Buda and Pest

Full day of sightseeing today, starting with a bus tour of both Buda (the smaller, hillier side of the Danube) and Pest (the larger, bustling side). We started at Castle Hill and the statue of St. Stephen, who united and brought Christianity to Hungary. The view is tremendous, and is dominated by the huge Parliament building across the river in Pest. After the tour--which included many other sites including Hero Square and lots of history--we visited the Bela Bartok Unitarian Church (the 2nd Unitarian Church of Budapest) and met with the minister, Sandor Leta. Then it was time for a delicious lunch to replenish our batteries.

The afternoon's highlight was a visit to Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest in the world after New York City's Temple Emanu-El. The very moving weeping willow statue is a tribute to the Jews of Budapest who were killed in the Holocaust (the street itself was the border of the Budapest Ghetto). Finally, a visit to the Central Market and some shopping polished off the afternoon. A hard day to top, but Marta and Mary were planning just how to do that tomorrow on the subway back to the hotel!

Meanwhile in Bucharest

John, Jo Anne, and Denisa flew on to Bucharest after that no-sleep flight to Frankfurt. We could see the snowy peaks of the Alps off in the distance to our right, and we followed the Danube past Budapest to Bucharest. Unfortunately, Hungary and Transylvania were under clouds, but when we came out of the clouds over Wallachia it was interesting to see how different the agriculture looks from the air. Romanian fields are divided up into small portions only two or three yards wide, but three to four hundred yards long. Our friends here tell us that this is because the farmers wish to make room for all of the crops they wish to grow, and their actual plots are quite small.

It was obvious that there has been a great deal of change in Bucharest since we were last here. For one thing, we saw a huge water park just a couple of minutes north of the airport as we were landing, and a many shiny new big box stores on the road in from the airport. We saw the beautiful, leafy, laky Herestrau Park, and the Arch of Triumph at Victory Square before passing in on the still elegant, 19th century Paris Soseaua Kisileff. We are staying near University Square, site of the 1989 revolution. We had dinner at La Mama, which mean's "Mother's Place," which promises what your mother would make (if she were an expert at Romanian traditional cuisine), and where the food was very delicious and very inexpensive. We saw the Athenaeum, where a concert featuring the Barber Adagio was in progress, and the Athenee hotel, a nest of spies in the early months of World War II. Night at the "Relax Comfort Suites" hotel on the Avenue Nicolae Balcescu.

The Fabulous Fabius Hotel

At the Fabius Hotel in beautiful downtown Budapest after a no-sleep flight or two. Immediately went down the street to a local cafe for some sustenance. Marta is with our guide Csilla. First group dinner is tonight. More pics to come tomorrow.

Welcome

Seven of us from First Parish in Arlington, Massachusetts, will be on our way to visit our sister Unitarian church in Gagy, Transylvania on June 28, 2011. Right now we are busy with preparations, and full of excitement. We have been planning this trip since September, and dreaming about it for far longer than that.