August 5, 2013
August 5, 2013
With our 24-hour Metro pass of Budapest expiring in the next hour we take one last ride to the bottom of Gellert Hill. Gellert is on the Buda side and towers over the Danube. At the foot of the hill is the Gellert Hotel and Spa. Hungary, apparently is geologically active, because hot springs abound here. Many have been turned into spas. Gellert Spa looks inviting but I can't see lounging in hot water in this heat.
After a sweaty hike up Gellert Hill we arrive at Liberty Statue. It is a large monument built by the Soviets to memorialize those who died liberating Hungary from the Nazis. I think we have run into one of these in almost every Eastern Europe city we have visited. Hungarians have removed any reference to the Soviets from this one. Around the statue is a small citadel built by the Austrians but used by Soviet tanks to shell Budapest during the insurrection of 1956.
From Gellert we strolled downhill and across the bridge to the Vasarcsarnok Market, where we ate lunch and bought some hot paprika to take home. Close to our hotel we stopped at the very Moorish Great Synagogue. We don't go in the interior but we see the attached graveyard and Holocaust Memorial. They have a memorial to Raoul Wallenberg, the Hungarian version of Oskar Schindler. He was a Swedish ambassador who issued passports to Jews to get them out of the country. The Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto during WWII.
We liked our cheesecake and music in the hotel restaurant last night so we decide to eat dinner there. We love our Astoria Hotel. Not only does it have a great location but it is so old-world elegant. The walls are all granite, marble and gold leaf. The hotel opened in 1914 on the eve of WWI at the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire when Budapest was one of the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
After a sweaty hike up Gellert Hill we arrive at Liberty Statue. It is a large monument built by the Soviets to memorialize those who died liberating Hungary from the Nazis. I think we have run into one of these in almost every Eastern Europe city we have visited. Hungarians have removed any reference to the Soviets from this one. Around the statue is a small citadel built by the Austrians but used by Soviet tanks to shell Budapest during the insurrection of 1956.
From Gellert we strolled downhill and across the bridge to the Vasarcsarnok Market, where we ate lunch and bought some hot paprika to take home. Close to our hotel we stopped at the very Moorish Great Synagogue. We don't go in the interior but we see the attached graveyard and Holocaust Memorial. They have a memorial to Raoul Wallenberg, the Hungarian version of Oskar Schindler. He was a Swedish ambassador who issued passports to Jews to get them out of the country. The Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto during WWII.
We liked our cheesecake and music in the hotel restaurant last night so we decide to eat dinner there. We love our Astoria Hotel. Not only does it have a great location but it is so old-world elegant. The walls are all granite, marble and gold leaf. The hotel opened in 1914 on the eve of WWI at the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire when Budapest was one of the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
posted by Mike and Aimee at 12:40 PM
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