Hungary

Oh my goodness, I think I've died and gone to heaven! Budapest - wow! I can't believe it, but every place I visit just keeps getting better and better. Turkey and Bodrum, so beautiful and interesting; Athens, welcoming and great food; Amalfi Coast, stunning; Pyrenees, I could breathe the sky in; little village in the Netherlands, charming; Paris, well Paris is PARIS!; London, like coming home...but now Budapest?!?! This place is like butter, everything is just soooo smooth, golden. I have never walked through an airport and out the other side with so much ease, help, friendliness. From passport control to the van that took me right to the hotel door, with the most helpful tourist desk I've ever experienced, everything was just friendly magic. And cheap too!! Each and every one of you, if you haven't yet, has got to come here. Stay at the Gresham Palace if you can afford it (an art nouveau palatial residence redone by the Four Seasons); if not this tiny, new hotel I found in the Pest section is wonderful, Central 21. Modern, classy, comfortable, friendly, free internet. And cheap! It's also probably helping that the weather has been a very sweet 75 degrees with a slight breeze to keep things cool.

I didn't want to leave my super comfy room with a super comfy bed, but I finally dragged myself out to find the tram stop (I had gotten up at 5:30am to catch a train, then the Underground, then a bus to the airport where my plane was delayed 4 hours...and I had no book to read because I'm traveling super duper lightly so I can have all the weight allowed to get Harlowe back to England this weekend when I go to Spain to pick her up - Hungary is just a little detour I've treated myself too, ALONE! My lovely friend Michelle is taking care of the children for me. THANK YOU!) Anyway, I took the tram to the oldest metro line in Europe, 1867 I think? It's very cute, with beautiful woodwork and fancy tiles, and trains that go way too fast.

From there I headed up Andrassy Street, past all the big, pretty old houses that now hold many embassies, to the central park to spend some time in the outdoor baths. One of the must do's here. While the Romans built quite an extensive baths network here because of all the thermal water underground, the whole public bathing thing really took off under Turkish control in the 16th century.
On my way to the baths I happened upon a delightful surprise. The Hungarians are known for their high culture, music, art, but particularly their literature and of that poetry being the most highly respected of all. To be a poet laureate here is, well, there is no person more respected. Anyway, I digress...I had exited the metro one stop too early, but once up on the street I heard a deep, powerful male voice booming a rich opera. So, while I couldn't yet see the park, I had no doubt where to go, where else could that voice be coming from? When I did see what was going on, as the sky was being burned up in a startling pink and red sunset, I slowed my rush to the baths and just took in the moment with the rest of the crowd. There were many singers and a chorus on a stage, framed by the monuments of the park entrance (a pair of imposing classical buildings, an eagle-capped column, a semi-circle of columns and statues of what must be heroic Hungarians - this was obviously an important location), and added to this were hundreds of Hungarian flags of all sizes, on the building opposite the stage was a gigantic banner of red poppies and the dates 1956, 1989, 2009, with bouquets of flowers laid beneath it. So many people were there, enjoying the music, flying flags and reading the temporary billboards with photographs, letters, and documents recounting the struggles for freedom this country has fought for during the last 60 years. I wish I could read Hungarian, but the photos were compelling, especially with the atmospheric background of the music and flag waving.

Eventually the baths beckoned, and I ventured further into the park. The Szechenyi bath complex is very, very big and very, very ornate. I accidentally approached from the back, and took about 10 minutes to walk around the whole building. Such a fancy place, and such an ordinary thing to do here! I snapped a couple of quick photos because it was just so much to see and take in, I wanted to remember it. You pay for a locker, go downstairs, get a towel, change and then go join everybody else in the BIG pools outside. Again, thought I'd died and went to heaven. As I slipped down into the warm water (32 Celcius, perfect!), I looked around at the yellow, ornate buildings and the oversized planters that were spewing water in fountains of various shapes and sized and thought, 'I've been here before, this feels very familiar...'

