Budapest, day 8: Communist Park

One last thing that I'd wanted to see in Budapest was the park to which all the communist era statues had been exiled. I'd read that it took 4 different buses to get there, and the guide confirmed that it would be an all day outing. I'd asked the concierge about driving there (since we did have a car after all), but he said it was hard to find, and if you missed a turn, you'd end up on the highway and have to go 60 km before you could turn around. He recommended that I take a taxi. I'd already concluded that the concierge and taxi drivers were working together, so I put this thought on hold.

Now that we were actually leaving Budapest, I decided to find out if this place was on our way out of town. As luck would have it, a different guy was on concierge duty, and he was very helpful. The place was indeed on our way, and he copied his map book to show us how to get there and how to get on the highway again afterward. He also gave us excellent specific instructions about what lane to be in at what point to not accidentally end up on the highway. I'd already learned that the signs were totally insufficient, so it was really good to have the instructions.

As we were loading up our car, a man came out from the shop that we'd parked in front of. I was afraid he'd chew us out for having parked in front of his store for a week (as far as we could tell that was legal, and we certainly weren't the only car parked there). Instead, he said in a broken mixture of English and German, "Sorry. House fell on car. I cleaned up." I thought we'd parked in front of one of the few buildings in Budapest that didn't have bits of plaster falling off of it, but I guess the storm blew loose some debris. The antenna was broken, but otherwise it didn't look that bad at the time. Later when the sun was on the car, we could see a bunch of scratches.

We made it to the Momento Park without difficulty, and it was really interesting. It would have been even better if there had been text explaining the statues and perhaps the context of their original placement, but I think a lot was self-explanatory. They also had a small but informative exhibit on the history of the fall of communism in Hungary.

One of the things that my communist walking tour guide had told about from her childhood was frustration that even the flowers had to support the party. These red star flowerbeds were apparently everywhere at the time, and I was glad to see one here.