Devin's Travels: Budapest

We arrived in Budapest after a relatively short travel time compared to the past few times and quickly found the hostel that we had booked for our first 3 nights there. After dumping our bags we set off to find some lunch and explore the city a bit. We started off by walking towards the centre of Pest (one of the main regions of Budapest) and from there we made our way to Andrassy street. Here we strolled along looking at all of the beautiful old buildings including one that used to be the headquarters of the communist party and now houses a museum and a cafe where the Secret Police used to visit. At the end of Andrassy street we came to Heroes' Square which is a huge square containing several statues of heroic Hungarians. From here we wandered into the large City Park which was fairly nice but the highlights were the huge Szechenyi Baths and the Vajdahunyad Castle. We decided to save the baths for a later day as we didn't have our trunks with us and it was getting late in the afternoon and the castle is closed to tourists so all we could do was stroll around its perimeter and admire the chaotic building style (the castle has been added to by countless different rulers, each adding their own eras design so the result is quite chaotic). Leaving the City Park we slowly made our way back to our hostel where we just enjoyed a home cooked meal and spent the evening hanging out with other guests in the hostel.

The next morning we got up and after a quick breakfast we set off to explore Buda's castle hill (Buda is the other main are in downtown Budapest and located on the opposite side of the Danube river). Walking to Castle Hill from our hostel took a little while but we eventually made it up on top and from there we started exploring the medieval buildings. We started off by wandering around the Royal Palace and checking out the views from its walls but we didn't actually go inside it as it only housed some art museums now and we figured we would rather spend our time exploring other sights. So after walking around the Royal Palace we started to make our way to the other end of Castle Hill and soon found ourselves at the magnificent Matthias Church. The exterior looked amazing with a multicoloured tiled roof, although there was lots of scaffolding around it for preservation work. The interior of the church was even more breathtaking although it seemed to be turned into more of a tourist attraction than a church as there was even a souvenir shop inside of it. We still enjoyed wandering around the church though and gazing at the magnificence where the old Kings and Queens of Hungary were crowned. Outside of the church there was the Fishermen's Bastion which was a nice wall along the edge of Castle Hill that provided some great views out over Budapest. After the Fishermen's Bastion we made our way to the far end of Castle Hill where we checked out the Military History Museum where we spent the last bit of our available time that day learning all about Hungary's past military campaigns. The museum was huge and after enjoying nearly 2 hours we decided we had to leave even though we weren't finished as we wanted to get to the music festival fairly early that night. Leaving the museum we walked down from Castle Hill through the Vienna Gate and quickly caught the metro back to our hostel. At our hostel we enjoyed a quick and early dinner before heading back out to make our way to the site of the Sziget Festival.

Arriving at the festival we were completely overwhelmed at how huge the area was and the number of people that were there for it. It took us almost 30 minutes of walking around the festival grounds before we were even able to find the main stage although during this time we had stumbled upon a couple of other stages and spent a few minutes enjoying the Hungarian bands playing on them. The festival grounds were huge and it seemed that everywhere you looked there were hundreds of tents pitched for the people that were planning on living there for the next 5 days. To go along with the tents there was every kind of booth imaginable from food booths, to actual bars set up and even a couple of temporary supermarkets. That night we enjoyed music from SKA-P, Snow Patrol, and Lily Allen along with thousands of other people at the main stage before checking out some of the other stages and eventually returning back to our hostel at 4am to crash.

The following morning we got up fairly early (early considering our bed time) and after a quick breakfast we set off to check out Statue Park. After an hour of riding buses we made it to Statue Park which is a dumping ground for old Socialist statues. Since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1991 a bunch of Socialist statues from around Budapest were taken to this park and are now displayed for tourists to come see. We enjoyed wandering around looking at about 50 different statues (some of them absolutely massive while others were just small busts) before we checked out the fantastic museum on site. In the museum they have a video playing on loop that shows some of the training tapes they used for training citizens to spy on their neighbors. It was fascinating to watch but before we could enjoy the entire thing we had to leave in order to catch the bus back to the centre of town. Making it back to the centre we quickly made our way to the hostel where we again enjoyed a quick and early dinner before setting off for the festival. That evening we got to enjoy the end of a German band called Die Toten Hosen, Bloc Party, and Fatboy Slim. Again after the main stage finished we stayed around enjoying some bands on the smaller stages and finally returned to our hostel at 3am to go to bed.

