McKenzie Harris: October 11th, 2023
My five roommates and I, plus four other friends from UNYP, joined a student tour to Hungary this weekend. Since Budapest was one of my most highly anticipated trips out of Prague, I was excited to see it, but knew so little about the city that I had almost no expectations. I think that’s a lucky combination of attitudes because I went into the trip ready to be pleased but unable to be disappointed! And sure enough; I got a very positive impression of the city. I still prefer Prague, but I’d like to return to Budapest someday.
For anyone looking into education abroad, I can say that it’s definitely reasonable to do multi-day trips like this while you’re studying abroad. I’ve had a lot of homework lately, but I just did a little extra right before the trip and I was able to go all three days without thinking about school at all. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth it to see some extra sights in your host region, as long as the travel isn’t too stressful, expensive, or distracting from your host city.
^the Parliament Building lit up at night^
Our trip consisted of two walking tours (one on the Buda side and one on the Pest side of the river), a nighttime boat party on the Danube, a street market for local vendors, and some excellent restaurants. The student group also did several very late excursions to clubs. I would have preferred to stay home and sleep, but what can you do? (leave early in my case, haha). I’ll have pictures from all of these activities and more at the end of the post!
Since this was my first trip outside of the Czech Republic since I’ve been here, I wanted to learn a bit about Hungarian culture and history. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to make it to the national museum and I learned less than I would have liked. Nevertheless, we learned some history from our tour guides and I also found a little online to share:
- Budapest is celebrating its 150th anniversary of being a city this year. Before 1873, apparently the city was split into two parts on either side of the river—Buda, and Pest—so when they unified, they became “Budapest”. I know it sounds like I’m making this up but I swear it’s true.
- Why I was so excited to see the Danube: This river was apparently very important to many historical empires, including Rome, the Huns, and the Ottoman Empire. I read a historical fiction novel earlier this year that was set in the period of the Ottoman expansion, and the river served as an important border and battle location between the Ottomans and Eastern Europe. Even though Budapest wasn’t where all of this happened, it was still cool to see and touch such an important river in person.
- The Danube carries many dark legacies in its waters; in addition to the aforementioned wars of the middle ages, the river was used to dispose of the bodies of Jewish people in WWII during Nazi occupation. The picture of the shoes (below) shows a memorial sculpture, for the people who were shot and thrown into the river. The people had to take off their shoes, because they were well made and the Nazis wanted to use them. The third picture below is the Dohány Street Synagogue, the second-largest synagogue in the world. It’s hard to think about the cruelty and violence in the history of this city, but memorials like the shoes and other WWII sculptures (see 2nd below) are good reminders of the sordid past events that shouldn’t be forgotten.
More pictures below!
^the UNYP group!^
^St. Stephen’s Basilica, which we could see from our hostel window!^
^the common room of the hostel^
^me in front of the river^
^another parliament picture, this time in daylight!^
^the tour group, via the Oh My Prague organization^
^this is the ceiling of a cafe! It was the New York Cafe, which marketed itself as “the most beautiful cafe in the world”^
^we had to try the most beautiful McDonald’s in the world too, of course^
^the UNYP group again!^
^me at the Fisherman’s Bastion on the hill, overlooking the city^
^the view over the Danube to the Buda side^
^one of four sculpted lions standing sentry for the Chain Bridge^
^part of the walk up the hill to the castle^
^two sculptures near the castle complex on top of the hill, showing an interesting contrast between the success of the hunters and the woman with a fawn looking at them^
^another picture of the parliament building from the river, but this time it’s from a slightly different angle!^
Thanks for reading!