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In part 3 of our Vacation cruise on the Danube we will take you into Budapest, Hungary, the point where we met the beautiful Viking cruise ship. It today's blog you'll see beautiful photos of the city at night and learn some of the history! ARRIVAL AT NIGHT - When we arrived on ship it was near nightfall, so after a good dinner we went to the top deck and took pictures of the city of Budapest all lit up. It was stunning.
IT IS ACTUALLY 2 CITIES COMBINED!
Did you know that Budapest was formerly 2 separate cities on opposite sides of the Danube River? We didn't! They were previously known as Buda and Pest.
NOTE: Pest is pronounced "PeSHT"
FAST FACT- It has the oldest underground subway in western Europe (England has the oldest in Eastern Europe).
LANGUAGE - Hungarian is a comibination of Finnish and Slavic
THE HISTORY: 1500 and 1600s -
In the 1500s, Hungary was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, who built
numerous Turkish bathhouses in Buda and thankfully, many of these still
remain. In the late 1600s, the Habsburg Dynasty gained control of
Hungary and in 1873 Buda and Pest were united as one city. THE CITY DURING WORLD WAR 2 - Budapest suffered greatly in WWII as it was occupied by German troops who destroyed much of the city upon their retreat in 1945. A communist government came into power and Hungary was declared a republic until the Hungarian Revolution in 1956
1989 AND NOW - In 1989, Hungary became a democracy and later joined the European Union.
NEXT: The Bus Tour of Budapest and the Bus Sound of Music Sing-A-Long