Buda Castle

Because we had lost a couple of days to the Christmas markets and a couple to Christmas itself, we had to try and pack in as much sightseeing as possible before we left. Unfortunately, it is still the Christmas period, and some of the attractions were still closed. We started by completing an online Jewish quarter tour. This included a walk along the river in front of the parliament building. This showed us the monument of shoes along the river. This represents the massacre of people by the arrow cross, a fascist, nationalist political group that took control of the Hungarian government during WW2 after the Nazis took power in Hungary. The arrow cross police would bring Jewish and Romani people to the river, remove their shoes to sell to fund the parties cause, before shooting them in the head and letting their bodies fall into the Danube. In some particularly grim instances, toward the end of the war, when executions were at their peak, they would tie 3 people together and shoot the person in the middle, leaving the other 2 to drown. This was to conserve bullets. As a result, in 2002, a monument was displayed in honour of those who died in this horrific way. The display shows the shoes that were left along the river bank after the killings, symbolising the people who once filled them but are no longer with us. We are lucky to have seen them as the river now breached the bank and had begun to flood. The road was filled with people wandering along it, watching the huge river slowly engulf the streets. This took us all the way to the Széchenyi Chain Bridge and the pebble beach next to it. We then followed the tour to a couple of the synagogues within the city that explained their significance. Unfortunately, to enter is very expensive, nearly 40 AUD each, so we decided against this but enjoyed the outside and the walk around the Jewish quarter nonetheless.

We then decided to head across the river and knock off two major attractions to see while in Budapest. Unfortunately, because it was the day after Christmas, the national library inside the Buda castle was closed. This was a real shame as I was excited to see it, but these things happen around Christmas time. It was still great to walk around the courtyards and public spaces and see the views of the city. Due to deciding against the history museum and the galley, we eventually began our short walk to the Fisherman's Bastion. This is another great lookout / fortification that encompasses a massive Gothic style church. Although, once again, an entrance fee deterred us from going inside, it was still cool to see the areas outside the church and wander through the small Christmas market. We got a great photo of the sunseting over the river timed perfectly to witness the clouds purple with the water also capturing this colour. We began the relatively short journey home, following the river and arriving back at our hotel in time for an early night.Read more