Thanks to the extremely early sunrises I have been witnessing during all this time and that still occur here in Budapest, I woke up very early today. Hence, I made it to the free walking tour without hurrying, accompanied by David, the American from yesterday who speaks very good German and some Spanish.
Ursula, the guide, told us all the important history facts about Hungary and Budapest while walking us through downtown and upper town for almost 3 hours.
I already knew that Budapest was the fusion of three originally independent cities: Buda, old Buda and Pest, but I didn’t know that the word “Hungary” is never used in Hungarian language where Hungary is called Magyarország. The word Hungary is just a misconception by someone who thought the Hungarians were Huns (which they are not). I also didn’t know that the Hungarian people came to Budapest from the Ural mountains and settled in Hungary in 896, which is now the “magic number” of the city. This explains why Hungarian language has nothing to do with any neighboring language but some similarities with Finnish. In general it is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world, tightly followed by Finnish and Basque, and the film industry regularly uses it as the language for Aliens or other non-human species.
Hungary’s history is marked by different empires coming to “free” them from the previous empire and then staying a little too long. Ottomans, Romans, Austrians… It is also marked by being always on the loosing side in any conflict and war they take part in. Nevertheless, all these empires left things in the city that are now part of it’s identity. The Turks left the famous Budapest baths and the paprika. To Austrian and Austro-hungarian times they owe their beautiful architecture.
Maybe some of the funniest Budapest facts for me were the ones concerning the big Basilica of St. Stephen. First of all, it has neither the ground plan of a Basilica nor the special nomination by the pope, but once the pope came to visit and said casually ” what a beautiful Basilica” and since then everyone calls it that (you don’t want to argue with the pope). Second of all, Stephen was originally an Hungarian King but became Saint because after dying and being buried, his right arm mummified while the rest of his body regularly turned into skeleton (and I always thought you had to actually do something to become a Saint). After touring wildly around Europe, this right hand of his is now exposed in the Basilica while the upper arms and the lower arm rest in other churches in different countries. It lays in the dark, but you can insert 200 HUF in a machine and illuminate it for a couple of seconds. One can say many bad things about the Catholic Church but it is undoubtedly the company with the most creative ways of earning money in the world.
The only person buried entirely in the Basilica is not a Saint but an Hungarian football player (aka the modern version of a Saint; in the end, the church is more progressive than I thought).
After lunch, I strolled through the Jewish neighborhood for a while and stepped into one of the famous ruin bars. I got myself a treat in a gf bakery before moving on to my major and final treat: the thermal bath of Széchenyi, the biggest one in Budapest. I got there by taking the oldest metro line in Continental Europe (only London had a Metro before Budapest).
The beautiful neo-baroque, yellow spa-building inhabits uncountable natural thermal water pools between 13 and 40 ºC, three enormous outdoor pools and multiple different saunas between 45 and 80 ºC (the photos are not mine). I tried everything it had to offer and it took me about 2 hours to get to a state of absolute relaxation in the outdoor pool. The sun went down at around 8 and the water lighted up in different colors while it grew increasingly darker and started raining a little. I felt like I wasn’t able nor to stay any longer nor to get out of the hot water ever again. I made it out eventually and reached the hostel at almost 10. The Loft was full of life today and welcomed me like family. After having a quick dinner, we went out for a drink to a close by pub until they threw us out.
This hostel was exactly what I needed after the shitty hostels of the last weeks and this was the perfect last evening of the trip.
It’s hard to believe that I have been traveling for a month now and that my Balkan-month already ends tomorrow. It was definitely the right choice to visit this region of the world and I am absolutely stunned by the Balkans, willing to come back with more time and see more of it, to visit Serbia, Kosovo and Romania and more places in the countries I have been to now. This is an incredible and absolutely underrated region with lovely people that needs to be explored before other people find out about it and it gets messed up by tourism.