Then I had it, it was the Bellagio, from Las Vegas! Now, I've never liked Vegas, at all, but I really cannot go back there again after this spring. When we were having lunch in the Piazza in Amalfi a couple of weeks ago I was thinking that it looked suspiciously like the big room in the Venetian Hotel (more than does San Marco Square in Venice I think), and now the baths here are the spitting image of the pools at Bellagio, only much, much better. They're real here. Real peeling paint, fountains and bubbling water that grown-ups are playing and laughing in, real little girls being bounced in the big bubbles by their daddies, young lovers kissing under the waterfalls, old lovers kissing under the waterfalls, men in heady discussions and booming in laughter alternating with finger pointing, older men actually playing chess in the water! Wonderful stuff. I just floated around in bliss. And that's saying something, as my family knows, because I hate getting wet, do not like pools, yuck. Usually that's the case; but here, I never wanted to get out. And the watery activity choices kept changing: the big bubbly jets would go off and a current would start around the tiled tub in the center of the pool, and it was a fast current! Just swept you along if you wanted, or you could opt to sit under one of the peeing planters. And then the current subsided and the waterfalls started along the sides of the pool. And there wasn't just one pool, but three big ones, from what I could see. Two of these roundish ones and a really big, bigger than an Olympic sized pool I think, in the middle for swimming laps. And there were more inside, but I didn't feel the need to get out of my bliss. And there were massage tents set-up, and a weight room, and, and, and...so much more for this is a very large, very old and traditional wellness center. What a great thing to have in your culture; reminded me of the Japanese baths I loved so much, but this is mixed genders, not nude and is a very active place.

I did feel a tad guilty, though, because my family would love this place, it really shouldn't be me who gets to be here enjoying it. Bill, Harlowe, Anna and especially Michael would splash around so happily. I decided I will bring them back one day, and in the meantime, I am very, VERY appreciative and grateful for all the gifts I've been given during this amazing adventure.
Just to top all of this watery pleasure off, it started raining, just a bit. Soft, gentle drops that bounced off the pool's water. There were bubbles coming from below and bubbles coming from above - delicious. I finally and reluctantly climbed out; they were closing for the night, walked through the dark park back to the metro (which I felt quite safe doing all alone even though it was past 10pm) and went to the busy main square and found myself a yummy mojito and yummy Hungarian rice and fruit pudding thing. Again, delicious. I'm having such a good time here and have no children to read or sing to, so I thought I might share this great place while I'm actually still here.  

The rest of the week in Budapest was filled with wandering around the elegant streets and strolling through picturesque squares.  On my second evening my friend Phil arrived, and after living here for five years he knew all the things one must see and do.  He was such a wonderful traveling companion, fun, interesting, charming - so great to catch up with him and let him share 'his' city with me.  He took me to the Buda side of the Danube and showed me the view from the castle, all the while pointing out little points of interest I would have otherwise missed, like the buildings damaged by WWII house to house fighting as the Nazis retreated to the castle hill in their last defense of the city.  We wandered around the Pest side of the river(Budapest was created in the 19th century by the joining of three smaller cities on either side of the Danube), and he took me to the Opera house and school of music, where we stood in the street and listened to the pianists and singers rehearse their beautiful music, and we stopped for coffee in Gerbaud, one of the city's oldest and grandest of coffee houses.  We kept looking up, as one must do in Budapest because of the beauty of all the buildings and statues; many of the buildings in Pest were built in the mid 19th century after a flood wiped out most of the medieval city and civic planners designed a city to copy the beauty and order of Paris.  At about the same time, an Austrian-Hungarian prince visited the city and was dismayed to find a dearth of statuary and so started a focused intent on increasing outdoor sculpture.  Maybe I'm getting old, but I LOVED all the parks and buildings statues; they are really interesting and beautiful, with stories to tell!  What they didn't finish in the 1860's, the architects at the turn of the 20th century did in an amazing array of Art Nouveau buildings and decorations.  

Of course, WWII really took its toll on the city, and after that the Communist era.  The city, and its buildings, are only beginning to recover; but the people are making a concerted effort to recapture the glory that was Budapest for hundreds of years.  To not forget the struggles for independence during the 20th century they have taken all the socialist political statuary and created a park to teach the future generations about the decades of oppression.  This was a place of intense learning for me; I surprisingly found the huge and stoic, heroic statues a little moving and the movie that was made of clips of secret police training videos was more than disturbing.  I kept marveling at the difference between my life of the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, and all that I learned in school and experienced at home, while the people in Hungary lived under Communism.  The vast divide between lives, freedoms and ideology really came as a shock, despite my 'knowledge' of it from school and media in the USA growing up.  It is amazing to me to be in this city now, so full of energy, beauty and enjoyment.  This is definitely a place to come, have a cup of good coffee, enjoy, and learn.