Well, I'm home again. After being awake for over 32 hours on my flight home, I've slept most of today for some reason. Huh. Go figure. But before I write anything about the trip home, I should catch you up on our final days in Budapest.
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| Interior of Synagogue |
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| Balconies in Synagogue |
On Sunday, we went to visit the Dohány Utca (Street) Central Synagogue, built in the 1850s. To say it is ornate would be an understatement. Besides the main floor there are two balconies (used by the women of the congregation). It's a Hungarian Neolog congregation which is a mixture of Orthodox and Reformed Judaism. When it was built it was just on the outside of the city though now it is close to downtown. It was built so ornate in an effort to keep up with the local Christians who were, of course, building beautiful buildings. It even included an organ though it's hard to spot it amidst the finery of the synagogue. We spent quite a while just sitting in a pew and taking in the beauty of the building.
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| Willow Tree in Memorial Garden |
We moved on to the outside of the building, walking through the Garden of Remembrance. This Garden was originally just a garden but has become a cemetery when the Nazis of World War II forced the local Jews to bury their dead within the walls of the ghetto they were forced into. Of course, because of the holocaust, there were many, many who were buried there--over 2,000 who were buried in mass graves.
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| Leaves of Willow Tree |
Beyond the Garden was the Memorial Garden, an area outside the synagogue that has been set aside as a way to remember those who died in the holocaust. The focal feature of the Memorial Garden is a metal weeping willow tree, with the names of those who died in that ugly period of history inscribed on the leaves. When one first sees it coming from the synagogue, you see it side on and it doesn't seem so big, But moving around to one of the sides, you see how big it actually is. Another moving part of the Garden is a ceremonial grave for Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who, using his diplomatic status and a wad of cash for bribes, saved the lives of thousands by giving them Swedish visas and getting them out of the country. Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviets when they "liberated" Budapest from the Germans on the charges of being a U.S. spy and died in a Soviet gulag years later. As a Christian, he is immortalized with this ceremonial grave. Alongside are the names of other non-Jews who assisted in saving Jews who would have died under the Nazis.
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| Holocaust Memorial |
Continuing in this vein, we found our way to the spot alongside the Danube where there is another holocaust memorial. The Arrow Cross, which was the Hungarian version of the Nazis, took Jews to the edge of the Danube where they would shoot them and throw them into the river. Before murdering them, they required them to give up their shoes and their overcoats. So this memorial is a simple line of cast iron shoes along the embankment of the river. Their emptiness and solidness speak to the loss from this time in our history when we found a way to be the worst to our fellow humans. All in all, it was a very moving day.
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| Art Nouveau Clock |
On Monday, we ventured out on our final day to find the Bedő-Ház or the Art Nouveau House. This is a building in the style of art nouveau or as it's called in Hungary, the secessionist movement from the turn of the 19th to 20th century. The three floors of the building are filled with this style of furniture, furnishings, knick-knacks, vases, lamps, and anything else that could be made in an art nouveau style. It was really very pleasant to see.
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| Rudas Baths (taken from the Internet) |
After lunch, we made one more trip to the baths. Marilyn went back to the Gellert Baths while Allen & I tried a new bath, the Rudas Baths, not far from the Gellert on the Buda side of the river. The Rudas Baths were my favorite of the three that we went to. It was an all-men day at Rudas. Almost all men were not wearing bathing suits but rather had on these white aprons that the baths provided. In the center of the thermal baths area is an octagonal pool with a domed roof overhead. Instead of one skylight, there were several skylights, each about a foot in diameter and each a different color. It created a multicolored streaming light effect on to the baths below. Surrounding the main bath were four smaller baths, each a different temperature ranging from 28℃ to 42℃ (82℉ to 108℉). You could move from pool to pool increasing or decreasing in temperature as you wanted. (The main pool was in the middle and was a very comfortable temperature.) There were also dry and steam saunas you could spend time in as you wanted.
Following that it was time to go home and face the task of packing before dinner. Dinner was a nice one at a restaurant called Muzeum which was an old coffee house from the 1800s that had morphed into a nice restaurant.
The flight home was uneventful if long. As I already wrote, it took me more than a day to get home with layovers in Munich and Chicago. Of the three of us, I was the first to leave and the last to arrive home. Go figure. Except for some confusion in Munich and too short a connection in Chicago (shame on you United Airlines!), everything went well, as it did for Allen & Marilyn. And we have returned home to some very happy cats.
If you've been reading this blog all along, I think you might have an idea about how much I've enjoyed this trip. Budapest is a fascinating city. It's not as glittery or glitzy as other cities but it has a beauty that sits just below the surface. It has a truly interesting and, in many ways, sad history. But it is alive and moving. It is a fast-paced city to match anty other large city I've ever visited. My memories will include some wonderful food, some very friendly and kind people, and exciting arts. Would I go back? Yes, indeed.
Viszlat! (And GO GIANTS!)
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