Eastern Europe - Budapest. Hungary

The Parliament Building

Memorial to Jews shot and thrown in the Danube


Email no 35 – Budapest. Hungary
If the last impression is the one you remember then my trip was impeccably planned. I do not think I could have found a better place than Budapest as the last city to visit.
However this wonderful visit was almost marred by a potentially very unpleasant incident.
First of all, I have to explain that in some of my travels I was very aware of the possibility of being approached by con men. I my travel in Eastern Europe I never had such experience, so my con men radar was completely turned off.
I am staying in a reasonably priced, very well located B&B run by a very nice couple of people that are genuinely concerned with their guests comfort and
Yesterday I was walking in a side street close to the Basilic. This is a quiet street with few pedestrian. I was approached by a man with a map in his hands. He told me, in broken English, that he was from Italy and that he was lost. The map he showed me was not very good. So he asked me to show him my map (a rather unusual request). For some reason I did not want to do that. Then he asked me if I was from Budapest. Then another man showed pull-out some ID card and stated that he was checking passport and bad money. I was startled and I showed him only my senior EC card. Then he wanted to check my money. I was becoming more an more convinced that I was dealing with some con men. I pulled out a 1000 florins (about $3.5) he checked it told it was good and then asked to see the rest of the money. I told him that I was not going to do that, and I just stood there waiting to see what he would do next. So, he turned to the other man, asked him a few questions and then left. I called him back and told him that the other man , who hadn’t moved, needed help. They left together.
Back at the B&B I told them what happened, and they told me that this was a very popular con game several years ago. What they do they take your bundle of money on the pretext of checking it and then in some way they hand you back another bundle of much lesser value.
This was sometimes conducted by people dressed as policeman!
Situations like these can be handled by refusing to comply but offering to go with them to a local bank to have the money checked, or offer to go with them to the nearest police station.

Budapest is a city of about two million people and seemingly no end to the many interesting sights it has to offer. I stayed here three nites which wasn’t long enough to cover my relatively short list of “things to see”. I’ll cover the most interesting ones.
The outstanding “House of Terrors” covers the Nazis and Soviets occupations periods.
Briefly , the Hungarians, being in the unenviable position to provide a buffer between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did just enough to stay in the German’s good graces, until Hitler got fed up with Hungary lukewarm support and took control by making the Nazi-affiliated Arrow Cross Party Hungary’s new government by March 1944. The Arrow Cross Party immediately set out to eliminated the Jews.
The Red Army entered Hungary by late August of 1944.and eventually forced the last of the Nazi’s out of Hungary by April 4th. The “liberators” soon imposed another regime of terror by terrorizing, deporting, or executing anyone suspected of being an enemy of the state. During this “double occupation” the Hungarians caught in the middle went from the frying pan to the fire.
One room of the “House of Terror” features videos of surviving people describing the loss of friends and families under both regimes.
On a much lighter tone, many buildings in Budapest are worth visiting. The most outstanding are the Opera House and the enormous Parliament Buildings. The Opera House was built at the time that Budapest became the co-capital of the Habsburg Empire in the 1890s. The Emperor Franz Joseph provide half of the funding with the condition that the Opera House would be smaller than the one in Franz’s own town Vienna. Budapest complied but they made the interior much more beautiful than the one in Vienna. The Emperor was not pleased!
At the end of our guided visit we were also treated by one of the tenors signing two short arias. One of them the famous one from Carmen.
Budapest is basically divided in two parts. Buda is on a hill West of the Danube and includes the Castel (uninteresting) the Fisherman’s Bastion (A very nice reconstruction), the Matthias Church (outstanding) and some other sites. There is a complete 25,000 square ft..functional
WW II hospital completely enclosed under Castel Hill. It is brought alive by many realistic wax figures. The hospital is now a nuclear-bomb shelter ready with the last equipment.
I went to a genuine, and outstanding Hungarian Folk Concert featuring three different groups.
I also joined a guided tour of the three nearby cities located on or near what is known as the Danube Bend.
I could go on and on, but unfortunately I have to get ready for my tomorrow’s return to Seattle.
I am first taking an early flight to London.
I have been in Seattle for a couple days and I will have to finish this email with one more problem that I encounter. (nothing finishing on a strong note, right!)
I had two British Airway flights to take. One from Budapest to London and then the London to Seattle flight. I asked the attendant in Budapest if she could have my luggage automatically transferred from one flight to the other without me having to do all the work.
After looking at my schedule, she said it could not be done because my first flight arrived early in the morning and my Seattle flight was in the afternoon. So in London I waited, with another three people, for my luggage that never showed up! To make a long story short, my luggage was delivered to my home at 11.30 pm the next day. (it could have been worst, like totally lost!)
The man that delivered my luggage with a van had another dozen pieces of luggage to still be delivered that night!
Ok. I will send one more blog with my overall comments on my Eastern Europe trip.