Arriving in Hungary was beautiful. The weather was sunny and much warmer than I had become accustom to in Copenhagen. The most noticeable difference was the lack of wind, and trust me, it was a welcome change! We spent the morning finding the apartment we were staying. It was in a beautiful location and equipped for all seven of us.
The first major thing we did was head to the National Museum of Hungary, which gave me an overview of Hungarian history. It started in with the history of the people of the Hungarian lands from 400.000 BC to 804 AD and all the way up to modern times. There was some beautiful clothing and a great display on the communist and socialist era. The museum was a housed in a beautiful building with columns (seen below).
We found a café that we fell in love with. “Drum Café” was a small hole in the wall we found a couple blocks from where we were staying. It was cheap, fresh and Hungarian. They served up Langosh (fried bread with any topping you’d like), Goulash (tomato based soup) and lots of paprika filled goodness. We returned three times during our stay and were never disappointed.
Wine at Drum :)
One morning, we headed over to the baths for a relaxing soak. The building was stunning and, though I was surrounded by elderly Hungarians, I still enjoyed the view and the heat from the tubs.
The Terror House was one of the most remarkable and well put together museums I have ever encountered. Having survived two terror regimes (communism and fascism), this Hungarian museum highlights how difficult it was to survive during those times. In its 4 floors, the museum takes you on a first hand look at what was happening. The layout is beautiful and takes you on a journey through time. With the perfect mix of videos, audio and props, this museum is one that should not be missed if you are ever in Hungary. It took about 3 hours to get through and I learned an enormous amount. I don’t have any pictures of the museum and walking up to it you aren’t really sure if you are at the right place. There were guards at the door and in the hall that you enter there is a large marble memorial. What is truly remarkable is that the building was one that was actually used to detain, torture and kill individuals during both reigns. Since 2002 it has housed the museum and a large memorial in both the main floor and the basement.
Finally, I want to touch on Buda. Buda was absolutely stunning. We made our way down there for the afternoon and found ourselves atop Castle Hill enjoying the most magnificent view. It let us see the entire city and I literally had one of those moments where you need to step back and take a second with yourself to reflect on it (trust me, I had many of those during the week).
Hugeee. Also, really steep hill to get to and lots of stairs haha
I hope you enjoyed my post on Budapest, I’ll be posting part 2 about Bratislava and Krakow within the next couple days.
Jeg elsker du,
Meghan
I'm so happy you went to the Terror Museum! I thought it was in Prague (silly memory) otherwise I totally would have told you to go there, and I'm so glad you did! It was super duper amazing eh?! I was sad that much of the information in there was in hungarian (which is such a beautiful language is it not?!) but being a national museum I'm totally down. It was breathtaking nonetheless. One of my favourite rooms was the one with all the lights and crosses seemingly hovering in the air, SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL. Most insightful moment was looking through the torture rooms and cells and seeing the wear on the view flap on the door from being used over all those terrible years to look at the poor souls inside. That more than anything made the whole place real to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you loved it as much as I did!!!!
They have it all in English now actually :), I got copies of it all, so you can take a look when I get back if you'd like.
ReplyDeleteThe crosses/memorial was breathtaking, the basement was definitely the highlight of the whole museum.