Eastern Europe has been on my radar for some time now (can you believe i've never been to Prague!?), so I jumped at the chance to take us to Budapest for a weekend trip thanks to 123 euro TOTAL plane tickets (prague is still on the horizon!) ;) It was everything I expected and a good bit more. A complex 1000+ yr old history, makes it a fascniating destination with much to see and explore.
Here's the "cliff's notes" if you never make it to Budapest yourself.. but I do hope you will!
* Hungarians are largely decendants of Mongolians, later mixed with neighboring European groups. The result is a distinct culture that produced one of the 5 hardest languages on earth to learn! Knowing that, you can always find people to speak English, since there's no way we're going to speak their language!
* Budapest has only been a unified city for a little over a century. It was Buda (the hilly side with the castle hill) and the Pest side (the more flat, commercial side) that straddles the Danube for most of it's history.
* 1895 was the 1000 year celebration of Budapest's history so a lot of the building and monuments were from that time.
* They were on the losing team during both World Wars. After the 1st, they lost a lot of land. During the 2nd, they lost 500,000+ Jews, then when Germany turned on them, they were hoping the US would rescue them.
* USSR beat them to it. So then Hungary was communist for 50 years, until 1989. And even though it's been over 20 years, there's no escaping it's legacy here.. it's very tangible and raw I think.
I could go on, but some of your eyes are glazing over I think, so I'll get to the visual part!
Welcome to Budapest on a warm, mostly sunny weekend!
Our first sights along the Pest side as we arrived..
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