Rainbow Terror

You'll understand the title when you read below.

Our first stop for the day was the town of Szentendre, just to the north. It used to be an independent village and now is sort of a distant suburb of Budapest. The guide books suggested it would be a good way to easily see a slice of rural Hungary. The town had it's charm (top photo), but it was a hot day. The sun was beating down and there was little shade. That made it hard to appreciate the charm. Also, I have to say, as much as I appreciate all the progress Hungary has made in the last generation, recovering from world wars and soviet oppression, Hungary is still rough around the edges. You see it most in the little things - areas devoid of landscaping, weeds growing through cracks everywhere, quite a bit of graffiti, etc. So, appreciating the charms of a village in Hungary is a different experience from appreciating the charms of a village in France or England. You may well, call it more "authentic" and that has it's value, too. But It is impossible to ignore the differences. We are trying our best to appreciate them and see the value of the differences.

We had a very nice picnic lunch in a bit of shade there and then returned sooner than we had planned (because of the heat) and saw a couple of other Budapest sights on our list;

The first was the "House Of Terror" (middle photo). I know that sounds like a cheesy carnival attraction, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It is actually a historical account of the period between 1944 and 1960 when Hungary suffered oppression first under Hitler's minions including the greatest number of Jews killed of any country in Europe (most of them in Auschwitz), to the political persecution under Soviet rule. The museum was put together with a certain dramatic conceptual flair as well. It was stark and chilling, and unfortunately for us, almost completely in the Hungarian language, so much of the detail was lost on us. The museum was clearly put together for the benefit of, and as a reminder for the Hungarian people, and that is certainly a good thing.

Our transport to & from the House Of Terror was complicated by the fact that there was a gay-pride parade happening on the street in front. In Hungary, there is a small right-wing element that has reacted violently to things like this, so the police treated it like a terrorist situation. All access was blocked off and we had to go through a security check to be on the street. We saw literally hundreds of police all decked-out in full riot gear, monitoring every intersection. This all seemed very odd to us, particularly since the part of the "parade" we saw consisted of maybe two dozen people and one music-blasting parade float. It also struck us a particularly ironic that we should witness this level of police presence after having just toured the House Of Terror. All things considered, it didn't present much of an obstacle to our sight-seeing, but it was an interesting, though unintended, cultural learning experience.

After that spectacle, we went to see the main cathedral in Budapest, St. Istvan's (Saint Steven's), where we witnessed part of a wedding taking place and climbed up to the top of the dome (bottom photo) to get a view over Pest. I should mention that the Danube river splits what used to be two separate cities; Buda and Pest, which eventually grew together with the advent of bridges to become Budapest. In the Hungarian language the single "s" is pronounced like "sh", so it is pronounced "Boo-daw-peshed". To get an "s" sound we are used to, requires an "sz", so the Hungarian composer Frans Liszt is pronounced just like our "list".

Tomorrow, we leave town again to the college town of Eger for a day trip...