The following morning we had to pack our bags and move to a different nearby hostel as our first one was full. So after arriving at the new hostel where we planned on spending the next three nights we dropped our bags off and made our way to the Terror House, the museum on Andrassy street which used to be the headquarters of the communist party for Hungary. Walking into the museum the first thing that you see is a huge tank pointing its barrel directly at you so it definitely sets the mood for the next few hours. The museum then proceeds to go into amazing detail about how life was like in Hungary under the communist rule, so from the end of WWII right up to 1991. We spent nearly 3 hours checking out the museum and learning what everyday life was like for the citizens of Hungary and what they had to go through during that time frame and I have to say it was probably one of the best museums I've been in in my life. It was a truly great exhibit. After leaving the museum we again returned to our new hostel for an early dinner before heading back out to the music festival. That night we got to enjoy the last bit of JET, Primal Scream, Pendulum, and The Prodigy on the main stage before spending a little while checking a few other stages. We didn't stay too late that night (returning home around 1am) as we planned on getting up early the next morning to do a day trip out of Budapest.

On Saturday morning we got up pretty early and made our way down to the local commuter train station. From here we road the train to the end of the line while trying not to fall asleep again and after about an hour we made it to the picturesque little town of Szentendre. Szentendre is located just north of Budapest on the Danube river where the river starts to turn south (we headed up river from Budapest) and so the region is called the Danube Bend. Once in the town we started to wander its pedestrian lanes in the centre of the town which are all full of little shops, cafes and restaurants. We also visited the Belgrade Cathedral before venturing into the Serbian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Art Collection which had some beautiful religious icons. After the art collection we went to find out how to get to the nearby open air museum, the highlight of Szentendre, but we found out that we just missed the bus out to it so we decided to walk the 3km to the museum.

Arriving at the Open Air Ethnographic Museum we got to walk around several old towns (around 6) that had been rebuilt to show what life in different parts of rural Hungary was like. It was extremely interesting getting to see the different types of houses, churches and stores as they all varied quite a bit over the country. In addition to just seeing what the houses looked like we were able to learn what the main income source was for each region whether it was agriculture, trade, wine or anything else. All in all it was a fantastic way to spend three and a half hours seeing the traditional wooden and stone houses for regions of Hungary that we had already visited. Leaving the museum in the late afternoon we made our long way back to Budapest where we returned to our hostel for a bit of a rest and some quick dinner before heading back out to the festival that evening. At the festival we only got to enjoy Placebo on the main stage but we stayed for quite a while after enjoying some of the local bands on smaller stages. By 1:30 in the morning we decided that we were almost dead and made our way back to the hostel for some much needed sleep.

The next morning was our last full day in Budapest and we decided to take it fairly easy. After a nice sleep in and a late lunch we made our way to the Szechenyi Baths where we planned to relax all afternoon. While in the baths we got to sample about 15 different pools (all of different temperatures and some of them containing healing minerals in the water) and almost as many saunas. After 3 hours of just soaking in the warm and cool pools and exploring the beautiful building we felt much more revived and set off back towards our hostel for another quick dinner. Afterwards we made our way back to the festival for the last time where we enjoyed performances by The Offsring and Faith No More on the main stage. Again we felt we should stay and enjoy some of the other bands playing later but we didn't stay too late as it felt as if the festival had truly come to a close. So just after midnight we left the grounds and went home to bed.

On the following morning we again took our time to get up and after enjoying a leisurely breakfast we packed our bags and set off for the train station. Upon reaching the station we found it absolutely packed with thousands of other people who were clearly leaving the festival but thankfully since we were only getting a domestic train ticket we had no problems with the crowds. After a short wait in the train station we boarded a train bound for Sopron which is near the boarder with Austria and was our next destination.

The interior of the Matthias Church. This picture doesn't really do it justice as it was absolutely fantastic.

One of the largest socialist statues at Statue Park complete with a banana peel that someone had put under his front foot (you can see it if you look closely).