Budapest, Hungary

Budapest may have just been one of our biggest surprises of our trip. I think it surprised me most because I had very low expectations of the city – to me it was just a stop-over on our way to Vienna. I knew Hungary had a similar history to Bulgaria – thus I assumed their capital city to be a lot like Sofia. We were very surprised to find a beautiful city set on the Danube River with amazing architecture displayed in their parliament buildings, St. Stephen's church and the old Buda palace.

We were only there for a day and a half so we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This tour was what they call a “stop and go” tour – as the bus rout had designated stops where you can get on and off the buses as you like within a 24 hr. period. The tour also gave us a high level history lesson that helped explain why Budapest escaped a lot of the communist demise.

Please forgive my lack of detail or precision with this history – but I am trying to repeat what I heard on a bumpy bus ride around a busy city. Unlike Bulgaria, Hungary has a strong Roman Catholic influence – 98% of the residents consider themselves Roman Catholics. Hungary was converted by St. Stephan (Stephan I of Hungary) in 1000AD – converting the whole county to Christianity. Like Bulgaria, the Turks invaded in the 1400’s to establish the Ottoman Empire. Unlike Bulgaria, the Turks only ruled for 150yers – contrasting 400 years in Bulgaria. In the mid 1500s the Austrian Habsburgs invaded and ruled up to the time the Russians came in 1944 to “liberate” them, only to then occupy them. They too were under communist rule from 1944 to 1991 – however the communist did not confiscate all of the land and buildings as they did in other countries. We feel this is a big reason that Budapest still has many of its cultural treasures today. We also think the Christian / Catholic influence also had a large impact on the society that helped them to persevere through the difficult times.

The highlight of the Budapest trip was our restaurant find. After the bus tour, cold and hungry, we passed through the downtown shopping area of Budapest. We spotted a restaurant called “The Cellar” – but it was only a narrow hallway leading back to a distant door. A menu was posted outside and we spotted the Hungarian Goulash and Hungarian Stroganoff – thus we decided to give it a try. We walked the hallway and through the door only to find a spiral staircase heading to nowhere. At the bottom was another set of doors with no light reflecting through – we actually thought they were closed. We pressed through to find a long candle lit hallway literally leading back to a “cellar.” It was wonderful – a nice quiet cozy restaurant, well decorated for the Christmas season sitting beneath the busy city streets. We enjoyed great Hungarian food as Christmas music played in the background – what a wonderful gift.