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| The "Chain "Bridge" | Budapest Royal Palace | |
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| Overlooking the Danube | At the "Chain Bridge" | On the "Chain Bridge" |
| David Howard's trips are always during the school year, so the opportunity to travel throughout Hungary, Romania, or elsewhere in Europe are limited. However, every trip goes through Budapest, where I spend a day or two before going into Romania. Posted here are some photos of this beautiful, proud old city, whose history dates back to the Roman period. The Hungarian nation of today, with Budapest as its capital, dates back a thousand years, when the Hungarian state was founded on Christmas Day, 1000 A.D., with the crowning of King Stephen I (later canonized as Saint Stephen). The term "Hungary" comes from a Finno-Ugric word onogur, meaning "ten peoples," and refers to the Magyar tribes who settled down in the area after migrations from Western Siberia centuries earlier. The site of Budapest has been occupied for centuries, and it has functioned as the capital of successive empires. But, the modern city known as "Budapest" was founded in 1873 by combining the cities of Buda (and Óbuda) on the Danube's hilly western bank with the city of Pest on the Danube's flat eastern bank into a city called "Pest-Buda," and later called "Budapest." (In Hungarian, it is pronounced "Buda-PESHT.") It is lovely old city, beautifully lighted up at night, with massive buildings, narrow streets, and a lovely pedestrian mall with dozens of charming shops, restaurants, etc., and where open-air vendors set up their carts on Saturdays. The city boasts many bridges joining Buda and Pest, and statues everywhere of the nation's heroes, going back to the seven mighty horsemen, the Maygar warrior-princes who conquered the land ca. 900 A.D. It also boasts numerous natural thermal baths open to the public; some are Turkish baths dating back to the Ottoman Turk period in the 17th century. Click on these links for more on Budapest: Hungarian Home Page: History Talking Cities: Budapest Lonely Planet: Budapest |