Living La Vida Loca

After our wonderful week in Puglia, we flew from Bari to Budapest. This is where our Silver Seas cruise on a beautiful riverboat began. We spent a couple of days exploring the city and found it to be both charming and humbling. The Hotel Matilde is very close to the waterfront and adjacent to some of the major shopping streets along with cafés and restaurants. It’s a very walkable downtown area with many historic sites. Here are a few of the highlights of our couple of days there:

We took a tour of the Hungarian parliament building, which is featured in so many images of Budapest. I realized that the majority of sites that tourists recognize are actually on the Pest side of the city. This is the flatter terrain of the two parts of the city, so this makes sense. From a historical perspective, Buda and Pest were separate cities, but at some point, became one connected by a number of bridges that cross the Danube. The parliament building sits facing the river and is massive. The interior tells centuries of stories through artwork, gold façades, and many both political and historic relics. There is even a closely guarded emperor‘s crown that tells its own story of the city, passing hands between dynasties and warring factions.

We also visited the Budapest Opera House, which is equally opulent. One of the highlights of this tour was a brief performance by two resident opera singers at the foot of one of the grand staircases inside the Opera House even though we are traveling at what might be considered the off-season. The number of tourists was mind-boggling. Something to keep in mind if you’re considering visiting any of the European tourism hotspots. I have a feeling that there is no more off-season.

When I visited Budapest a few years ago, I toured the largest operating synagogue in Budapest that has attached to it a museum and garden dedicated not only to Holocaust survivors, but to the rich culture that the Jews had established in this city before the Nazis moved in. Andrew, Noah, and Dalia all wanted to visit here, and I was happy to go again.

The main synagogue itself is very beautiful and is considered a jewel in Europe. Sitting between the synagogue and the museum is a garden that is composed of a number of mass graves beautifully manicured with greenery and cemetery plaques. Apparently, once the city was liberated from the Nazis, more than 2000 Jewish corpses were found in the ghetto where most of the Jews have been sequestered. These bodies were moved to this garden spot and honored in this way.

I did get to see some things I hadn’t the first go around, including a beautiful small chapel, dedicated to the Hungarian military that did try to protect some of the Jews living in the city.

 There was also a memorial to some of the individual city dwellers who hid and protected Jews during the Nazi roundups.

 The most startling thing for me was the big number of clearly non-Jewish tourists who had made the choice to come visit here. I was actually pleased to see that it helps the world to never forget.

Before heading out on the river boat, we had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with a new friend we were introduced to in Del Mar who lives in Budapest. Edgar is an executive with a large company based in Munich but makes his home in Hungary and travels to the US regularly. Edgar was kind to point us to the main sights, tour us a bit to places he enjoys, and join us at one of the top restaurants in Budapest. Called Stand, this is a two-star Michellin restaurant and the ambiance, service, and incredible food and wine definitely earned those stars!

We made many stops on the cruise and writing the details of each stop is beyond both my memory and my patience…That said, I’ll write about some of the highlights in the next entry or two and hope you have the chance to explore these places yourself.