Budapest, Hungary
How to get out Budapest
* The attractive towns on the Danube Bend (Dunakanyar): Szentendre for its artistic community, Visegrád for its castle and Esztergom for its cathedral, imposingly sited on a hill overlooking the Danube.
* The Hungarian Open-Air Museum (skanzen), just outside Szentendre (40 minute train ride from Budapest) is easily reached by bus from the Szentendre HÉV (communal train) station. This is a huge tract of land to which ancient buildings have been moved from all parts of the country. Small farm villages, mostly with thatched roofs, now dot the landscape, along with barns, outbuildings and even churches. Many are furnished inside. Buy the English guide book, some of the attendants are very knowledgeable (and some not so) but few speak English. You could spend a whole day there (even several) and still have things left to see. There are many ongoing events offered, especially for families with children.
* 30 kilometers east is Gödöllo, a town full of parks and home to the former royal palace.
* Statue Park. [40]. Located at the corner of Balatoni utca and Szabadkai utca (From the blue metro line station Ferenciek tere, take the 7-173 red-blue bus to Etele tér, then the yellow suburban bus called “Érd, Diósdon át” to Szoborpark Múzeum stop; buses run every 10-30 minutes; buy your ticket at the desk before boarding). Tel.: (36-1) 227-7446. Open 10am-16pm every day. Tickets 600 forints, for international student card holders 400.
Rather than smash the statues of the Communist era, the Hungarians arranged them with a twist of irony in a park to the south of Buda. Visitors may well interpret this as an assertion that the Hungarian spirit is stronger than communism. The Statue Park, was first conceived by the literary historian László Szörényi in 1989 when he suggested the various Lenin statues from all over Hungary could be gathered into one “Lenin garden.” According to Ãkos Eleod, the architect: “This park is about dictatorship. And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described, built, this park is about democracy. After all, only democracy is able to give the opportunity to let us think freely about dictatorship.” Possible souvenirs are t-shirts which poke fun at communism, German Trabant car models, CDs of Hungarian communist fight songs, reproduction Hungarian Communist Party membership booklets and kitschy postcards of old communist advertisements. The park is in a badly-kept state, signs are in Hungarian only. Buy a booklet in English.
* A great day trip is Visegrád, a town on the Danube Bend, where you find a former royal palace partially rebuilt in Renaissance style (accessible to people with physical disabilities), a medieval residential tower and an impressive citadel, which is about 30-50 minute hike up from the base. Take a train from Budapest Nyugati railway station to Nagymaros–Visegrád (cca. 40-60 minutes, runs every 60 minutes; the station will be on the opposite side of the river so you need to take a 5-minute ferry ride across; ferries are scheduled to train arrivals), or take a direct bus at Budapest, Ãrpád hÃd bus station to Visegrád (cca. 80 minutes, runs every 20-60 minutes). A more expensive (but much more picturesque) way to get to Visegrád is an excursion boat and a hydrofoil service run by MAHART (both daily once, only between April and late September).
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