Budapest Visit Continues

Thursday May 22

Budapest

Another sunny day so we thought we would tackle another walk on the City Walk’s Map, degree of difficulty – 5, the highest of all the walks.

We walked along the river to the Elizabeth Bridge and up on the hill on the Buda side of the river we could see the statue of St Gellert an early missionary bishop, who died in the 11^th century when pagans sealed him in a barrel at this place and pushed him into the Danube.

Below us moored against the bank was the Amalyra, the boat we will board tomorrow for our trip to Amsterdam and then continue on to Basel.  The passengers from Amsterdam will be enjoying a tour of Budapest and sleeping on-board tonight before concluding their trip in the morning.

Liberty Statue

After a steep climb we arrived at the statue before continuing our climb to the summit to view the Liberty Statue a 14 m high figure of a women holding aloft the palm of victory, this is mounted on a high column with two supporting statues at its base.  One is an allegory of progress, the other the fight against evil.

This memorial was erected by the Russians and included at its base a statue of a Russian soldier with a machine gun, the caption at the base of the column was in praise of the magnificent Red Army. 

When Hungary obtained its freedom from Russia, the statue of the soldier was removed and the caption on the base was replaced as a memorial to those Hungarians who lost their lives in the struggle for independence.

This memorial is on the highest point of Buda and provides a wonderful view back across the river to the Pest side of the town and all the bridges across the river.  The three bridges visible, the Chain Bridge 1849, the Elizabeth Bridge 1903 and the Liberty Bridge, formally the Franz Joseph Bridge 1899, were all destroyed by Germans in 1945 and were subsequently rebuilt in their original form.

Also on the summit, just below the stature, is the Citadel a former fortress built in 1851 by the Habsburg army.  After Hungary split from them in 1867 they demanded its destruction but only the main gate was symbolically destroyed in 1897.  During WW II the German SS used it as their HQ.

Liberty Statue from Liberty Bridge

Walking back on the other side of the hill we came to the Gellert Hill Cave Church, this is part of a network of caves and it is also known as St Ivan’s cave, named after a hermit who lived there.  The Pauline Order of monks looks after the church and continues to hold regular religious services.  We then walked across the Liberty Bridge to the Pest side and continued on back to our hotel, probably covering seven kilometres with a steep uphill and downhill climb to provide some extra exercise.

Sorry you can't have a lift

On the way back Ann tried to obtain a lift on a scooter, but the rider refused to move, he obviously didn't realise how tired she was.

Before entering the hotel we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream as we judged we had earned it.

St Stephen's Basilica

 Just when I thought it was safe to take off my shoes and relax, Ann decided that we should go for a walk up towards the Parliament.  We crossed the road in front of the hotel and walked through a park before turning up a street towards St Stephen’s Basilica, the largest RC church in Budapest.

From there we walked along towards Liberty Square, first arriving at a small square where a man was addressing a small crowd, along the edge of the square there were about forty riot police lined up and the streets leading to the square were blocked off, we couldn’t find out what the meeting was about.  Further along we arrived at Liberty Square where parts were also blocked off.  In the square is a large monument commemorating the Soviet troops killed in the siege of Budapest in 1945, this is the only communist monument in the city still standing in its original position.

Nagy Imre Prime Minister of Hungary

On the edge of the square Ann stopped to speak with Ronald Reagan, who looks a lot better than last time I saw him on TV.  Further along the street leading to the Parliament we found a statue of Nagy Imre, Prime Minister of Hungary on two occasions , his second term was during the Revolution of 1956.  He was put on trial and executed in 1958.

Tongue-less Lion guarding the Chain Bridge

At the end of the street we were greeted by the view of the Parliament, the largest building in Hungary, it has 691 rooms and I hope the Hungarian people don’t elect enough politicians to fill them.

Walking on towards the river we headed back to the hotel, stopping to photograph one of the four tongue-less lions guarding the bridge, a pair at each end.  From there it was a short walk back to the hotel where I finally was able to relax.