Budapest Walks: Buda Castle, Gellért Hill and Microbrew Festival

Thursday was the last day of our prolonged summer here before a big cold rainy front moved in, hopefully to make way later for an Indian summer, or an old ladies' summer as it's called hereabouts. But to enjoy the last of what we had, we bagged off work for the afternoon to enjoy what may be the last nice weather for a bit.

This is a classic Budapest walk, my favorite circuit to take reasonably ambulatory visitors along on their first day in town, although generally in reverse so that they can take their bearings of the city from the Gellért Hill early on. Also, I can't guarantee we'll have a Microbrew Festival in progress when you come to visit.

From home, the first stretch is alongside the City Park and down elegant Andrássy Avenue. I will write more about these later. at some point. Then we cross the Danube at the landmark Chain Bridge, which is not only hugely symbolic of national unity and achievement, but perhaps more apropros today also a symbol of how hard it is to get privileged people to pay their taxes, since after it was built at significant expense to the national treasury, the nobility invoked their ancient privilege of not paying any tolls, which would have bankrupted the entire project if they had gotten away with it. Today it is a key battlefield in the senseless war between pedestrians and cyclists who come whizzing blindly around the turrets at high speeds. Divisa et impera. The internal combustion engine has triumphed.

And up over the Castle Hill. This particular incarnation of the Buda Castle was built in the late 19th Century (if you don't count rebuilding after WWII) when Hungary was nominally a co-capital of the Empire along with Vienna, and needed a big palace to house the Emperor, in the event he decided to show up, along with other more permanent nabobs. Today it houses the national art museum and performs other worthwhile functions. The twee-ish Castle District, historically the heart of the city, is also worth a look on a differen walk, but but right now we are just shuttling across the hill widthwise and coming down on the rear side of the hill, at the castle's sheer rear side, which I have always admired more than the Danube-facing facade.

Check out that massive posterior and that shapely plinth!

And stopped for refreshments at the Arany Szarvas (Golden Stag), which gets special kudos here because the waiter brought a water dish for thirsty Folti without anyone asking.

From there up to the Gellért Hill, which rises more than 100 m from the Danube and provides a nice panorama of the Danube and downtown. Not nearly as high as the Jánosjegy, but since its right in the middle of everything the city appears as an intricate and vast diorama underneath.

North

East

I'm free!

After the 1848 Revolution (our uprisings against foreign powers tend to be called "revolutions" rather than "rebellions" on the basis of a complex historical theory of winning-by-losing that may well be unique to Hungary, and whereby we achieve some of our political objectives by getting the crap kicked out of us) the Austrians built this delightful "Citadel" up here in order to have the pesky as yet un-united Budaers and Pesters under heavy artillery fire if they tried any more monkey business. Fast forward 158 years and hapless U.S. President George W. Bush is preparing to give, in the Ukraine, a major address to be broadcast globally justifying his Iraq War as a logical progression in the world's march toward liberty and justice for all in the context of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War. Except in early 2006 the Ukrainians were busy poisoning their President and the speech had to be moved at the last minute, so Bush invited himself to Budapest and shut down traffic for a week. The only area that could be secured to POTUS standards at short notice was the citadel. So Bush delivered his stirring paean to freedom to a crowd of selected local and international bigwigs - regular people were kept far away, although a couple tramps camped out in the surrounding woods were apparently overlooked by the Secret Service and no doubt had their inner fibre improved via the sound system - in a stone fortress that itself was a symbol of foreign oppression.

And back across the green Freedom Bridge, personally riveted together by HRH Franz Josef himself, first servant of the State, from where we can see the escarpments of the Gellért Hill's palisades.

The Gellért is riddled through with caves formed by hot springs, which themselves feed the baths of the famous nearby Gellért Hotel. Right in the foreground is a culvert that empties the naturally hot water into the river, territory currently under dispute between fishermen who enjoy hooking the fish that gather to munch on the plankton or whatever that blossom in the warmth and vagrants who think it makes a great cut-price spa. I wouldn't suggest either sticking your body in the Danube or eating fish plucked from is depths, but apparently the river's bed is such that both are reasonably safe outside the major cities.

And back through downtown Pest, past alma mater Corvinus U., the Great Market, and Kálvin Square. Where the microbrew festival is just getting underway for the weekend. In general, the making of craft beers is in its infancy in Hungary and they are not that easy to find since the big producers have the market so well dominated, and I would say in Europe in general we don't have the same kind of experimentation with different tastes that you see in the US, although of course the standard for traditional mass-produced beer is higher almost everywhere. So it was a pleasure to taste (all made in Hungary) dark Belgian-style ale, millet beer (probably goes well with the National Cake), Irish red, and some kind of green secret-herb-infused concoction.

 

On Saturday I returned with Rob and Adrian and tasted a few more: an IPA that taste similar to a Sam Adams or a Harpoon, an honest-to-goodness "Black Lamb" stout, a buckwheat beer (that might have been the star of the show), and real ginger beer.

All in a great setting. I've written before that the 8th district (Josephtown) is the spooky district and reminds me of Philadelphia, but this downtown section has really been fixed up a lot in recent years. So this can be Society Hill. Festival ends today. Visit if you can - we need to support these guys!