You're The Buda-best

Since we are meeting some friends in Vienna we had a few days to kill before making our way over so we decided that a few chilled days visiting the thermal baths of Hungary was in order. 

On Thursday we woke up on the enormous lake Balaton and proceeded to do very little for several hours and enjoyed every minute of it. When we finally decided to be real people and get a move on we headed down the lake to our first thermal spa in over a month! Hungary in particular is famous for its spa's since the Turkish occupation for 150 years in the late 16th century and all of the 17th century left behind a huge amount of Turkish culture including these many spas. All rested, and suitably scared by Budapest's clean air zones, we set up in a lovely quiet car park on the outskirts ready to get a train in on the next day.

Budapest was famously once three different cities, Buda, Obuda, and Pest, which combined in 1873. Given the massive size of the 6th capital city we were visiting this trip we decided to go to Pest on one day and Buda and Obuda on the other. This gave us a really good insight into the two very different sides of the city on the Danube.

We very quickly discovered the world of vegan and board game delights that Budapest has to offer with the ability to wander into many shops and them likely having numerous vegan options. One of the longest stops of the first day was into the Hungarian national museum which was a master class in museum curation and had an incredible collection of items. 

Our favourite item was this example flag from the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 to break free from the soviet bloc, the largest such revolution during the entire history of the soviet bloc. Their main symbol was the flag of Communist Hungarian with the central symbol removed by hand.

One of our biggest pastimes when visiting cities is always the board games shops and the dearth experienced in this regard in Italy has already been made up for in Budapest. The home of the Rubik's cube did not disappoint and nerdy delights abounded around every street corner, and we perhaps bought a few too many new games!

A rare meal out and a nice walk along a second of Budapest's many bridge's later we headed back to Moira on the 90p train ready to start again tomorrow on the west side of the Danube.

Budapest is home to a central part of the defensive Roman limes running the whole length of the Danube. This defensive barrier marking the edge of Roman influence was initially fortified with earthworks and wooden structures but after Hadrian became emperor a drive to solidify the borders was launched. In Roman Pommeria this manifested itself in the form of stone forts, the pre-cursor to many European castles, and walls. 

This provided extensive Roman ruins for us to explore including this huge amiptheatre with an arena larger than that of the Colosseum. This monumental structure's history was impressive at the time of the Romans but its use afterwards as a castle, granary, and later rubbish tip was super cool. So huge had the landfill become that by the 19th century it looked like a medium hill and houses for the urban workers in Budapest were built here. Not until some of those workers extended their cellers below was the impressive amiptheatre rediscovered and turned into a park.

Further up the Danube we stopped at the main civil site of Roman occupation: Aquincum. While not as materially impressive as Rome or Pompeii, we have been spoilt by lots of those Italian sites, what it did have was reconstructions. The walls in this little house were a particularly striking reminder that the Romans were not as refined as their white marble that makes it's way to us today and were more garish than the 1970s at their very worst.

After working our way up the Danube along the Roman sites to Obuda we decided to head back over to the significantly more vegan Pest for dinner and to visit a museum that we unfortunately didn't have time for the previous day: the House of Terror. Hungary was fortunately spared much of the Nazi occupation of the rest of Europe but, weakened by the first world war, had little choice but to ally itself to the only major power that would have it: Nazi Germany. This flirtation with the far right turned into a dictatorship in 1944 under the Hungarian fascists the Arrow Cross Party. When the Soviets resoundingly kicked in the door to eastern Europe in 1944 many of those former fascists changed uniforms and became dutiful members of the new communist dictatorship. 

This museum had some incredible symbolism including this room of deportations. Representing the deportations of tens of thousands of Hungarians into the Russian interior the floor was a map of the USSR from West to East and the walls those of the cattle cars that the people were transported in.

Our final stop in the city was atop the formidable castle hill on the Buda side of the river. The high market shops and white marbled squares disambiguated Buda significantly from the 21st century hustle and bustle of Pest or the post-industrial cum suburban Obuda. With a look at the lit up skyline and the beautiful Hungarian parliament building under our belts we headed out of the city for the last time.

After our two super busy days in Budapest we treated ourselves to a relaxed day today and another dip in a different Hungarian spa. The park up on the Danube with the view of Slovakia over the river was a lovely way to wake up for our relaxed day. We've got one final day in Hungary tomorrow before our big stint in Bratislava and finally our second big destination of Vienna!