Budapest Control

Budapest - Vienna - Salzburg

Part 1: Budapest

At the beginning of March, I went on a three day trip to Budapest, Vienna, and Salzburg. This was one of my less eventful and exciting trips, which I think can be attributed  to the repetition of big, old cities. Out of the three, however, Salzburg was my favorite. Sound of Music, anyone? But first let me take you briefly through Budapest.

Our walking tour began with a beautiful synagogue,

hi I'm a beautiful synagogue

 followed by the Hungarian State Opera House, which we unfortunately didn't get to venture into:

showing some cool show

The main attraction of the day was St. Stephen's Basilica in central Budapest! Not to be confused with St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna - but I'll get to that.

she's a beaut

"I am the way, the truth, and the life"

Lots and lots and lots of gold:

      ^ this guy though

beautiful altar

This was super cool though: this reliquary (read: box) houses the Holy Right Hand of Saint Stephen! It was withered and decrepit (think: Dumbledore in the 6th).

better than any of my gingerbread houses

From there, we explored the main part of the town, including Freedom Square, where we saw many cool monuments such as this one...or so I thought.

This somewhat recent monument depicts an eagle (symbolizing imperialism) swooping down and snatching Hungary out of the hand of Gabriel the Archangel. This was supposed to be in remembrance of the victims of the Nazis, but is seen more as a rewriting of history showing Hungary as innocent in the Holocaust.

For this reason, there were several small protests at the base of the monument.

yikes

Anyway, in the middle of Freedom Square is the Soviet Red Army Memorial obelisk,

 

 and of course, Ronald Reagan??? :)

Don't even get me started on the people who didn't recognize him.


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The last bit of Freedom Square is Imre Nagy, the Communist leader of an uprising to free Hungary’s Communist project from the Soviet Union.

I just think he's cute

Then we set off for the Hungarian Parliament Building!

wow!!!

horse!

We then faced the Danube River, with the other half of Budapest on the other side (I believe that is Pest, and we were in Buda).

lol @ split cars

coming for ya!

The Shoes on the Danube River is a monument for the Jews killed by a fascist leader. The victims were forced to take off their shoes and were then shot at the edge so that their bodies would fall into the water.   :(

:(

Then we crossed over the Chain Bridge to Pest!

ugh what a pest

Aslan?

Pest wasn't as cool as Buda, I think.

Matthias Church (Catholic!)

Trinity Square featuring an obelisk of, well, the Holy Trinity!

coincidence?

A Hungarian police car, too cute to be taken seriously.

the square

the horse in the square

cute little salt turrets!

is this a postcard?

Oh yeah, here's proof that I was there.

awkward hands: a memoir

That night, we walked around the city a bit, but we were too tired to go too far.

clearly my photo skills are sublime

I did, however, purchase a very nice memento from a little market!

Jack Daniels, anyone?

Also that night, we went to the famous hot springs in Budapest! This is the metro we took to get there, complete with NYC subway tiles.

Gothic, as usual

I didn't bring my phone into the springs (sorry if I got you excited for half-dressed swimmers), but believe it or not, we ran/swam into a George Mason alumnus! The world is much too small.