Budapest

We had a few days spare in Europe and spent quite a while deciding where to go. Budapest won out, with several recommendations leading us to book four nights in the city.

We CouchSurfed with a lovely couple who made us some amazing food while we we there. Breakfast each morning was bread dipped in homemade aubergine cream - a creamy, rich Hungarian dish. Along with the aubergine cream, Hungarians eat bars of chocolate-coated curd for breakfast. We didn’t get used to the idea of chocolate for breakfast, but the aubergine cream was delicious.

One day we went out with one of our hosts to see the city, which is full of interesting buildings and sculptures.

Luckily, we were able to visit the World Press Photo Exhibition while we were in Budapest. The annual exhibition has toured the world for the more than 55 years. We try to make it to the exhibition when it comes to Wellington as it’s always a moving and powerful experience. This year’s exhibition was no exception, including coverage of the Japanese tsunami, Norway’s mass-murder and the Arab Spring uprisings.

Staying on a downbeat theme on the rainy afternoon, we visited the Terror Museum. The museum occupies a building which was once used as a headquarters and interrogation facility by first fascist and then communist secret police. Hungary was occupied by the Nazis late in WWII, and was only under fascist rule for eight months. Sadly, this was enough time to arrange the murder of almost 90% of the Hungarian Jewish population. In a case of the cure being as bad as the disease, Hungary was “liberated” by Soviet forces in 1945. Though electoral manipulation, the Soviets bought Hungary into the Soviet Bloc and USSR forces occupied the country for more than 40 years.

With peculiar timing, we witnessed something unusual just after leaving the Terror Museum. As we walked down a busy street we saw two men who had a third man in a grapple hold. We heard a clatter and then saw one of the two men bend down to pick up a pistol that had fallen out onto the pavement! We moved away quickly but looked back to see the two men holding the guy against the wall, as if to search him. We really didn’t know what was going on, but our best guess is that the two men were plain-clothed policemen.

Later that night we went to our first ever opera, a production of Carmen at the grand Hungarian State Opera House. The tickets are great value – we decided against the NZ$2.8 seats with no view and instead went for NZ$20 seats in an elevated box.

We were glad that we went to such a well-known opera, as it was sung in French with Hungarian subtitles! To help us understand what was going on, we bought an English programme, only to find that it was missing the synopsis for Act 3… As we expected, we enjoyed the experience but opera is not our favourite style of theatre.

Since Budapest came so well recommended we had high expectations for our visit. The city didn’t disappoint - the Eastern European influence was interesting, there were plenty of great sights and once again we had a great CouchSurfing experience that really enriched our visit. We have now joined the long list of people who recommend Budapest as a great travel destination!

Comments from WordPress

• Alice 2012-11-13T21:02:39Z

  I loved the chocolate covered curd candy bars - Turo’ Rudi. I miss them a lot actually. Glad you enjoyed Budapest - looks like it got cold quickly. It was 34 degrees when I was there. Love that place! :D But did you make it to one of the ruin bars? Or drink Palinka?

• Craig and Sal 2012-11-19T11:51:03Z

  We did have some Palinka (including some insanely strong homebrew from our hosts) but didn’t get to the ruin bars. You were right about Budapest being a cool city to visit, thanks for the tip :-) Hope you’re enjoying repatriated life!

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson