Budapest to Bucharest

Budapest in September is beautiful! I was last here in May 2010 and didn’t see much because of driving rain that turned your umbrella inside out. This time it’s around 25, sunny and green.

After a day to get on the right time zone, I met my tour group. We went to a street festival with dozens of food trucks for dinner, then to the Jewish quarter to a ruin bar.

Szimpla Kert was the first of these popular clubs, built into abandoned buildings and decorated with thrift store furniture, cars, or whatever, then just add a few bars and bouncers at the door to control the lineups.

The next morning our Intrepid tour leader took us for a walking tour of the Pest side of the Danube river. The city was once two cities, the other part obviously named Buda.

Along the river is a monument of 60 pairs of 1940s style shoes, commemorating the Jews of the city who were taken to the riverbank, made to take off their shoes since they were in short supply, and shot in the back of the head to fall into the river, during the Second World War.

There were some tourists here smiling and posing for pictures with the shoes and unfortunately one of them made it into my photo.

The shoe monument is close to the parliament building, 3rd largest in the world after the Pentagon and the palace of parliament in Bucharest. It’s modelled after Westminster Abbey in London.

A new friend and I crossed the Chain Bridge across the Danube to the Buda side, where we saw the castle, St Matthias church with a roof that looks like it’s crocheted, and Fisherman’s Bastion, a lookout point with fairytale turrets.

On to one more stop in Hungary the next day.