Budapest

We had last visited Budapest in January 2004 and went about seeing the sites in sub zero temperatures. We did a pretty good blat of the city on that occasion, so this time decided on using our time to attend to a bit of business - notably getting the car alarm fixed, buying a new CD writer for the laptop (very important to be able to back up all these digital photos!), and a visit to the dentist. That's right, Budapest is the dentistry capital of Europe, and has single handedly developed the concept of 'dental tourism'. We were well impressed with the surgery we visited, which was actually the upstairs of someone's house in suburban Pest. A checkup, clean and polish later we were feeling our sparkly best and set of to attend to the rest of our errands.

The bronze boy with Castle Hill behind

We were very fortunate to find a great campsite right in the city itself, and were very pleasantly surprised to run into our very first travelling Kiwi couple, Sean and Julia, also travelling in a VW camper. They had just had one right mad escapade up from Greece, driving nonstop from the Greek border through Albania and Montenegro en route to Croatia, and in turn up to Budapest.
So it was a great opportunity for a good exchange of travel stories and general Kiwi banter, and at their suggestion enjoyed an amble through the local flea market...check it out!

All manner of things you can buy at the Esceri flea market!

Fancy a knife with that sir?

...or maybe an AK47??

We did manage a little sightseeing during our time though. I was very keen to check out the so called 'Terror Haza', or House of Terror, which is a museum based in the former Hungarian Nazi headquarters on a plush central boulevard. Its purpose is to educate and present the truth and facts about life during the dual occupation of Hungary by first Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Communists up until total independence in 1989. This is a piece of history that we were both totally ignorant about - I guess they didn't call it the 'Iron Curtain' for nothing huh?

The Hungarian people really suffered. (I would imagine all of occupied Europe suffered). Just as they were celebrating their liberation from the total oppression of the Nazi regime, along come the Soviets ready to impose a further 40 odd years of communist oppression, and this in particular was something that we had known nothing about. Life during this time was especially difficult. This was a time when the secret police ensured everybody lived in absolute fear, with constant informing, spying, torture and the constant threat of the Soviet work camps (they actually transported "criminals" from Hungary to heinous work camps scattered across Russia and Siberia, where many, assuming they survived, were never able to return). In some cases there were Auschwitz survivors who, once liberated and returned to Hungary, were then redetained and sent to Russia. Apparently, the last prisoner only returned to Hungary in 1999.

Terror Haza - HQ of firstly the Hungarian Nazi party, and then the Secret Police

In keeping with the communist theme, we paid a return visit to one of our favourite ever sites - Statue Park. This could best be described as a statue graveyard, where now rest dozens of communist statues which were rounded up and dismantled from their original homes following the withdrawal of the Soviets in 89. It's a real credit to Hungary that instead of destroying them - as in many other former communist controlled countries - they actually kept them as a memento from the past, to serve as a poignant reminder and to educate future generations and tourists alike. Here are some of our favourites...

Hungarian-Soviet friendship (if you can really call it that?)

The man himself

...and again

The righteous Communist worker

...and just to give you an idea of the size of this behemoth!

The quintessential Soviet solider

Another proud Communist worker

Comrades from Franco's regime over in Spain

Those Communists start them young over here

Onward Communist soldiers!