July 21 – Budapest

Last updated on August 26th, 2019 at 03:57 pm

Budapest Tuk Tuk Tour

Our Tuk Tuk driver, Eric was waiting outside our hotel. The Tuk Tuk tour is designed as a drive-by tour of the city with a few short stops. Joyce was glad we took the tour in the morning as the Tuk Tuk is open air, sort of a motorcycle with a car for two people in the back. It has a canvas top, but the top would limit Alan’s ability to take pictures, so we left it down. Joyce’s hair was pretty wild, but the breeze was great on the hot day.

Budapest is two cities, Buda and Pest with the Danube River between them. We drove through the central part of Pest, the flat part of the city, across the Chain Bridge to the Buda section, which is very hilly.

Our first stop was the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church and Holy Trinity Square located on Buda Castle hill. The Fisherman’s Bastion is built overlooking the river with great views of the Parliament and the Pest side of the city.

The Matthias (Matayas) Church is named for King Matayas from the 19th century. Construction was began in the 11th century. It was destroyed and rebuilt several times, the most recent after World War II. The roof is made of multi-colored tiles that display a beautiful vibrant pattern in the sunlight. We did not visit the church, but will tomorrow on our Viking included tour of Budapest.

Holy Trinity Square contains a statue erected in 1713 after overcoming an epidemic of the plague representing the Holy Trinity. As we walked back to the Tuk Tuk, the bells of Matthias began chiming and we were able to get the sound on a video. At the Tuk Tuk, Eric had a traditional Hungarian sweet treat for us made of cream cheese covering in chocolate.

As we drove through Taban on our way to the Liberty Monument on Gellert Hill, Eric stopped the Tuk Tuk to give us some history and couldn’t get it restarted. Two more Tuk Tuks came along and one of the other drivers was able to help Eric restart it. There was a short between the anti-theft device and the motor. We were soon on our way.  One of the advantages of the Tuk Tuk is that it is small and able to maneuver some pretty sharp turns and corners that a bus would never be able to make, which also meant that we got to take some different routes.

The Liberty Monument was actually erected by the Soviets who “liberated” Hungary from the Germans at the end of World War II. Hungarians did not see it as liberation as the Soviets decided to stay. The monument is a woman holding up a palm branch, as is lovingly referred to by Hungarians as the “bottle opener”. They now see the monument as a symbol of their resilient spirit and current freedoms. We stopped for a short time to again admire the view of Pest and the Danube, taking several panorama pictures.

As we drove we learned a little about Eric. He grew up about 100 kilometers outside Budapest. He is to be married next weekend in his hometown. He works as a salesman during the week and gives Tuk Tuk tours as a second job. He and his fiancé are expecting a child in December. He seemed interested in talking about religion and politics, but in a friendly way. He was raised Catholic, but sees the church as hypocritical with many rules. He is Buddhist. He said if God exists, he doesn’t think He is the God portrayed by the church with rules and hate. We shared our view of God as a loving Father that always works for our good and Jesus as Savior. We told him our participation in church was about worship of a worthy God.

From Gellert Hill we traveled back to the Pest side and headed for the old Jewish quarter. We drove past the Great Synagogue, the largest in Europe, the Holocaust Memorial, driving down a few side streets in the quarter. Eric stopped and we regrouped, decided what to see our remaining time.

We headed to Szabadsag Square in the government district. We stopped briefly to look at the US Embassy and have our picture taken with a statue of Ronald Reagan. This began our discussion of politics. He wanted to know if we were Trump supporters. We talked about immigration issues and he shared similar things going on in Hungary and Europe regarding refugees. He also talked about gypsies in the Hungarian culture. He is not a big fan of Russia or Germany.

From Szabadsag Square we drove to the Shoes by the Danube Bank, built to honor the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. At the end of World War II when defeat was probable, a line of Jewish citizens were told to remove their shoes and were then tied together on the bank of the Danube. The militiamen shot 2 or 3 of the people who fell into the river dragging the remaining people with them and they drowned.  It was a simple, yet poignant reminder of the cruelty of men.

Our time was growing short, so Eric drove down Andrassy Avenue, so we could drive by the Hungarian State Opera House, next to the Callas House, the Szechenyi Spa and Heroes’ Square. He delivered us back to the Callas House to collect our luggage.

We had a slight dilemma determining where the boat would be docked. Since we came early to visit Prague and Budapest, Viking did not meet us at the airport to transfer us to the ship. Our documentation gave three possible docks with a phone number to call. The man at the desk at the Callas House was very helpful. He called the number and when it wasn’t answered, used other resources he had to determine where our ship was docked and called us a taxi. The taxi was waiting when we got our luggage downstairs and he took us right to the ship.

We checked in, knowing we had arrived before our stateroom was likely ready. We were given a card to display with our stateroom number on it and directed to a light lunch buffet. Joyce enjoyed iced tea with ice for the first time since arriving in Europe! We ate a leisurely lunch and when we finished a steward found us and lead us to our stateroom.

We had originally paid for a stateroom with windows just about the water level and most of the room below the water level. We were notified about a week before we left that we had been upgraded to a French balcony stateroom, which has floor to ceiling windows with a patio door that opens one of the windows to a railing and plexiglass barrier. The room is of course small, but well designed, with several storage places. We found a place for everything and stored our suitcases under the bed.

An announcement was made about a 45 minute walking tour of the surrounding sights for those passengers interested. We were, of course interested. It was about 3 pm so it was pretty hot.

We started walking toward the Liberty Bridge. We learned one Sunday a month, today, the bridge is closed to vehicular traffic, open for pedestrians for a “party on the bridge”. We walked past the bridge toward the Great Market Hall where the Central Market is located. The market is closed on Sunday, but our guide told us this is where Hungarians shop. We crossed the street and walked down a street with many small outdoor cafes and shops. This street was another recommended shopping area. We walked about 1/3 of the street and made our way back to the ship.

We went to the dining room for dinner. Dinner consists of 3 courses, appetizer, entree and dessert. One side of the menu is available every evening. The other side contains regional choices as well as additional Chef choices for this current meal, as well as some complementary red and white  wine choices that are from that particular region. We ate with 2 couples from Canada. The women were sisters. We laughed a lot and they were excellent dinner companions.

After dinner when we returned to our stateroom, we heard music from the party on the Liberty Bridge, fairly close to where the ship was docked. We grabbed the camera tripod and went up on the sundeck to view Budapest at night. The sun had set and there was a slight breeze, so it was quite comfortable. Many of the buildings and bridges in the city were lit, some with colored lights. It was really quite beautiful. We took some pictures and enjoyed the music coming from bands on the bridge. It was a great start to our Grand European River Cruise

https://budapesttuktuk.com/en/