• Debra KooyTravelerEuropean Vacation 2025
    3Shoes on the Danube Memorial to the Holocaust Victims
    1Reminders of the Jewish people killed by the Nazis1Langos Hungarian specialty with sour cream & cheese 😋4Chain Bridge to BudaOldest of the bridges and has also been rebuilt1View of Pest. Nothing can be built taller than St. Stephen's Basilica2The Parliament BuildingFisherman's Bastion1Castle District in BudaSt Matthias Church. The roof tiles were spectacular1Castle District1Riding the Metro. The escalators are so steep.Boat Cruise. Nice to rest our weary legs!Boat cruise on the Danube

    Pest Tour & Castle District, Buda

    May 1 in Hungary ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Today we started our beautifully, sunny day with a quick breakfast then out to our walking tour of the Pest side of Budapest. We walked for 2.5 hours to see:

    Elizabeth Square
    Old Stock Exchange building by 2 fountains, 1 loved, 1 not!
    St. Stephen's Basilica
    Liberty Square
    Danube Promenade where we could see the Buda side of Budapest with the Citadel and Castle District. Buda was originally where the Austrian leadership resided. The castles and churches were meant to show power and the Pest side was where all the trade happened on the Danube. There were no bridges across originally until they realized how lucrative the trading was.

    Soviet Memorial with statues of Presidents Reagan and Bush to show the balance of power. It was a mass grave, but the remains had been moved to a cemetary. This had been the site of many protests

    Parliament Building

    Budapest has quite the history of conquering but then being conquered or occupied through the years. All of the beautiful castles, churches & buildings were destroyed so they rebuilt them. None of what we see is original.

    Our guide gave us coupons for a free beer at a nearby restaurant which had the Langos, a Hungarian specialty. It is a sweet bread served with sour cream and cheese. It was delicious. We walked to see the "shoes on the Danube", a memorial with 60 bronzed shoes representing the Jewish people who were made to strip down on the edge of the river, 60 at a time, then shot and washed away in the river. It is a very depressed History. The last occupations were the German Nazis and then the Soviets.

    We walked across the oldest bridge called the Chain Bridge to the Buda side. We walked up a lot of stairs to Castle Hill. We had great views of St. Stephen's Basilica and the Parliament in Pest. We saw Buda Castle, the National Gallery then over to Fisherman's Bastion and St. Mathias Church. We caught a bus then the metro back to the center near the Danube for dinner and finished our day with an evening Boat Cruise on the Danube River.    Read more