Budapest

Sunday, April 29, 2018

We began the day with a ride on the city’s newest Metro Line, with a station conveniently located on our corner.  Line 4 is just four years old and the stations we saw were spotless, accessible, and had clear directions at each station regarding which exits to use to connect to specific trams and buses – very sleek!

Thusly informed, we easily connected to the right bus to deliver us to  Memento Park, high in the hills above Budapest.  This open-air museum displays a collection of statues, plaques and monuments from the era of the Soviet occupation of Hungary. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, the statues, which had stood throughout Budapest, were gathered here, rather than being scrapped or destroyed.  Various Russian and Hungarian Communist leaders, soldiers and heroes are displayed in the park, along with plaques indicating where in the city the statues had originally stood.  The monumentality of several of the statues was a tangible statement of the force and power of the ruling Soviets. The museum also included some displays focused on the occupation, the 1956 Uprising and subsequent events, as well as a video compiled from Secret Police training films dealing with surveillance and spycraft.

It was sunny and warm in the midday sun, so we happily boarded the air conditioned bus down the hill to the Metro and then another bus through some lovely residential areas and up yet another hill.  Gellert Hill is just south of Castle Hill and is the site of the Citadel and the Liberty Statue, high above the Buda side of the Danube.  The views were lovely and it was nice to be at the feet of Hungary’s Miss Liberty; we’d become accustomed to seeing her from far below or across the river. 

We took the return bus back down to “earth” and found a tram that runs a nice ring around the city center.  We exited on the Margit Bridge for some photos (surprise!) south to the Parliament under a sky that was beginning to darken and some welcome breezes. 

Another short walk led us to another tram along the river and back for Happy Hour at “home.”