On our second day in Budapest we really took advantage of our transit pass to see a large swath of the city. The day began with us taking the #23 tram in front of the campground to the parliament building. I was pleased that the tram ran all of the way to the parliament in fact for most of the trip it ran parallel to the river.
At one point a tour got onto the tram and we learned that the #23 tram was once voted one of the most beautiful tram rides in the world. We jumped off at the massive parliament building and began our day.
The building is one of the landmarks of Budapest and is the largest parliament building in the world. The interior is as beautiful but all of the tours for the building were sold out for the period we are here so we will have to settle for the slide show we watched in the visitors center.
We walked along the river and it is one of the most beautiful river fronts I have seen. As I said yesterday I am completely impressed with how all of the major buildings in the city seem to present their best side to the Danube. It not only makes for a beautiful skyline but allows you to appreciate the buildings from multiple angles as you walk along both banks of the river.
Further along the river we came to a beautiful but sobering tribute to the Jewish population of Budapest. Prior to WWII Budapest had a thriving Jewish population of over 400,000 people. Hungary was allied with Germany until 1944 and as an ally was able to protect the population. The Germans occupied Hungary in early 1944 fearing the Hungarians were negotiating to leave the war. After the Germans swept in they began the biggest shipment of people to concentration camps since 1942 decimating the Jews in Hungary.
Today there is a tribute on the banks of the river called the Shoes On the Danube Bank. In December of 1944 20,000 Jews were taken to the banks of the Danube and executed by Hungarian Fascists, they were forced to take off their shoes before being shot so that their bodies would tumble into the river, the shoes were considered too valuable to allow to be swept away . The bronze shoes lining the Danube are a tribute to the people lost in the holocaust.
Our next stop was heroes square. It is a large square away from the center of the city dedicated to historical heroes of Hungary. There were a lot of big statues of people you have to be Hungarian or a very well read European historian to know.
We had a lunch of goulash today that was ok but not quite what I expected. If this is good goulash, (the restaurant was very full) it appears to be a variation of beef stew and while it was fine, it was not substantially different than an American beef stew. I think I will give it one more chance before finalizing my verdict.
Ton wanted to visit the central market as she remembered it as one of the most impressive in Europe. I punched central market into google and we jumped off the tram in front of a nice building that looked like a market, but Ton looked confused. When we went inside the old market at this site had been converted into a modern supermarket. It turns out there are two buildings called central market, one on the Buda side where we were, and the famous one on the Pest side.
I punched the other central market in and we had to endure another beautiful tram ride along the Danube to a steel bridge. We chose to walk across the bridge so that we could interact with the river some more.
We arrived at the market and this one was much larger and still functioning as a market (even though there was an Aldi supermarket hidden in the basement.) Ton enjoyed looking around even though it was bursting at the seems with people.
She had a few things in mind and was particularly interested in paprika. After spending 30 minutes wandering around amongst the crowds we headed into the basement to the Aldi to get some essentials for François.
Our tram 23 had a stop at the market, so after getting our essentials taken care of we headed back to François for the evening.
