and so, apparently, were all the other tourists -- and it didn't degrade our sightseeing experience or reduce the size of the crowds.

You may remember that Budapest was formed by the joining of the cities of Buda on the east bank of the Danube and Pest (Pesht) on the west bank. The Pest side is flat -- the Buda side hilly, with two hills dominating the area near the Danube. Gellert hill, named for a martyred Christian bishop, is the site of an old citadel; Palace or Castle hill is the site of the massive royal palace, which now houses the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum. (Budapest has a population of about 2 million; all of Hungary of about 10 million.)

Again, if you remember your European history, you know that Hungary was part of the empire of Austria-Hungary, ruled most recently by the Habsburg royal family. The Austro-Hungarian empire was actually bigger than the combined size of the two modern countries -- and also included much of what is now the Czech Repbulic. In fact, the current capitals of the three countries, Vienna, Budapest and Prague are the three "jewels" of the Habsburg dynasty. For much of the history of the empire, Vienna and Budapest were joint capitals -- though the Hungarian people always considered the Habsburg rulers to be "Austrians" and felt somewhat oppressed. Today Hungarian identity and patriotism are very noticeable. The most visible manifestation of this is the large, beautiful Parliament building (photo), built for the 1896 thousand-year anniversary of the founding of Hungary, and which is often spoken of and pointed out.

Of course, in Central Europe, with its wide range of ethnic histories and cultures, and with the various countries being relatively small, and, therefore, close together, the large cities such as Budapest tend to be very cosmopolitan. This makes itself apparent in the variety of languages heard (and the variety of languages the locals speak) and in the great restuarants with a wide variety of cuisines. There are plenty of modern, pleasant hotels to choose from and the English language will get you by almost everywhere. Don't expect big bargains if you go there; prices seemed a bit low after London, but would seem high to visitors from most other places.

Our Budapest photo gallery is at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/2297714