River Walk

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Sweet tooth sated, we walked along the river to the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The bridge was destroyed in World War II but was rebuilt in the 1950s to it's former glory. The Chain Bridge connects Buda and Pest.



We continued along the waterfront and passed 50 pairs of bronze shoes -- the local holocaust memorial. During the Nazi retreat as the war was ending, soldiers would line up Jews along the water's edge, tether several people together and then shoot just one person to conserve bullets. The rest were unthinkably destined to drown. This was definitely a sobering memorial to those who faced such an horrific demise.

There was a rather busy highway running between the waterfront and the main part of the city. We were faced with either running for our lives through traffic across the street or to backtrack about a mile to some steps near the Chain Bridge. Against my better judgment, we ran for our lives...

The Hungarian Parliament building features prominently along the waterfront. It is an amazingly impressive piece of architecture and reminder of a bygone era of greatness. Now, only about 1/8 of the building is currently used for government business.



We passed a memorial to Imre Nagy. He considered himself a communist but was ultimately memorialized as a symbol of the anticommunist movement when he was arrested and executed along with thousands of others when Soviet troops invaded Hungary.


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