Budapest Oct 20

The cruise tour officially ended last night, so this morning we hiked from the hotel to the House of Terror, which was used by the Arrow Cross (the group that headed the Hungarian Nazi party during WWII) as a headquarters, then after the Soviet Union took over in 1945, became a detention center and torture chamber, both after WWII and after the 1956 rebellion against Communism.  No photos were allowed, but here is one of some of the Hungarian victims of the House of Terror which are on the outside of the building (tough looking characters)

and here are a couple "legal" photos from inside the museum (the Ruskies occupied Hungary from 1946-1989):

I really wanted to get some neat souvenirs, but all they had were books and some candles of Lenin and Stalin's head, so no dice.  I thought the museum was great, having spent 2.5 hrs there and could have spent a lot more.  Jerry was not as impressed, maybe he expected to see some torture in progress.

After a brief pit stop at the hotel, we hiked across the Chain Bridge to the Buda side of the Danube.  We took the 1870-built steam-powered funicular (2nd largest in Europe) up to the castle complex

The Hapsburg palace (now an art museum) of my previous posts was at the top of the funicular, and we got to see the changing of the guard and then hiked over to the Hospital in the Rock, a series of limestone caves under the castle/palace/etc on the top of the hill overlooking the Danube that had been used as a medical center during WWII and especially during the Soviet siege of Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1945, and then converted to a nuclear bunker/command post during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.  There were several dozen life-sized mannequins shown in various states of wounds/injuries/operations, was a little gross at times. They also had a bunch of rooms recounting the horrors of Nagasaki/Hiroshima as kind of a nuclear peace statement.  Again, no photos were allowed inside, but they had operating rooms, hospital beds, sealed doors to keep out radiation, its own power plant, stockpiled food and water, etc.  Good stuff, could have used a lot more time going thru it, but the guide hustled us thru. This was the actual entrance that ambulances would drive into back then:

 Poster on wall:

The museum was selling surplus military equipment like used gas masks, canteens, syringes (!),  etc, some of which I actually considered getting as gifts, but couldn't quite pull the trigger.  After returning to the hotel, we hiked a couple blocks to an outdoor Hungarian cafe and I had "Hungarian chicken goulash" (we're still not quite sure what goulash really is), very good! We came back to get ready for the big trip home tomorrow, hooray!  Looking forward to the 10 hour flight from Frankfurt to Denver!