Day 154, 5 December 2012. Budapest, Free Walking Tour of Buda. And Pest. (http://www.triptobudapest.hu/). After croissants and coffee at the hotel we headed out to Vorosmarty Square (site of the main Christmas Market in Budapest). We met up with today's walking tour company and learned about Hungary's rather chequered past. They make jokes about it now, but seriously, never go gambling with a Hungarian - they have chosen the wrong side in both world wars and then ended up being run and runover by the Russians for 50 odd years - in fact the last Soviet soldier didn't leave until 1991 (2 years after the wall came down in 1989). We started out in old Pest (the city on our side of the river. Pronounced Pesht, and thus, Budapesht). We visited St Stephen's Basilica which is the Roman Catholic cathedral built in the 19th century on the site of a much older chapel. St Stephen was around in 1000 AD and appears in many places throughout both Buda and Pest. They had to go into his coffin in medieval times and found one arm had miraculously been mummified - miracles being what they are, they chopped the arm off to preserve as a relic and one can follow the St Stephen jigsaw all the way to Australia (which possesses a finger apparently). We visited Elisabeth Square which has a lock tree - similar to the lock bridge in Paris. Engrave the name of your true love on a padlock then walk a block to throw the key in the Danube (Duna) river... I think someone missed the point of the caper however... so much quicker to put one's lock straight on to a bridge. We then walked to the Academy of Sciences. Hungary has around 15 nobel prize winners in various areas - most of them have now left Hungary - bit of a brain drain problem. Our guide quizzed the group of 26 on any Hungarian famous people we knew or inventions by Hungarians. We were all woefully silent.... Turns out the Rubik's cube came from here and Mr Rubik still walks his dog in the Castle District. Also Mr Biro... who invented, of course, the Biro pen. Drew Barrymore... Goldie Hawn... and apparently half of Hollywood have Hungarian connections. Suitably chastened we continued on and crossed the Chain Bridge over the Danube (Duna) river (pictured). We were suddenly out of cosy flat Pest and in hilly Buda. We climbed 230 odd lethally slippery and snow covered steps to reach the Royal area of the Castle Quarter and saw the changing of the guard outside the president's offices. Whilst very impressive, they have only been going since the beginning of 2012, because everywhere has guards and Hungary, a democracy for only 26 odd years, wanted some too. The view from way up there was superb and we could see the contrasts of the two halves of the city (the layout is now a UNESCO world heritage site so cannot be changed). The Buda half on which we found ourselves, looked very old in places, but mostly if was flattened by the Germans during WWII - we even saw the cannon and bullet holes in what was left of the Ministry of Defence building. The places that looked particularly quaint were in fact completely rebuilt after the war. We concluded the tour at Matthias church built in the 1300s and the oldest building in Budapest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Church)
We finished the tour after the scheduled 2.5 hours and then took in the view from the Fishermen's Bastion prior to taking 1.5 hours to get back to the starting point - the sun was shining in complete contrast to yesterday's snow and it would have been criminal to take the bus/train/metro options. Read the next entry for our fabulous night at the State Ballet!