How we spent our 6 days in Budapest and Prague

Budapest and Prague comprise the epicenter of a twentieth century gone mad having endured World Wars I and II and then the forced usurpation and subjugation of the populace by the communists following the Second World War.  Unimaginable but very real historical horrors abound.

In 1939, 125,000 Jews, as “defined” under the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935, lived in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic. Between 1941 and 1944, the German SS deported as many as 80,000 of them to killing centers or forced-labor camps via Theresienstadt, a concentration camp established by the SS during World War II in the city of Terezín.  Tens of thousands of people died in Theresienstadt, some killed outright and others dying from malnutrition and disease. More than 150,000 other people, including tens of thousands of children, were held there for months or years, before being sent by rail transport to their deaths at Treblinka and Auschwitz. The Germans deported an additional 60,382 of the Protectorate Jews to killing centers and forced-labor camps in the East.  Fewer than 3,100 of the deportees are known to have survived.  By May 1945, out of 125,000 original Jews, there were just 7,000 survivors.

Similarly, in Budapest, some 600,000 Jews were forcibly removed from their homes by the German SS.  Most were subsequently murdered in gas chambers.  When the communists invaded Budapest, thus “saving” the city from the Nazis, 700,000 more were taken and sent to the Soviet gulags, where again most died.  In the fight for control of the city in the waning days of World War II, as the Soviets marched into Budapest, the Nazis detonated all the bridges leading into the city, most often without warning, killing thousands in the process.  The Soviets proceeded to bombard the city from the surrounding hills.

Even after the war, thirty-two thousand people were killed in the 1956 Hungarian uprising.  Its brutal repression by the Soviet Army marked the first time (but not the last as shown by the forced annexation of Ukraine) the Soviet Union (or its post-Soviet renditions) used force to keep one of its satellites within the Soviet orbit.

The invasion of Czechoslovakia, too, in August 1968 by the Soviet Union, and its Warsaw Pact affiliates, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and Poland, resulted in the deaths of 137 Czechoslovakian civilians, wounding another 500 seriously. The invasion successfully stopped Alexander Dubček’s Prague Spring dead in its tracks, greatly strengthening the authoritarian wing within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

Budapest has a museum dedicated to the back-to-back occupations of their city called the Terror Museum.  The museum is in the same building used by both the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, the Nazi party’s then-local affiliate and by the Soviets thereafter in their brutal back-to-back campaigns on that nation. The names, occupations and small, oval pictures of the victims to both campaigns ring the outside of the building at eye level.  Those who perpetrated these horrifics, some still apparently alive today, are on display, too, in the actual killing, torture and prison chamber housed in the building’s basement.  As we read their names in the hundreds, we wonder if, when those still alive try to sleep, they dream about what hell may be like.  We can only hope it is as Dante depicted it:  a lake of ice in which they are entombed, devoid of all human warmth.  And notwithstanding the Nazis’ and the Soviets’ historical enmity toward one another, the remarkable similarity in the brutal methodology of their detestable horrors bears mention.

Notwithstanding such a perverse history, having now entered into an unusual era without occupying forces, both Budapest and Prague are, incredibly, and surprisingly, lovely.  Graced with architectural grandeur, they each house a populace that is, remarkably, both gracious and warm.  Virtually everyone we met spoke English, which seems to be the default language of choice, the trams and the subways are incredibly easy to figure out and use, the cities are wonderfully walkable and they offer up their many majesties more than willingly.

We flew to Budapest via Minneapolis and Amsterdam and took the train to Prague; our return flight out of Budapest was via JFK.  The domestic legs of the trip were on Delta, the international legs on KLM.  Jacquelyn and I had a difference of opinion as to the quality of the crew on our first KLM flight.  Comparing the demeanor of the flight attendants from Delta, Jacquelyn thought the KLM flight attendants were brash and, perhaps, cold.  I however thought them charmingly efficient.  There were smiles, certainly, but they were not so broad as to instill a desire to strike up a conversation, something I loathe when I’m flying. The Delta flight attendant, conversely, who introduced herself to us as Jane, was, to me, just too friendly. Jacquelyn thought her delightful.  I thought the food was better on KLM than that served on Delta, too.

Now I know the whole point of a plane is to get us quickly (and safely) from point A to point B; whether we were marginally wowed by the flight attendants’ relative charms is arguably somewhat beside the point. But when airlines think it is good marketing to extol the benefits of an extra half-inch of leg or seat room and sticking you in Group 5 instead of Group 425 for boarding purposes (all the while invoicing you for the “privilege” of offering you their much allegedly coveted, “preferred” service), maybe efficiency and reasonably good food without the ridiculous up charge is worth mentioning.

Our other mode of transport is worth mentioning, too.  Our diesel-engine train, from Budapest to Prague (with a half dozen stops in between), was clean and comfortable.  Our train was slower and didn’t have the idealized profile or swoosh of the bullet trains we rode in Italy.  Too, it housed the huckster who, without request, hustled our bags aboard the Prague-bound train, and then sought, hand outstretched, barely-earned compensation.  Nevertheless, once we were on our way, the on-board service was more than serviceable, the Kozel dark lagers were delicious, and we were only thirty minutes off our anticipated arrival getting into Prague.

