HUNGARY

Budapest, Hungary     Wed 16th to Sun 20th July
Sarah is in love with Budapest so we have to go there.

Accomm -  Medosz Hotel for Raina.  

                        Retox Party Hostel for Sarah. 

We have arrived in Budapest and have checked in.  The view from my room is like an add for "Come see Europe".

 Hungarian Goulash  

Polinka = 44% proof

Day 5 Budapest is stunning. I can see why Sarah is in love with this city. Well, because of the beauty and ……maybe the Hostel life! One problem with this fair town is the sun. it is fully daylight at 5 am and not dark until well after 9.30pm. Budapest is a twin city split by the mighty Danube River and is referred to as the Paris of the East. We think Paris is kidding it's self. Budapest is far more stunning. 

Pest is on the right bank and is flat, grungy and hipster.  Buda is on the left bank and is very hilly and not at all grungy. Buda has all of the castles etc. We stayed on the Pest side.

The buildings on both sides are amazing. So old and elaborate. Don't quite understand how as 80% oft them were destroyed in WW11 but there is still this many stunning ones left.

The detail on the buildings is amazing. Demons holding up lights, guys holding up lintels.

Today we hopped on the tour buses and did loops of the city. We saw so much. Their Parliament House is amazing. The biggest building in Hungary and is topped by 365 spires.  There is a Citadel on top of the big hill in Buda and many monuments.

The "Chain Bridge" is the first suspension bridge in Europe. And just near it is a large tunnel. 

We went through the tunnel a few times and heard the same stories over and over. From now on the Chain Bridge will be our "Marble Arch"(remember our London trip, with us whinging about how many times we heard about Marble Arch). 

But interesting fact....... there is a Budapest joke that the tunnel was built so that if it rained they could push the Chain Bridge into it to stop it rusting.  Hahaha.  Funny the first three times. 

It rained a bit today.  Big fat heavy drops. We got a bit wet.  But then we got dry. Then it got hot again and we sweated again.  Then it rained a bit more….etc. Raina did three bus trips and also boat trips and saw it MANY times.We also heard another story many times.  The stone worker who did the ends of the Chain Bridge was so proud of his work that he declared if anyone could find fault he would jump off the bridge. One of the carpenters spoke up and said that the Lions had no tongues. So he had to jump, Lucky he could swim! hahahah 

The large pond is the town is an ice rink – a purpose built pond for an ice rink.  But in summer it is used as a rowing lake. 

After two bus trips we to visit the Ruin Bars. Many of these magnificent buildings were damaged with bombing but survived. They are now heritage listed so cannot be changed. 

What do you do with an old damaged building. Turn it into a bar and make it trendy of course. 

We also looked around the Jewish Quarter. Lovely. 

We visited the Opera House and of course it was amazing.

 Sarah then went to prepare for her night out and Raina went back to touristing. 12 hours of tours and walking! The taxi dropped her off at the wrong bus stop then after missing one underpass she walked 2.8 ks to the boat from the taxi.  Ha! it was only 1.6ks from the hotel.  

This religious guy was put in a barrel of nails and thrown over the cliff under the Citadel in around the year 1000. He died!  This is his monument.

Paddling in the Danube River.

The steps to the river.

Not just a major shipping lane.

Friday 18th July.

Today was "go for a drive" day. We hired a car (would have been cheaper to rent a helicopter) and headed out into the Hungarian countryside.  And let us tell you the country side is fairly attractive. Corn and sunflowers, very flat, market stalls selling corn and watermelons, classic looking people walking along the street, sitting to the front topping beans etc. It was great.

The drive was to Hortobagy National Park, about 200 ks from Budapest.    

And the reason - Prezwalski Horses.

Hortobagy is a 75,000 ha area, World Heritage National Park and is the largest continuous natural grassland in Europe. It is the steppe lands that 'Ayla' roamed, in the series of books Earth Children (Clan of the Cave Bear). The area has been a treeless alkaline grasslands since the Pleistocene period.  This steppe lands are also known as the Puszta.

It has marshes and fishponds that are massively important to migrating birds and 342 species live/travel through there. Nomadic groups of humans arrived around 2000 BC and left burial mounds (kurgnas) and guard mounds. 

Archaeologists have also found low mounds (tells) marking the sites of Neolithic settlements. This area was home to many Ice Age animals such as Aurochos and the original horse. 
Przewalski Horse (pronounced Shuh-VAL-skee) are the last surviving subspecies of wild horse. They original roamed from the European steppes to the Mongolian-Chinese border. They are a small sturdy horse being only about 12-14 hh. 

They were virtually wiped out through human hunting by 1913, when most of the survivors lived in captivity. The last wild herd was slaughtered, for food, in the Ukraine during WW11 by German soldiers. In 1945 there were 31 Przewalski horse left! In just two zoos. By the 1950's there were 12. And officially extinct. 

BUT breeding programs and then successful reintroduction has brought them up to critically endangered. There are now 1500 animals remaining in zoos and breeding facilities, carrying the genes from only 14 individuals. Herd now live in Mongolia, China, Southern Russia, here in Hungary and in the Chernobyl exclusion zone (which has effectively become a wildlife refuge).
A few facts.They have never been tamed for riding.

They have 66 chromosomes.  Domestic horses have 64.           In 2007 vets did the first ever reverse vasectomy on an endangered species, on a Przewalski horse.                    Since they arrived at Dubbo Zoo in 1982, 34 foals have been born. Seven have been sent to join the herd in Mongolia.

We drove to the town and had a look around the markets etc.

