Buda and Pest

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The Huey family spent this past weekend in Budapest, Hungary. There are actually two cities: Buda sits on the south side of the Danube, and Pest on the north. We stayed in Buda, because . . . let's face it . . . who wants to sleep in a place called "Pest?"
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Our first impressions were not very charming. As we stepped off the train on Friday, we immediately started to search for a honest money-changer, and we were besieged with men asking, "Taxi? Taxi?" We eventually got some tickets for the "173" bus, which groaned and gasped its way downtown. From there, we decided to walk the rest of the way to our hotel, which proved to be much further than we had anticipated!

Top: a view of the city from the Citadel; bottom: a view of the Parliament, from Buda Castle (all photos by Caroline).
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From that moment onward, however, things began to get better. Compared with Vienna, the city seems rather poor, and some of the prettiest sites are marred with graffiti. Nonetheless, its topography and its buildings are truly extraordinary: on Saturday we visited Buda Castle, and we passed by St. Matthias Church and the Parliament building. We stopped to see Margit híd (Margaret Island), and we especially enjoyed a nighttime view of the lighted city-scape.

A view from the front of Dohany Street Synagogue.

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On Sunday we got a tour of the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest (and surely the most beautiful) synagogue in all of Europe. It is really quite stunning, and it does not have all the scaffolding that seems to be obligatory for impressive European landmarks!

Left: the Holocaust Memorial Tree; Right: closeup on the leaves of the tree.

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On Sunday morning we visited with the Church of Christ near Moszkva Square, and we enjoyed meeting Curry Montague, who is the minister there. We also looked through the guest book and discovered the names of Jeff & Pattie Simmons, Larry & Kay Norman, and Jim & Caye Randolph. It was nice to see familiar names, and it was a relief to know that they were going to church when they were here last fall.

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Left: Annika poses with a lion at Buda Castle; Right: the girls visit a fountain on Margit híd.

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So far, we haven't seen a place in Europe that we didn't like . . . let's see how long we can keep saying that!
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