Budapest is the capital and largest city in Hungary.  Not having been to Budapest previously, we booked a short city tour with Budapest Locals.  Our guide was Kinga and for a few short hours the day of our arrival we were given a brief introduction to the city.

In 1849, the beautiful Chain Bridge linking Buda with Pest was opened as the first permanent bridge across the Danube.  In 1873, Buda and Pest were officially merged with the third part, Óbuda (Old Buda), thus creating the city of Budapest. Though united for more than one hundred years, the city still retains the flavor of its separateness.  Buda is on a hill overlooking both the Danube, and Pest beyond, and seems to have retained its incredibly beautiful gothic and baroque underlayments.  Pest has grown into the administrative, political, economic, trade and cultural center of the city.  From the Buda Castle Hill, a World Heritage site, you can see the Hungarian Parliament below sitting majestically upon the Danube.

This was Jacquelyn and my first visit to Prague and Budapest.  We travel to immerse ourselves in the diversity of people and of sights, to experience the newness of the unexperienced and to indulge in good food and wine. On prior trips, we had addressed our gastronomic parlays in a kind of ad hoc fashion. And while for the most part our experiments were rewarding, we occasionally ran across something less than satisfying.  This time, her prescience almost magical, Jacquelyn had booked us into a wine tasting in Budapest and a food tour in Prague.  Our wine tasting was to be at the Faust Wine Cellar located on the Buda side literally below the Hilton Hotel.

The Hilton Hotel is immediately adjacent to the gothic Matthias Church, one of the most beautiful churches in all of Budapest, built in the second half of the 14^th century.  Standing high atop Buda Castle Hill, the area surrounding the church is resplendent with Gothic arches, eighteenth-century Baroque houses and cobblestone streets.

Built over the ruins of the Dominican cloister, which the hotel appropriated for its own secular purposes, the Hilton Hotel opened in 1977, incorporating both the 13th century Dominican cloister and a 17th century Jesuit college within its footprint. The nave of the former church adjacent to the hotel offers an architectural monstrosity, however, its modern façade almost profane within the gothic and baroque splendor around it.  Nevertheless, if you can get over the thoughtless sacrilege which seems to exemplify the hotel both in its architecture and in its location and find your way in and down the stairs and into the candle-lighted Cloisters, the wine service at the Faust Wine Cellar is wonderful and the descriptions of the various wines both interesting and entertaining.  And though certainly not intended as mere afterthought, the Hungarian wines we were served, remarkably of limited availability in the U.S., are delicious, offered in either five or eight different varietals with a call-back on your favorite.

When we arrived in Prague, we again booked a short morning tour of the city, this time arranged through our hotel, who not only provided us with some of the flavor of the city but its history as well.

We chose our hotel in each city by their websites prior to our departure and while we would not choose our hotel in Budapest again (our room in the Continental Hotel Budapest was just a bit too small, the housekeeping manifestly too tentative), the hotel in Prague was definitely a keeper.

The Art Nouveau Palace Hotel in Prague has, as its name connotes, abundant art nouveau motifs.  Ten foot bronze statues of strong, naked men holding beautiful lamps grace the entryway.  Art nouveau chandeliers and lamps light the rooms and dark wood-lined corridors.  Our room was large and sunny.  The bath was awash in marble.  Our only complaint (perhaps unfair) is that the hotel is a Viking Cruise Line hotel; the cruise line occupying a large help desk in the lobby, draped with a large Viking Cruise Line banner, dedicated to assist the Viking Cruise Line’s mostly American passengers.

It was readily apparent that the Viking Cruise Line passengers were the largest organized contingent of the hotel’s guests the week we were there. We had seen them congregated at the Viking Cruise Line’s help desk in the hotel’s lobby, or sitting in groups of four to six in the hotel’s bar/restaurant talking animatedly among themselves, or mingling in like numbers in the hotel’s lobby, partially blocking the primary ingress and egress, which surely was violative of some local fire safety protocol. Very loud, nasally-embroidered American English was the exclusive lingua franca.

Prague is a city of 1.7 million people.  Last year, they welcomed 7.5 million visitors.  Thus, almost eight of every ten people you may see on the beautifully cobble-stoned streets of Prague is a tourist.  As an inevitable result, the global commoditization of fun finds itself in Prague, too.