Sarah bought a whip! And yes she can crack it.

We then hopped into our bus to travel to the park (from the town) - only to be joined by 20 pre-school kids.

Luckily they all got out and the first stop - the zoo.

It was then off to see the horses and some cattle that are being used to try to 'recreate' the extinct Aurochos (the original of cattle).

And then the original horse!  WOW!

Saturday 19th July

Today was a fun day. Sarah met up with Harry (Harriett Gruen from Pony Club who happened to be in town) so we got her to join us for the day.

It started with the Circus. Today we went to the circus – the Capital Circus of Budapest. This circus is 125 years old and is permanently based in Budapest.  A good old fashion circus. And Oh My God it was good. It was all spoken in Hungarian, which made it even better. And it had a live 8 piece band.

ACT 1 – Tigers and Tigons (Lion Tiger crosses)

There were 5 of them and they were great.  Two of them did jumping tricks on their hind legs. Jumping over each other! The white ones were amazing looking.

Then a girl with her hair in a bun and a hook in it.  She hooked onto a cable and went up into the air – by her hair! And did all kinds of spinning tricks.

The elephant did the classic old fashion elephant poses.  This is the elephant that worked with Roger Moore in James Bond Octopussy. During intermission the elephant came out and ate a biscuit of hay while kids were sat on her back for photos.

The clowns were very funny and talented.  They did a lot with music. All playing various brass instruments.

A girl who balanced a sword on her forehead, then climber a ladder – that was on fire. She did wrap her long think hair up in a cloth before this trick – so it must sometimes go wrong.

Some quick change artists who were changing from a black suit to a red suit, or changing dressing in 4 seconds. One time the lady even changed while a bucket of glitter stuff was thrown over her. “What kind of witchcraft is this?”

The Friesians horses did the usual. Always fantastic.

The trapeze artists were great – except that they fell through a time portal. They had the worst 1970’s hair cuts and really ugly blue shinny satin outfits.

But apart from that they were great. One walked the high wire with a lady standing on his head. We saw a double reverse somersault. Apparently this guy is one of two people that can do this stunt.

The Liberty Horses were amazing. The ring was a 20 metre circle. The guy had 13 horses working at liberty at once. 8 Arabs, 4 Friesians and a Gypsy Cob. The tricks included cantering in 4’s with the Gypsy Cob cantering in the other direction and splitting them into pairs. The trainer is a seventh generation circus performer.

The tumblers did all kinds of amazing things just using a very springy see saw to get high. These two guys are Hungarian lads and perform at Sziget Festival, a music festival that Sarah has missed by a few days – two years in a row.

The Amazing Spider man was fantastic. He was part trapeze and part roof walker. There was a line of harness hooks hanging from the roof.  He does all this 15 metres above the ground without a safety line.  He hung upside down and walked along the hooks, then would slide onto the trapeze. It was quiet scary to watch. We will admit we did squeal a few times.

The Hamster Wheel. Apparently it’s really called the ‘Wheel of Death’ but we like the name “Hamster Wheel” and is one of the most dangerous acts of its genre. It certainly was thrilling – and a bit scary to watch. Two guy walk around in the circles and the whole thing spins. At a certain point they would be weightless for a second and would float.  Then they climber outside the cages and walked on the outside – forwards, backwards, blindfolded, skipping!!! 13 meters up. Scary!

There were a few other acts as well – the contortionist squashing into the end of the box so it looked like she was gone, the girls who balanced each other, and of course the clowns appears often.

What a fantastic show.  And the animals did look happy and well cared for! And being in a permanent location they do not live in small travelling cages.

We then headed off to the Baths. Budapest or “The City of Spas” has more thermal and medicinal water springs than any other capital city in the world. There are 118 springs in Budapest, providing over 70 million liters of thermal water a day. The temperature of the waters is between 21 and 78 Celsius. There are 15 public spas and many in the fancy hotels.

We went to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths, in the City Park. The building and the baths are magnificent.  They were started in 1880 and by 1913 200,000 people visited a year. There are 3 outdoor pools – all huge, one a big 50 m lap pool and 15 indoor baths. It is so big that in 1938 they had to tap a second well. 6,000,000 liters of 77 degree water pass through daily. They do let it cool before it gets into the baths!!!!!!

But…before we went to the spa we had to visit the fish and have fish chew our feet. 

The Spa was glorious.  We went in inside and outside pools, warm ones and cooler ones.  

The best was the whirlpool where we squealed and squarked with joy. We spent a few hours in their luxuriating in the healing properties and soaking up some beneficial Vitamin D.

Click the button for video of the whirl pool.

 We paid the extra and hired a ‘cabin’. A dressing shed, so we had somewhere to leave our wallets etc.  The cost was 500 HUF – almost $2.50.  (It did cost about $25 each to get in though.)

Strange hair dryers. Some people were sticking their hands in them!

  A walk thought 'City Park'

and  down to ‘Hero Square' and looked at the lovely monuments.

People standing in the shade.

Sarah and Harry had to then rush around and get their tickets cause tonight is SPARTY. The Spa is taken over by all the Youth Hostels for massive parties with music, lights and I dare say a few alcoholic beverages. No grown ups allowed.  That stunningly peaceful place of healing………..

We got around to lunch at 4.30pm.

Sarah was inspired by the quick change artist at the circus.

Such a fun day!!!!

Sarah had the 'Sparty' - a party at the Baths for 4000 backpackers.  She had a ball.  Photos to come

Now time to click on the Slovakia Page.