Hungary - June 23-27

In Hungary, we visited Budapest, Pecs, and stopped in some interesting towns along the way. Crossed a ferry, always fun, ran across a couple of weekend festivals, learned a lot about the "dual occupation", saw sights we'd never seen before, and had a few beers. Here, in roughly chronological order, is our trip through Magyar, Megorzi, Megyei, Madarsko, Hungary, or whatever.

Terry spent a bit of time in the Zsolnary Ceramics Museum in Pecs (pictures of that are on another page).

Szentendre is an artist colony along the Danube, or it was when there were artists here. Those that were, weren't very good from what we saw. At least no one bought their paintings and sculptures so they seemingly all have museums displaying their works for a couple of bucks entrance fee.

Two interesting items to pass on other than this being a "Nashville of the Danube". 1) Parking downtown is paid for by giving 200HUF (Hungarian forints, about $1) to a person who walks to your car asking how long you're going to be parked. He's for real and has city credentials (we think).

2) A pork cutlet Szentendre style is covered in grated potatoes and then deep fried. Crunchy and delicious.

Budapest is large and bustling. With 1,800,000 people, it's larger than Vienna and twice the size of Indianapolis. One fifth of the Hungarian population lives there. Even with 3 underground lines, dozens of tram lines, and hundreds of bus routes the traffic is still a nightmare. It takes an hour to get from the north side to the southwest side if your hotel is there and if you have to cross the Danube twice when you get in the wrong lane at the wrong time. Fun and scenic though.

The view out our hotel window.
Trams like in Bratislava, just a lot more of everything.

Terry made her visit to the Decorative Arts museum in this city also.
200 Russian icons were on display and some nice clocks but not many other exhibits.
The highlight was a showing of the winners of a national crafts competition.
Excellent stuff but no pictures allowed other than this one view of the atrium.
Art, carvings, ironwork, decorated eggs, crewelwork, weaving, clothes, etc.

It's 33ºC. Omar, did you notice the CO, SO₂, and NO levels?
Nope, we don't know if they're good or not either.
Oh, and that's not a Hooters outfit.

The M1 Metro in Budapest was the first underground on the continent of Europe.
It's stations are small, clean, and beautifully tiled.

It wouldn't be right without a panorama of Pest from the Buda side of the Danube.

The newest big museum is the House of Terror located in the building occupied by the Nazi and then the Communist secret police. It's a must-see. Horrifying. Glad we were viewng it from the perceived distance of time and from across an ocean.

Hungary was occupied by the Germans only in March, 1944, 5 years into WWII. That's when their problems started. The Russians were already advancing toward the eastern edge of Hungary when the Germans invaded from Austria in the west to meet them. A puppet government, Arrow Cross, was set up that quickly implemented the Nazi tenets, deporting 400,000 Jews and Gypsies - most of which dug trenches along the Austrian border to improve defenses in the rear.

In the winter if 1944, the people found themselves fighting the Soviet advance through Budapest under the direction of the already-hated Arrow Cross.

When the Russians "liberated" Hungary in the spring of 1945, they immediately held mock elections that elected the Communist party into control. Since there had been no Communist party before, this really was the Arrow Cross hierarchy which just changed sides. The SS was replaced with the various predecessors of the KGB. Judges were replaced with party members. Other political parties were outlawed. Soviet advisors came in to manage the economy, industry, and education systems.

During the next 11 years things went steadily downhill. Laws were passed to allow detaining people even if sufficient evidence to convict didn't exist. Confession alone was made sufficient evidence for conviction. It was illegal not to turn in anyone who committed a criminal act - thus allowing family members of criminals to be jailed also. By 1956, 1,500,000 of the 4,500,000 Hungarian citizens had been convicted of a crime. 600,000 to 700,000 of these were sent to gulags in the USSR.

Incompetent management by party regulars along with the communist economic system ended up causing shortages of industrial products and rationing of food. Secondary education was limited to ethnically pure children who had no criminal family members.

This tale goes on. It takes 3 hours to fully transverse the 4 floors of this museum. Each room focuses on one aspect of the Arrow Cross or Soviet atrocities. The story ends quickly after 1956 when a populist movement briefly took control of the country, fighting and winning against the comparatively small USSR military that was left in the country after Stalin's death in 1953.

Khrushchev had denounced Stalin's crimes and student demonstrations in Budapest on October 23rd, 1956 grew to take over the city, and hence the country, on the 29th.

Unfortunately, Khrushchev sent in more troops and they regained control of the country, not to leave again until 1991. This rebellion did, though, unseat the old guard that ran the country and the replacement regime set up in 1956 was much more benign, if not more competent. Proper laws were re-instituted, the corrupt government members were not returned to power (many being dead or in a hasty exile).

The last exhibit in the House of Terror are walls of names and pictures of "victimizers". These are the Arrow Cross members, collaborators, judges, prosecutors, along with members of MKP, DISZ, AVO, AVH, KATPOL, GRO, and other police of various types. Gutsy.

For a lighter time, we visited the Labyrinth up on Castle Hill on the Buda (west) side of the river. It's a tongue-in-cheek walk through a series of chambers built partly in natural caves under the castle that were used in WWII just once as an air-raid shelter. A one-mile walk through this dimly lit area is fun and spooky with only an issued oil lamp for illumination in many places.

We found this room by smell. An ivy-covered flowing wine fountain.
Didn't try the wine though, no cup.
Don't know how the ivy grows underground either.

Leaving Budapest, we ran across another red light district - much different from the crowded streets of Barcelona. This was a 10-mile stretch of 2-lane road between Ullo and Alsopakony (thought you'd want to know exactly where). At more than a dozen wide spots and pull-offs ladies of the evening (OK, Saturday morning) were displaying their wares, each standing all alone, as if waiting for a bus. Strange.

