Communist-Era Budapest

It's been another exciting day in Budapest, and I'm quite sad it's the last one of our trip here. We began the day with another delicious hotel breakfast. Today, I tried some more of the sausage, and also tried some traditional Hungarian salami. After breakfast, we caught a bus to Castle Hill, to visit the Hospital in the Rock, a cold-war era hospital that was used both as a hospital and nuclear bunker. The tour of the hospital, which was incredibly interesting, focused on how it was being used during the attempted 1956 revolution in Budapest. We walked through the tight hallways, saw emergency rooms, wards, and storage facilities, and wax sculptures gave a sense about how crowded the hospitals once were.

After that one hour tour, we took a walk on the grounds of the palace, and took some nice pictures of the amazing view of the Parliament and Chain Bridge on the Danube. We also had a drink at a restaurant/cafe overlooking the Danube with some authentic Hungarian musicians in the background. Before returning to our hotel to rest, I had a delicious Romanian "cake" which was basically a long, thin doughnut covered in cinnamon. To prepare for a walking tour at 3:30PM, we rested for a short while at our hotel.

Right before our communist walking tour, which we had planned to do as a follow-up to the general tour yesterday, we took a short walk in the area of the city near the St. Stephen's Basilica. We decided to go into the basilica, and I was quite impressed with the architecture, which was very comparable to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. We also saw a replica of the 1000-year old mummified hand (the real one was being "restored") of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary.

At 3:30PM, we began the communist walking tour, which was essentially a history lesson about life in Hungary during the communist/cold-war era between 1945 and 1991. I learned so much about communist life in both Hungary and in general, and I also learned a bit about the history of communism itself. The tour was less about the sights, and more about the history, but we still got to see a communist-era bus terminal, and a monument commemorating liberation from Germany by the Soviets when communism first began (pictured above). We also stopped by the American embassy, which is actually the most heavily guarded building in the city.

Among some of the things I learned were travel, religion, economy, jobs, education, propaganda, TV, and entertainment during the communist era. Something interesting was that Hungary was allowed to have a lot more Western privileges than the other communist countries in the 70s and 80s. In these two decades, Hungarians could drink Coca-Cola and watch MTV music videos. We concluded the tour in one of Budapest's famous ruin-pubs, pubs built in abandoned buildings. There, we learned about the history of Hungary after communism ended, and how privatization rapidly occurred in the city.

After the tour, it was already 6PM, so we decided to have a quick very late lunch at a fast-food diner selling German sausages. I had a very good Bratwurst sausage. We then returned to the hotel to get the proper attire to go to one of Budapest's bathhouses. The ones we decided to go to were the Szechenyi baths in the City Park. We enjoyed some nice warm pools with powerful whirlpools, and relaxing massaging jets. We spent about 2 hours there relaxing before having a proper dinner.

Since we were undecided on food, we ate at the same restaurant as yesterday, as they had a very wide selection of Hungarian foods. I had a fried veal cutlet with potatoes, while my father had a goose leg. It was just as delicious as yesterday, and I think that this restaurant, the Ferencz Jozsef Sorozo, is one of my favorites of all time.

Now, it was 10:30PM and we needed to return to the hotel. We took a nighttime walk down Andrassy Ut, and saw the nightlife in the city on a Friday night, which was considerably more alive than on weeknights. Tomorrow, we'll have our last breakfast in Budapest, and then take a train to Vienna in Austria, to spend 3 full days exploring one of the most famous cities in the world. As for Budapest, I really enjoyed my time and would definitely return in the future.