Today we left the city of Budapest and headed for Vienna, Austria. Let me just say that I think sometimes the people of Europe get a bad reputation for their attitudes and ways they treat Americans. However, from day one on this trip I can honestly say I have never encountered more positive, friendly, helpful people who are willing to drop everything and do just about anything to help. This goes for hotel staff, restaurant staff, fellow travelers, cab drivers, tour guides, and just plain people on the street. For instance today our taxi driver from Budapest gave us suggestions on Vienna, another helpful man let us know where to wait for our exact train car, and yet another man who was just there to put his papa on the train lifted our luggage on for us. God is good. There has pretty much been no language barrier and in every restaurant we go into we are given an English menu. Just makes me realize how much they want to please. Heaven knows if someone speaking another language came to tour in the US I don't know of a place that the language barrier would be so easily overcome. Just a thought to share.

Once in Vienna we checked into our new hotel. It is a boutique hotel. It has quite a charm to it, and is nothing like the Holiday Inns from back in the States. Each floor has artwork from the owners own collection and we are on the floor with all the Donald Duck paintings. Love it! The place even has a scale in the bathroom. Seriously...I am on a two week vacation in the pastry and potato parts of Europe. I don't want to know what I weigh. However, its in kilograms so I would weigh less right?

We toured the Imperial {Hapsburg} Apartments today. The old town buildings are quit beautiful. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures. However, we did learn about a special napkin fold that the Austrians use for formal state dinners. It is one where they are able to put a roll in the folds of the napkin. Only two people on the royal staff know how to do this fold as it is a closely held secret.

We also learned the sad story about the Hapsburg Empress Sisi. She was married to a great leader and was a very beautiful woman. However, she led a very reclusive life out of the limelight of the Austrian people. In her later years she suffered from depression after her son's suicide  and was later assassinated. Her tragic story reminded me of Princess Diana. She was never able to find lasting happiness.

Today we did the Buda side of Budapest with our guide Katie. First, she took us to the Medieval part of the town called Castle Hill. This was a beautiful old part of the town that dates back over 800 years. Unfortunately much of the area was destroyed at the end of WW II, but what they did was rebuild the new part including the medieval walls that remained into the new buildings. This gave the area such charm. It impressed me that even during the time of communism they were trying to save pieces of history.

Here is the beautiful cathedral...

And the palace...

 

And they even built the Hilton Hotel around the medieval walls and buildings when it was constructed in the 1970s. Although the outside of the hotel is mighty ugly, it is amazing on the inside how the incorporated the different centuries of architecture design.

Here are the wonderful panoramic views of the city from another hill we visited.

The Parliament...

 

 

The Pest side of the city...

The Buda side of the city...

And the entire city of Budapest with the Danube...

Katie also took us to the Cave Church which is a Roman Catholic Church which is built into the side of a mountain. It appears as if it is a cave. It is currently an active church after having been blocked and walled off by the Communists until the wall was knocked down and the church was reopened in 1992.

 

So now Stevie and I can say we have visited a church decorated by bones and one that is built in a cave. These people sure know how to make things interesting!

 



After we left Katie, we visited the Terror House. This was a museum which was in a large villa that the Nazi and then Communist parties used as headquarters. They used this building for torture, interrogation, and executions. However, the main reason we wanted to visit it was to get a better understanding of what the Hungarian (and many others) went through during the time of Communism.

As a history lesson,  Hungary fought on the side of Germany until the very last few months of the war. At this point they tried to get out from under Germany. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and became occupied by Germany at  which time many of the historic buildings and bridges were destroyed. Also, in those last few months of the war most of Hungary's Jews were exterminated.

Within a few months Russia from the Allied forces liberated Hungary from the rule and power of the NAZI forces. The Hungarian people were excited, but quickly realized that they had simply traded one evil for another.  The communist party practiced religious persecution, racial persecution, and caused everyone to live in fear.

We ended our final night in Budapest on a river cruise on the Danube. It was pretty awesome to see all of the sights that Katie took us to over the last two days lit up. Budapest truly is a beautiful city and I am glad to see that it has overcome some of the hardships it has experienced in the past.

Stevie and her champagne Danube cruise...

 

 

Parliament by night...

 

 

Castle Hill by night...

 

 

 

Oh, and I thought it was sort of humorous that as Stevie and I were waiting for the metro tonight a young man came up to me with a metro map and asked me how to get to a certain stop. Thank goodness it was on our last  night in Budapest and I was able to answer him without sounding like an idiot. I just thought it interesting that out of everyone in that station he ask me. Then after talking to him I found out he was from Brazil; he asked me if I was from Budapest. So, I must not look like a tourist anymore! And maybe I have picked up a Hungarian accent with my English? 

