Day-13 Buda

Rick with St Stevens Background

We got going early and went up to Castle Hill in Buda this morning.  It has a great view over the city and the Matthias church.  We took took a bunch of pictures of the church and had a great time just walking around the hill top.

Matthias Church Exterior

Matthias Church Interior

We took a bus and tram to the Hungarian National Historical Museum. No pictures but it was very interesting looking at their history from their viewpoint.  The museum starts out about 200,000 years ago when Homo Erectus and Neanderthal both occupied this part of the world.  They have amazing collections of artifacts and early tools from sites in Hungry.He museum then proceeds chronologically to the year 2000 AD.  

Historical Museum (with Nancy)

It was really interesting to see the contrast in the description of the same events from the Austrian and Hungarian descriptions.  Each has a bit of truth in it but the spin mostly from the Austrian side was visible.  The Hungarian side has a little fatalism going for it, too.  Nobody did anything wrong, shit just happened…. Like World War I, and World War II… To be fair the Hungarians did own up to their part in these events but there was that ever so mild, well we were surrounded by Axis powers and what could we do?

The section on the period after World War II to 1989 under Communist rule was veery interesting, too.  The marxist government jailed 563,000 people for "political cleansing."

Then the very last section was on Hungarian Scientists and Noble prize winners.  That was excellent (I almost missed it just before the exit) but they have contributed a lot to physics, mathematics and medicine.  Many had to leave Hungary for the US or the UK to do their work but they were Hungarian and many kept contacts or re-established them after the fall of the Communist government in 1989.