In a small town, Kiskunlachaza, we spotted a town fair and couldn't resist. When we arrived about 1pm, family groups and clubs were furiously cooking a large variety of food but nobody was eating it. Still hadn't when we left 90 minutes later. Seems like there was to be a judging of some kind since place settings were ready with china and napkins.

Pecs is a very old walled city with Turkish ties that go way back and Roman ties going way way back. In fact there's a series of mausoleums they are exploring that date to the 4th century. Wall paintings in one depict Daniel in the lions den and Adam and Eve.

The original city walls from the 1400s are quite intact. They encircle an area quite like Bratislava - being turned into tourist central. Restaurant menus are in Hungarian, German, and English. ATMs and ice cream stands abound; almost more of them than small $2 entry-fee museums. We stopped at one of the mausoleums, the Zsolnary Ceramics Museum, a wine shop, a really touristy mining museum, and just walked around.

Statues in Pecs don't have headaches but they are continually checking their deodorant.

Found another street fair in Pecs. This one probably occurs every weekend. The highlight was bread tubes - pie dough striped over rolling pin-sized forms and cooked on a spit over an open flame. Sugar is sifted onto them when warm. Delicious but no doubt thousands of calories.

On the way back west from Pecs we saw many storks nests - all on telephone poles rather than chimneys. Just something you don't see in the USA.

Outside of Nagybajom Bob pulled into a little rest stop looking for a WC and found a real live Soviet monument instead. This monolith's concrete is eroding badly and the rubber is falling off the wheels of the guns but the grass is being cut. Walls in back of the monument are obviously names and ranks of Russian soldiers - probably a list of the dead in a battle with the Germans. Dates under the statue are ДЕКАБРЪ 1944 - МАРТ 1945ѓ (gotta get a Cyrillic dictionary). No signs in Hungarian at all. It was surely built to commemorate great deeds but it sure seems out of place where it is now.

As we drove east though Slovakia from Bratislava the flat, productive, farmland was interrupted every 6-10 miles by towns. The farmland is all under cultivation but there aren't farmhouses anywhere. Every few miles there are still large cooperative barn areas holding the machinery for thousands of acres of land. Seems to be left over from the Soviet occupation.

Interesting to see many Trabants made in East Germany on the roads in Hungary. Lots of Ladas also. Slovakia was full of Skodas and the occasional Dacia but no Trabants. Polski Fiats are in both countries. Bob's been taking pictures of unusual cars and we'll put up a page of them later.

Budapest had many more people sleeping on the street than Bratislava. Although the people walk faster and look more curiously at you, there's obviously a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots in Hungary where capitalism regained a foothold much earlier.

During our 5 days in Hungary we only learned to use one word, köszönöm, pronounced cussin' em - thank you. With that, pointing, and people writing down amounts, you can get along OK.

Ice Tea comes in lemonade, peach, blackcurrent (in Hungary), Apple (in Austria), and Mango (in France) but not in tea flavor. And ice has nothing to do with it - only once did Terry get any ice and then only after asking for it. She'd kill for a proper glass of sun tea about now - not to mention a proper Idaho baked potato. Did find stale popcorn though.

Kaltenberg Etterem is a new brewpub/restaurant about 5 miles west of the the city center down a side street but only a block from the M3 Metro and the inside ring tram line. It's owned by Kaltenberg of Germany and that really shows. Located in the basement, it's a BIG place. Four tourist busses outside were absorbed with no problem and plenty of seating and suited waiters left over. Brick arched ceilings and old-German dark wood are illuminated only by yellow lights - very brauhaus looking. The strolling violin, guitar, and accordion in the evening added to the effect but they played lots of waltzes of course.

We stopped in the afternoon and tried the Helles, being told not to try the Dunkle by the waiter. He even brought two Helles when we insisted on one of each. Went back to eat in the evening and finally got the Dunkle. Odd.

Beers are 660 HUF ($3.32) for a liter and half that for a half liter.

Helles - Slightly salty sea aroma. Very fresh. Nice beer.
Dunkle - Nothing wrong with it at all. Quite black. If somebody told me it is a porter, I'd believe them. Maybe not top-fermented but it bears no family resemblance to their Helles. (See Topvar Barna below).

Gerbeaud has been a Budapest institution in downtown since it started as a confectionary and tea house in 1858. Small sandwiches and salads are the noonday faire along with sweets, tortes, ice cream, sor (beer) and apertifs. A block from the Danube directly outside the M1 Metro station - easy to find.

The downstairs brewhouse located in the evening pub makes just one beer, Gerbeaud Csapoly, available only fass (on draught). It's a vilagos pilsei (light pils) that is hoppy and middle of the road.

BUT we cannot recommend anyone ever go to this place. We were warned by various guidebooks that downtown restaurants will cheat their customers with inflated bills. Didn't expect it at a classy brewpub though. We were surprised to be charged over $30 US for a salad, a thin ham sandwich, a beer, and a bottle of lemon ice tea. Especially when they added up to about half that (still pricey) on the menu. They added a 15% charge for something unexplained (maybe VAT?) and another 25% for something else unexplained. The waitress then haughtily pointed out that the tip was not included in that total. Stiffed her. Wouldn't go back and don't suggest you do.

In Pecs, try Gambrinus Sorozo two blocks south of the main square on Terez Utca. Seems to be the best beer bar in town with 4 taps.

The Pesci Sorofozdebor (brewery) promoted themselves in Pecs by delivering
beer by horse. Thought of Upland's Maibock unveiling when I saw this.