Today we met Kati who will be our guide in Budapest for the next 2 days. Today we toured the Pest side of the city. Due to the fact that Budapest is much more spread out than Prague our tour has a driver that drops and picks us off at different places. We were thankful as the temps were over 90 today. We visited the section of Pest that was developed for the millennium celebration at the end of the 1800s. Hungary was celebrating its 1000 year history. Once again I realized that the US is so young. We are working on 300 years. The neatest site there was a park where they constructed palaces and churches that showed all of the styles of architecture over the thousand years. I figured that had taken a very long time, but it had on taken several months.

Here we have the medieval castle.....

And the Gothic Church with its Monastery...

We also visited St. Steven's Basilica. It is the largest in Budapest and had some of the most amazing Italian marble inside the church.

 

We also visited the Jewish Quarter where we saw an amazing piece of artwork that was a memorial to those who died and suffered during the Holocaust. The broken limbs symbolize those who were lost and the new growth symbolizes the new generation.

We ended our tour in the market place where they sell every type of fruit and veggie you could think of. Also, they sell paprika. Hungarians use two types...hot and sweet. They use the sweet in their cooking and then have the hot on their tables like salt and pepper to spice up their dishes. They even sell every type of pickled thing you could think of....even some pickled cauliflower that had happy faces on them. Let me just say I wish we had one of these back in Columbus. Absolutely amazing. Made me want to go home and cook something.

 

We ended the evening with a traditional Hungarian folk concert. Lots of dancers, stringed instruments, and gypsy music. It was great fun and a good way to get some Hungarian culture. I even recognized a couple of the songs from American commercials.

Well...we survived the night train. And it was a tad bit iffy at first. At first sight we noticed one thing, that the windows to the sleeper car were wide open and there was no AC. We hauled our luggage into our compartment and then we "unpacked" for the night. What I mean to say is that we situated our luggage into a manner so we could sort of move around our belongs without tripping over them. Our compartment had two bunks, a tiny sink, and I guess what is supposed to be a closet. However, at about 1 X 3 I am not exactly sure what you are supposed to be able to put away in it.

Stevie took the top bunk and God bless her for two reasons. First, it was hot as an attic up there. Second, I am not sure how exactly I would have gotten in and out of the top bunk without working up a sweat even with a ladder.

 

Eventually we became used to the rocking, moving, stopping, and adding and releasing of train cars and fell asleep until we reached Budapest, Hungary.

When we arrived at our hotel in Budapest it was like we were in a different world. We are staying in a hotel that used to be a villa in the 1700s but was renovated into a very nice hotel that is a world away from our night train last night.

 

We then set off to do the most Hungarian thing we could find to do on a hot summer afternoon. We

headed for the Szechenyi Baths. These are thermal baths that date back to the 1800s and produce water that is very warm (approximately 100 degrees) and has jets and bubbles. This was quite an experience. The building that surrounds the outdoor baths and holds the locker rooms, indoor baths, and cabins was absolutely beautiful. However, I think some of the most entertaining parts of our time there was people watching. My, my, my what some people wear as bathing suits. We thought one of the funniest things was the older ladies using the shower caps like we have at the hotel as swimming caps and the older Hungarian men in their Speedos. Interesting to say the least.

 

 

 

Today was our tour to the Auschwitz and Birchaneau  concentration and death camps. It was a pretty surreal experience. I have been to the Holocaust Museum in DC several times and each time I was there it always hit me a little bit differently. However, today was different. To be on the exact spot where so many innocent people were treated so horrendously and then forced to die such horrible deaths was really something. It just still blows my mind how 1.1 to 1.5 million people died either from disease, starvation, or the death chambers and yet no one knew anything or did anything about it.

 

There are no words to describe my feelings when being told how these innocent people were deceived into arriving at these camps. Most times having absolutely no idea the horror and pain that would be ahead of them. I think one of the saddest parts is that except for the small few who died right before liberation, there are no graves and no bodies for the families to visit or pay respects to like we often do at grave sites.

The SS agents were so into hiding all evidence before the liberation that the burned down or blew up the death chambers and many of the buildings that held the personal belongings of the people who had been at the camps.

I agree with the survivors that I just hope that people can learn from this place of sorrow and destruction so that we do not let this piece of history repeat itself.

When we returned to Krakow we visited the Old Town Square and did a little shopping at the Cloth Hall which is the local market place.

We will soon be headed to the train station for a new adventure....a night train from Krakow to Budapest. Stay tuned for what I am sure will be an interesting story.