Yesterday we took a day trip to Budapest Hungary. We left at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am to catch our 3 1/2 hour train to Budapest. We stayed in the compartments in the train like you always see in the movies. When looking outside, I often felt that I was looking at the US, rather than Austira and Hungary. On the way there we saw fantastic views including many wind farms.
- Maria and Mary on the train
- Wind Farms on the way to Budapest
Once arriving in Budapest, the language barrier was even worse. Having taken a couple of German classes in college I could somewhat communicate with people in Austria, but I was pretty much useless when it came to talking to people in Hungary. Our first stop on our trip was to the Semmelweis museum. In order to get to this museum we had to walk across one of the windiest bridges I have ever been on. I was surprised that no one blew away.
- Budapest
Semmelweis was a Hungarian physcian who worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He was the one of the first people to use hand washing to reduce the spread of dieseases between patients, mostly women and childbed fever.
- The Grave of Semmelweis
After the museum we went to the Dohány Street Synagogue. This is the largest Synagogue in Europe. This synagogue includes not only the temple, but there are many memorials to people that were killed in the Holocaust during World War II. One specific memorial is a statue of a tree that has the names off all those that were killed in Auschwitz during World War II. There is also a memorial to Raoul Wallenberg, which the Hall in Denkman is named after. He helped many Jewish people escape the Nazis during the war.
Dohány Street Synagogue
Memorial to those that died in the Holocaust
Leaves that contain the names of those that died.
Posted on March 19th, 2009 by Leslie Scheck
Filed under: Leslie Scheck, Vienna
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