travel
REIMAGINING THE FUTURE
Where to eat:
There is only one place that you absolutely must eat – Gerbaud. The neo-classical building housing a café, restaurant and pub has changed little in 150 years and, although pricey, it is worth paying a bit more to admire its high gilded ceilings, crystal chandeliers and polished wood and marble.
What to buy:
Hungary is famous for its embroidered cloth, and for generations of young women embroidery has been an important part of growing up. The best places to look are the Castle District and Gellert Hill.
Andrew Papworth discovers how Hungary’s fractious history has left its mark on the capital Budapest
D
espite the events of 1873 when the cities of Buda and Pest were united to form the modern day Budapest, the Hungar- ian capital remains a uniquely divided
city. However, it is no longer polarised between the leafy and undulating Buda and the flat and bustling Pest which are separated by the roaring Danube. Instead, there are multiple fractures through history which have each brought a new divergence to the city’s architecture, culture and people. The most notable tourist attraction, the Gothic styled Buda Castle, ably indicates Budapest’s constant reimagining. Its history has been pock-marked by continuous bombardment during wars and sporadic and sometimes poorly planned rebuilding. Neverthe- less, the castle and its surrounds are a huge draw and the Royal palace built in the late 19th century is the equal of anything found elsewhere in Europe. The castle is mirrored on the Buda side of the river by the Citadel built in 1851 by the Habsburgs to dem- onstrate their power over the Hungarians. From the top, you can take in a view of all Budapest including the majestic parliament building and the beautiful Saint Stephen’s Basilica, and shop for tacky tourist mementos in a number of stalls nearby. If you walk south from the citadel down the steep Gellért hill, you find the Cave Church that lay dormant throughout the communist period. The cave
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was originally home to Saint Istavan who cured the sick with thermal waters nearby. Converted into a church in 1926, it is a beautiful reminder of the way in which the Catholic faith has shaped the country. When music is played during services, it echoes eerily around the cave’s narrow confines and into the various crevices in the walls which host small statues and altars.
The church is not the only place born of thermal waters as there are five major bathing houses located around the city. The Széchenyi Baths are perhaps the most notable because of their size, but the Gellért Baths are just as worthy of a visit. Built between 1912 and 1918, their brass and mosaic tile opulence is at odds with the simplicity of the communist era buildings on the opposite side of the river. Hungary was bolder than some other eastern bloc countries in the way it chose to address its Soviet past. This was seen in the way it has ‘exiled’ the Soviet statues that once adorned Budapest to a newly built park to the southwest of the city. It is relatively difficult to get to the Memento Park (two trams and a bus from the centre) but once you are there, the symbolism is palatable. The front entrance is a huge facade which visitors are required to go around rather than through – just like the commu- nist system. Equally, the Soviet ideal of eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure and eight hours of
If you can only do one thing:
Visit the City Park (Varosliget) which hosts the Mu- seum Of Fine Arts, a zoo and Vajdahunyad Castle among other things. The small lake in the north west of the park provides rowing in the summer and ice-skating in the winter.
sleep is echoed in the three figure-of-eight walkways which circumnavigate the depictions of Soviet heroes – leaders and workers alike. However, to fully understand the impact that Hungary’s flirtation with extreme politics has had on the country, visit the House of Terror on Andrássy Avenue. Its distinctive exterior by architect Attila F. Kovács mirrors the darkness of the far-right govern- ment before and during World War II and the Soviet years, and includes portraits of the victims of both regimes. The museum was funded by the former right-wing government of Viktor Orbán and has been accused of being a political stunt because it affords more focus to the years under Soviet control. If there is just one building in Budapest that speaks of a city trying desperately to reconcile itself with its frac- tious history, then this is certainly it.
Info: a return ticket with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from Cardiff International Airport is around £280, including tax and fees. The cheap- est dorm beds start at about £6.55 (Mandarin Hostel) and the cheapest private rooms start from £5.82 per person (Cloud 9 Contemporary Art Sanitorium – though this is a way outside the city centre). Check www.hostelworld.com for sea- sonal fluctuations. You can also rent a short-term holiday apartment which may work out cheaper.
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