We see the streets near the Staromák or Old Town Square lined with small curio shops by the dozen each selling the same cheap trinkets found in any large city on the planet.  Tour groups, ranging in size from single digits to dozens deep, coalesce around the beautiful Astronomical Clock and Calendarium, dating from the year 1410, now under much needed repair.  At the forefront of each multitude is a caterwauling hawker, holding a flagstaff or umbrella high overhead, shouting in any one of a dozen languages, as they each herd their own band of sweating tourists toward this church, then that monument.  We see ten feet of padded Panda, teetering in Staromák Square, being photographed by dozens of Japanese, to the sheer delight of their small children. “Watch him wiggle his nose and his tail,” one screams.  The Panda bends alarmingly low over a small child and wiggles on command.  Three or four men, joining perhaps three of four thousand world-wide, stand mute and statue-still, each painted a glittering gold or silver or bronze, perspiration seeping out of their spray-painted foreheads as the only sign of their mortality, the open box for the delivery of cash poised in front of each. A Dixie Land jazz band plays in the square’s center, home to a statue of religious reformer Jan Hus, who for his beliefs was burned at the stake.  In front of the Old Town Hall is a memorial to martyrs, including Jan Jesenius and Maxmilián Hošťálek, beheaded on that exact spot by the Habsburgs.  Twenty-seven crosses mark the pavement in their honor in front of which a juggler juggles balls, then sticks, then fire, positioned adroitly in front of a large and very boisterous crowd.

An absolute must in Prague is the Taste of Prague, an axiomatically self-described foodie tour company.  Karolina Staidlova was our guide.  She is a very enthusiastic Prague native by way of London and Melbourne.  She was very funny, and very charming, and treated our group of ten as if we were her best friends.  Standing on the street, she asked each of us, both Americans and Swedes alike, to introduce ourselves as she delightedly poured us each a shot of Slivovitz, a type of plum brandy, poured from her flask into portable shot glasses.  Introductions completed, we made toasts all around, and the glasses were upended.  Then on to the Lokal pub.

The Lokal pub is an exact replica of the kind of ascetic food establishment (I hesitate to call them restaurants) that existed when the Soviets were in power.  Communal wooden tables and benches comprised the exclusive seating accommodations; service was by white-aproned servers.  The pub’s “menu” consisted of copious amounts of beer with very plain meats, cheeses and breads.  As we each downed a pint of Pilsner Urquell beer, Karolina told us that during the Soviet’s occupation of the city, the pilsner beer was commonly served without an initial request for service.  Once served, the patrons had to request only that it stop.  We drank our single mug of beer and scooped the fried matured cheese into the adjacent tartare sauce.  The Prague ham, served in slices piled without accompaniment onto a round, white plate, would have been grim indeed without the creamed horseradish, šopský salad, and pickled cheese.  What the pub lacked in gastronomic excellence, was more than made up for in the sheer asceticism, remarkably inapposite in our hyper-competitive world, and Karolina’s exceptional historical descriptions of the almost unbelievable Soviet period.

From there it was onto Nase Maso butcher shop for a delicious meatloaf with homemade pickles and mustard, steak tartare on bread and salsiccia sausage.  Karolina offered a description, too, of the butcher shop’s history.  Then on to the Sisters bistro for classically-fabulous Czech finger food, consisting of Clebicky open face sandwiches, one made with beet puree, goat cheese and caramelized walnuts and the other with celeriac salad.  The sandwiches were paired with an excellent glass of Gurdau Rhein Riesling from the Gala family at the vinoteka U Mouřenína.

Afterward we went to Kaprova 8 where we very much enjoyed the Svickova sauce with dumplings, accompanied by 2015 Saintlaurent red wine by Regina Coelli.  Then on to Kantyna for some amazingly juicy pork schnitzels (schnitzels are ubiquitous in Prague), pickled vegetables, slowly roasted pulled beef, more Kozel dark lagers, or, if you preferred, Čert schnapps.  Jacquelyn and I chose the Kozel, which has become a favorite of ours.  Lastly, we took a tram across the Vltava River to have coffee and pastries at Café Savoy.

Café Savoy is one of the many historic cafés in Prague. It is located on the west bank of the Vltava, not far from Kampa Park, where the now famous John Lennon wall is located.  Franz Kafka was said to have watched the Jewish theatre performances that took place at the Café Savoy. The Café first opened its doors in 1893 and has had what has been described as a turbulent history since.  Its most recent restoration occurred in 2001 during which the elegant Art Nouveau interior and historic seven-meter-high Neo-renaissance style ceiling was majestically revitalized.

The coffee, which is what we came for, was almost an after-thought however to the magnificent pastries that were presented as accompaniment.  The first was “laskonka,” consisting of two coconut meringues with a chocolate ganache; the second was “venecek,” a choux pastry with vanilla cream and sugar glaze.  Not to be outdone, the third offering was “vetrnik,” another choux pastry with a marvelous vanilla cream, caramelized whipped cream with a caramel glaze.  Believe me when I tell you, although I am not much of a dessert person (much to Jacquelyn’s amazement), I would gladly make the trip back to Prague again just for the pastries at the Café Savoy.  They really are that good.

Jacquelyn and I were in Budapest on the day of the last World Cup games.  Young, French men and women screamed the defeat of Croatia as they marched, arm in arm, four across in the streets of Budapest, wrapped in the French flag, emblazoned with the French colors painted on their faces and in their hair, singing the French national anthem triumphantly. Not so long ago, the Nazis marched twenty abreast in these same streets.  More recently, the Soviets and their complicit Warsaw Pact brethren.  Notwithstanding the disturbingly oxymoronic contrast between a brutal past and a lively and engaging present – or maybe, really, because of it – both Prague and Budapest are much, much better now.