Seeing as we scored a 5-day long weekend, we thought we’d make the most of it by going on a bit of a road trip. The main plan is to venture to the Hungarian town of Hollókő tomorrow to check out its famous Easter festival, but we thought we’d get things rolling today by visiting some nearbyish towns. I say nearbyish because the closest accommodation we could find to Hollókő was in the town of Szentendre, approximately 1.5 hours drive from Hollókő and only 20km outside Budapest.
Because Szentendre is so close to Budapest, it’s a popular daytrip destination for tourists and when we arrived this afternoon, we found the town full of people. Daniel, Iago and I checked into our awesome hotel right across the road from the Danube river, then enjoyed a lazy couple of hours strolling Szentendre’s gorgeous cobbled streets and riverside paths. We also visited a marzipan museum featuring large edible versions of icons such as Michael Jackson, Mickey Mouse and the Hungarian Parliament. 
After taking a break to allow Iago to swim in the river, we set off for our next destination - another Hungarian town called Esztergom. I must admit that I hadn’t heard of Esztergom until recently when of one Daniel’s Grade 4 students did a project on it, but it turns out that Esztergom is actually one of Hungary’s oldest cities and its history is closely intertwined with that of the Magyar people. Hungary’s first kings lived in Esztergom and it served as the capital of Hungary from the 10th to the mid-13th century.
Today we visited Esztergom’s most significant building, Esztergom Basilica, an enormous cathedral dedicated to St. Adalbert which looms large over the city. It is apparently the biggest church in Hungary, the 18th largest church in the world, and also the highest building in Hungary. In spite of this, on approach I was a little disappointed by its size. I mean, sure, it was big, but it wasn’t THAT big. Then Daniel did a little demo for me by standing next to one of the entrance columns. As you can see from the photo, he looks pretty darn tiny in comparison.
While Iago waited not-so-patiently outside, Daniel and I took a look around the Basilica, including climbing many, many, many, many stairs to get to the cupola (dome) viewing platform. The views over the city of Esztergom were very impressive. Daniel also climbed the bell tower, then we explored the crypts under the building.
Finally, we finished our visit to the church by walking through the Dark Gate, a large tunnel which runs through the 90m hill on which the Basilica stands. Since the name Dark Gate sounds very ominous and mysterious, I was hoping for a cool story which would explain the origins of the name. Perhaps something involving a portal to Hell or even some unexplained howling sounds. But no. Apparently the Dark Gate got its name because when it first opened there was inadequate lighting installed. Ugh, so boring!On the way home from Esztergom, Daniel and I attempted to visit an awesome-looking hilltop castle in the nearby city of Visegrád. Unfortunately, while our car put up with near vertical roads for awhile, it eventually ran out of enthusiasm and we had to make a harrowing backward slide down the mountain. We’re going to try again tomorrow though....as we’ve since learned about a much more appropriate route. Oh, the joys of GPS-directed driving!
- Amanda
Actually there is a dark story regarding the "Dark Gate" related to the 1956 revolution. On the other side of the hill was a military outpost and rumor was in town that it housed a number of communist state police personnel. People got excited and marched peacefully through the gate with a bus. A tank was waiting for them on the other side and shot into the bus, killing 14 people, wounding many.
ReplyDeleteYes, that certainly is a dark and tragic moment in the dark gate's history. Thanks for sharing the story!
ReplyDelete