Continental Drifters - Day Four

Today saw us equally as thwarted in our touristic efforts as yesterday, as our best-laid plans to visit the Hungarian Parliament were put to waste by a closure on account of official state business.

The Hungarian Parliament, which was clearly not in the cards for us.

A quick appraisal of the situation led us to head out to Hero's Square, one of the top sites in Budapest, and which had been cut from our agenda due to time constraints. Much as we would like, we simply cannot see everything. The square was quite stately, and was full of typically expressive Hungarian statuary featuring former kings and mythical warriors from Hungarian history.

The base of the main sculpture features equestrian statues of the seven principle Magyar (ethnic Hungarian) warriors who led their people into the territory that would eventual become Hungary during the 10th century.

We also checked out the nearby Vajdahunyad Castle, a baroque structure (of course) that had caught Dad's eye on the way back from the baths the day before. Mostly, we tried to find someone to take one last photo of the two of us in Budapest, but with the bright sunlight shining from an unfavorable angle, we were largely unsuccessful in that enterprise as well.

Vajdahunyad Castle, a faux castle designed in a late 19th century swell of Hungarian national pride, intended to showcase the evolution of architectural styles during the country's history.

This was the best we could do, squinty faces and kind of blurry, but at least part of the statue is in the picture, unlike the attempts made by other tourists on our behalf.

Thankfully, we seemed to encounter better luck in Vienna, where we arrived after a un-noteworthy train journey. We had selected a boutique hotel recommended by Dad's "Bible," the New York Times, the Ring Hotel, and even though the taxi driver had never heard of it and seemed skeptical that it even existed, we were very happy with it, especially when they gave us a free upgrade to a suite that is supposed to retail for 750 Euros a night. It was utterly posh -- three kinds of soap in the bathroom, two plasma TVs (one for the bedroom and one for the living room, two closets, a position on a corner such that there were windows on two sides, and lovely, modern furnishings in wenge. The only problem was the traditional separation of the toilet from the rest of the bathroom -- it's actual location was initially unclear (that speaks again to the size of the room), and Dad was starting to fear that we didn't have one. We managed to locate it eventually, and after a tasty supper at a nearby restaurant recommended by the concierge, we settled in for a most pleasant stay in Vienna.

Continental Drifters - Day Three

Well, if yesterday's theme was Hungary's oppression under the Communist regime, the theme for today's adventures was our oppression at the hands of the Budapest Marathon. It followed us like a plague throughout our planned itinerary -- no matter where we went, we seemed to be inadvertently following the course of the race at the moment it was being inundated with runners. Taxis had to take routes that were vastly out of our way due to road and bridge closures. Dad's patience was put to the test as it took us the better part of half a day to see the two small churches on the Buda side of the river that caught Dad's attention, and the Museum of Applied Arts.

St. Anna's, left, turned out to be closed to the public, and the most interesting feature of the Calvinist Church, right, turned out to be the tiled roof.

The Museum of Applied Arts was confusingly organized, strangely more focused on who donated the artifacts than the pieces themselves, and evincing some of the peeling and crumbling that seems to characterize the city, but it did contain an exhibit on Hungarian couture that was compellingly laid out. Based on my admittedly limited exposure, Budapest seems to be somewhat of a hotbed for cutting-edge exhibition design.

The actual artifacts contained within may have been a bit of a let-down, but the Museum of Applied Arts was spectacularly pretty on the outside.

The highlight of the day was the Széchenyi Baths, a thermal spring harnessed for therapeutic bathing. Since such baths are a large part of Hungarian culture, I thought we should experience them, even if public swimming is far from my idea of a good time. The baths were definitely intended for a knowledgeable Hungarian audience, as the staff spoke rudimentary English at best, and English signage was scarce. Through sheer determination and perseverance, we got assigned a private changing room, and, alas, one towel to share between the two of us. The water itself was toasty warm, and felt great.

Dad likened the experience to going to a public pool, but I thought the surroundings were significantly more glam.

So many horrible Speedos... That's Europe for you...

Highlights of the baths included the built-in tables where old men were camped out playing chess, and a circular pool with an intermittent strong current which pulled you along rapidly in a vortex. It was a little scary trying to extricate myself from the current, but it was still the most fun I'd had all day. All things considered, even with our relaxing afternoon at Széchenyi, it was not one of the better days in our long history of European vacations.

Continental Drifters - Day Two

For our first full day in Budapest, I had selected an itinerary focused around the legacy of communism in the city, centered on a visit to Memento Park, where city officials relocated the monuments of the fallen regime in 1989. However, Memento Park is located on the outskirts of the city, and the best way to get there is by a special sightseeing bus, that leaves only at 11:00. Since I despise wasting time on vacation, we started off the day with a visit to Mátyás Church, the city's preeminent Gothic cathedral.

Constructed almost 800 years ago, the most striking element of the exterior was the strikingly tiled roof, a common denominator in traditional Hungarian architecture.

The inside of the church is beautifully, and elaborately painted.

On the advice of the guidebook, we set out upon a walking tour of the castle district designed to take 90 minutes, which would have placed us back on the Pest side of the Danube in time to catch our bus. Perhaps the book assumes a particularly brisk pace, or else we lingered too long taking in all the majesty of the Mátyás Church, but we found ourselves hustling at full tilt by the end of our journey to make it to the bus stop on time, much to Dad's chagrin.

A view of Pest, from Buda Castle.

Although the park itself turned out to be a little on the shabby side, it had been at the top of my list for sightseeing in Budapest, and I reveled in the Soviet Realist works, particularly a fantastic sculpture commemorating the short-lived socialist state declared by the Hungarians after World War I, depicting a progressive worker waving the red flag.

We continued the communist theme at the Terror House Museum, which tells the story of Hungary's dual 20th century oppressions, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviet puppet state. The museum's texts were mostly in Hungarian, with only fliers giving information in English, but to me, it was most interesting for the way it portrayed information. Most of the actual exhibits were abstract in nature, like a table set for a Nazi victory party or a revolving platform with both Nazi and Soviet uniforms, such that the lessons came from oral histories instead of artifacts. The oral histories were presented both on film, and via old-fashioned phones mounted on the wall. When you pick up a phone and dial, you connect directly with the voices of the past. Also particularly powerful was the basement of the building, which housed a recreation of the original cells used to house and torture political prisoners.

The awning of the museum casts a shadow on the ground reading "Terror" and is designed to symbolize the way in which the Communist dictatorship cast a pall over all aspects of Hungarian life.

In sum, the day was an interesting contrast between what the Germans call "ostalgie" or a nostalgia for the Soviet past, often expressed in a kitschy manner, and the very real suffering experienced at the hands of communist rule. As a student of the Cold War, I found it to be a particularly satisfying day of tourism.

Continental Drifters - Day One

On the first day of our European adventure, I got to realize two of my long-held dreams pertaining to air travel -- flying business class, and having someone waiting for me at the terminal with my name on a sign. Turns out that having the hotel driver waiting for us at the terminal was just as exciting as I imagined, but business class, while infinitely better than coach, wasn't the utopia I'd envisioned. Granted, there were white table cloths on the tray tables, and the actual glass cups and metal silverware brought a smile to my face every time I got served a new meal, however, the seats still weren't exactly what I would call "comfortable." I didn't sleep much, but the flight felt much shorter than it does in the back of the plane.

After almost eleven hours of travel, we were glad to find ourselves in a lovely suite at the Intercontinental Budapest, with a view of the Danube River. The travel may have been exhausting, but it would prove to be well worth the ordeal.

Buda Castle on our first night in Budapest.