Budapest

Our Prague to Budapest tour last Fall ended in Budapest, so we’ve seen some of the city.

The morning tour is very similar to last year’s morning tour which starts on the Pest (east) side of the Danube. You can see the Matthias Church in the Budapest castle complex on the other side.

Along the Danube river is the Shoe Memorial to victims murdered by Hungarian fascists. Shoes were valuable and could be stolen and resold.

Nearby is the Hungarian Parliament Building.

There is a monument to István Tisza who was Prime Minister of Hungary at the start of World War I. He was assassinated in the Aster Revolution after the end of the war.

The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 lead the way for democracy in Hungary. There are bullet holes in some of the buildings near the parliament building that are from troops firing at the protesters.

We boarded the busses and went to Heroes Square.

The statues around the central column in Heroes’ Square represent the seven chieftains of the Magyars who led the Hungarian people into the Carpathian Basin. When we were here last Fall, the central column was surrounded by scaffolding.

On the right side the first statue is of John Hunyadi who defeated the Ottomans in the Seige of Belgrade which was under Hungarian control at the time. The movie Rise of the Ravens on Netflix is a recent portrayal of the story.

Then back to the ship for lunch. We skipped the afternoon tour walking over to the market, since we did that last year, and went shopping for some clothes as there isn’t much progress on our luggage.

Then back to the ship for the Captain’s welcome dinner. The chef on board was the chef for our trip last Fall, which was on a different ship. Several of the waiters were on that cruise as well.