Europe 2019 - Day 42

17 June 2019, Monday

Today is another LONG travelling day on the bus. We checked out at 11 a.m. and made our way to the bus station. Our bus was only at 1 p.m. but it took us about an hour to reach the bus station as on top of taking 2 different metro lines, we had to walk with all our luggages under the hot blistering sun for more than 1 km, which no doubt took us some time. 

Then on the bus for 17 hours; we would only reach Budapest, Hungary the following morning at about 5.30 a.m.! Don’t ask me why I do this to myself. Perhaps there’s a little bit of a masochist in me. But I’m one of those who no matter how tired or hungry or dehydrated I am, or even if my legs are about to give way to exhaustion, when I see a piece of history, or a significant building or monument, or a castle, my heart goes all a-flutter with excitement and I forget all my woes in that moment. 

So now for a bit of history. Hungary is situated in the Pannonian basin. It became the Roman province of Pannonia in the year 20 AD. Roman control collapsed with the Hun invasions in 370–410, and Pannonia was then part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom during the late 5th to mid 6th century, followed by the Avar Khaganate (6th to 9th centuries). Then came the Magyar invasion which took place in the 9th century. The Magayars are today’s Hungarians. The Magyars were Christianized at the end of the 10th century, and the Christian Kingdom of Hungary was established in the year 1000, ruled by the Árpád dynasty for the following three centuries. 

In the high medieval period, the kingdom expanded beyond Pannonia, to the Adriatic coast. In 1241 during the reign of Béla IV, Hungary was invaded by the Mongols. The outnumbered Hungarians were decisively defeated at the Battle of Mohi by the Mongol army. King Béla fled to the Holy Roman Empire and left the Hungarian population under the mercy of the Mongols. In this invasion more than 500,000 Hungarian population were massacred and the whole kingdom reduced to ashes. After the extinction of the Árpád dynasty in 1301, the late medieval kingdom persisted, but no longer under Hungarian monarchs. Next, the kingdom was reduced due to the increasing pressure by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.  Hungary bore the brunt of the Ottoman wars in Europe during the 15th century. The peak of this struggle took place during the reign of Matthias Corvinus. 

The Ottoman-Hungarian wars concluded in significant loss of territory and the 

partition of the kingdom after the Battle of Mohács of 1526. Defense against Ottoman expansion then shifted to Habsburg Austria, and the remainder of the Hungarian kingdom came under the rule of the Habsburg emperors. The lost territory was recovered with the conclusion of the Great Turkish War, thus the whole of Hungary became part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the nationalist uprisings of 1848, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 elevated Hungary's status by the creation of a joint monarchy with the Austrian Empire, ruled in personal union as Austria-Hungary by the Austrian emperors during 1867–1918.

After WW I, the Central Powers enforced the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Around 72% of the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary were ceded to other territories such as Czechoslovakia, Kingdom of Romania, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, First Austrian Republic, Second Polish Republic and the Kingdom of Italy. Between 1938 and 1941, Hungary recovered part of her lost territories. During WW II,  Hungary came under German occupation in 1944 that was followed by Soviet occupation. After WW II, the Hungarian Republic was established in Hungary's current-day borders, as a socialist People’s Republic from 1949–1989. Today it is a unitary parliamentary republic.

The history of Budapest is similar to the history of Hungary. What I find cute is that there were actually 2 separate territories, Buda and Pest (Pest! 😂) separated by the Danube River. Buda, the settlement on the west bank of the river, became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture by the 15th century. After the Battle of Mohács followed by Ottoman rule,  Buda became part of the Kingdom of Hungary under the Hapsburg Monarch. Pest-Buda became a global city with the unification of Buda, Obuda and Pest on 17 November 1873, with the name 'Budapest' given to the new capital.

The currency in Hungary is forint, roughly 300 forintis 1 Euro. 

On all these long journeys the only thing that is convenient to bring with us for food is various types of bread with the result that I am now simply sick and tired of bread. No more bread for the next 6 months. 

As I leave Romania behind, I can’t help but feel as if it was a bit of a letdown. It’s supposed to be medieval, full of castles, folklore, mystery and enigma, but I didn’t experience any of those. Maybe I didn’t look in the right places. Or maybe I expected too much (thanks to Bram Stoker and my over-active imagination). It’s a nice country, of course, and I’m glad I visited it but I find it a bit under-whelming.