Many people have visited Budapest already, but here i talked about part of its history and places to visit that are not that typical.
Mi second time in #Budapest, the first one i came in party mode, this time more in a cultural mode. I disovered places that are not so known and learnt a lot about Hungary's history, a quite surprising one.
The hungarians never won a battle, even though, the celebrate the revolution as if they won it, but they also lost it.
Many people know the capital of #Hungary by its crazy nightlife and its economic prices, on the strees you can find a lot of young people. This gives Budapest a life that many European cities would like to have.
I already experienced that a few years ago, this time, my second one in Budapest, traveling with my family, i experience the cultural part of it.
Typical things to see in Budapest
There are tons of guides on the internet about what to see in Budapest, you can't miss them, and i won't explain them, just a summary of what they are and later i will write some historical interesting points about them:
Medieval city of Buda
Take a cruise on the Danubio river during the night to see the bridges and specially the impressive parlament.
Have a few drinks in the ruins bars, specially Szimpla and Instant.
Go to the termal baths of Széchenyi
Not that typical things to do in Budapest
You might not find this in the usual guides, but you can't miss them either.
Have a drink in the bar 360: It is a rooftop bar with an amazing view of Budapest, it has transparent igloos to protect you from the cold. Quite interesting and the views, awesome.
Visit Cafe New York: And if you can afford it, have breakfast there. If is a cafe inside a palace, it is espectacular, you feel like you are having breakfast in a museum, everything is art there, they play live classical music and the breakfasts are fabulous. But, prepare your wallet, quite expensive, a coffee costs 9 euros..
Visit the second largets sinagoge in the world: Yes, the Jewish presence it is important in Budapest, even though the country is ruled by a far right party, they are there, i will speak more about this later.
Visit the oldes cake shop in the world, Ruszwurm: Yes, in Buda you can find the oldest cake shop in the world, built in 1827.
Visit the terror house 'Terror Haza': In this house, many people was tortured and murdered, first by the nazis and then by the comunists. Both used it for the same and now it is a museum that shows all that happened there, you can visit the cells and the machines they used to kill and torture.
Budapest history and curiosities
First, i need to say that most of what i'm going to talk about i know because we got a guided tour that explained all of this to us. We were quite surprised by the knowledge our guide had and the funny way of explaining things, with humour, making jokes all the time, 100% recomendable if you go to Budapest. But heads up, the language is just Spanish. The company is called White Umbrella, and if you can pick the guide, choose Antonio. He makes free tours and paid tours through this company, the paid tour only costed 12 euro for 3 hours of history and laughs.
Before moving on, if someone reads this and thinks i'm wrong, blame Antonio, the guide, i only repeat what he said :)
A bit of old Hungarian history
Before Hungary existed, there were several nomad tribes in that European area, that were sacking others. But they realized that that wasn't a sustainable way of living so one of the tribes boss joined all the tribes creating what we know as Hungary today.
Saint Stephen, before being a saint he was kind of Hungary, he forced everything to stop sacking other countries and forced them to become catholic by using his sword, whoever doesn't want to follow his instructions, would be killed and eyes of the members of his family will be taken out. What an animal this Stephen. Besides that, after he died, the church made him a saint...
The word 'ogre' comes from the Hungarians, they were called like that while they were sacking other European cities.
They fought with the Ottoman empire, that were expanding and went up to Hungary, the Hungarians lost and the Ottoman empire conquer them. As i said before, the Hungarians always lost his battles.
The austrians, the saw the Ottoman empire coming, decided to help Hungary, the entered to fight, they destroyed the Ottomans and kicked them out and said: 'now that we are here, we stay'. And that's how Austria conquered Hungary.
The 1848 Hungarian revolution against the Austrians, and of course, the Hungarians lost. But Austria realized that if another revolution like that one happens again, they would probably lost so they reached and agreement with Hungary and created the famous Austrian-Hungarian empire.
The Hungarians celebrate the 1848 revoluion as if they would have won it, but actually, they lost it.
Modern history, the second world war and current politics.
When the war took off, Hungary wasn't in his best moment, Adolf Hitler promised them money and wellness and they joined the Nazis without any doubt.
The Hungarian Nazis were fearsome, it seems that the German Nazis had to stop the Hungarian Nazis because they were killing too many Jewish!
When the war was over, the allies, USA/Europe and Russia basically, the split the territories in this way: 'each one will keep what they conquered'. Therefore, Hungary, since it was conquered by Russian, was imposed with a communist government.
As today, the political ideology has switched, the current government is far right and the second party is the same Nazi party that existed in the second world war.
Curiosities and interesting figures
Besides having a far right government, the relationship with Vladimir Putin (communist) are excellent.
The current government, removed all the communist monuments except one, under the Russian threat of getting involved if they remove it.
The number 96 is the most important number for Hungary. Because it was in year 896 when Hungary was created As today,by law, no building can be higher than 96 meters. Only 2 buildings are 96 meters high right now: the parliament and Saint Stephen basilica.
The Hungarians a very nationalistic, they say that you must be blood RH negative to be a real Hungarian. There are people with a 896 number tattoo. Also, they say that a pure Hungarian must be from Transylvania, region that now belongs to Romania.
In the parliament, the Transylvanian flag waives, as a recognition of that territory that should be Hungarian. It is like in Madrid the Gibraltar flag waives or in the Argentinean parliament the Malvinas flag waives.
The Parliament, in the main picture of this post, is the third biggest parliament in the world.
As i said before, the Jewish has the second biggest sinagoge in the world, and the biggest in Europe.
Buda was recently reconstructed after the war. The Nazis hided in Buda, destroying the Danubio bridges so the Russians couldn't pass. The Russians, that didn't want to have more people killed, decided to bomb Buda. The destroyed the city. It was reconstructed years after, surprisingly by the communists that are not very fond of spending money for these things, and they used a very strict method, if the original design for a building wasn't found, it is better to not re build that building than doing something not the same as the original.
Matias church, the most beautiful and famous from Budapest, didn't follow this strict method and was totally re designed, it is not the same as the original before the war.
Many Jewish were kicked off and moved to the US and now are some of the most powerful people in the world, they ahora son de las personas más importantes del mundo, dominando las cinematográficas de Hollywood como 20th Century Fox (William Fox) o Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Marcus Loew)
The yellow metro lane, is the third oldest in the world.