Day 4 - July 29th

This morning started in typical fashion... however we managed to get out of the apartment by 11AM. My cousin, Nora, had suggested we visit the 'Hospital in the Rock' under Castle Hill. This is a 25,000 sq.ft. of labyrinthine network of hospital and fallout shelter corridors. In 1939 at the outbreak of WW II the Hungarian government began building a secret emergency surgical hospital. The hospital was state of the art for the period... the best in Europe. It was meant to serve 200 patients at a time but actually served three times as many. It was then forgotten but resurrected during the 1956 Revolution for a couple of months. During the Cold War in the late 1950's and 60's there was an actual fallout shelter built with a very sophisticated system which had a pressurized interior so that fallout could never be drawn into the shelter. The air exchange system is turned on each night for a few hours... it is capable of completely exchanging the air for the entire area in 10 minutes. It also keeps the machinery from rusting and mold and mildew from forming. The bandages which were amassed in the tunnels expired in 1961. There were operating theaters and cabinets full of original surgical tools and needles. Photography was not allowed so I have nothing to share of this fascinating site. Today we also saw Matthias Church but only the exterior.

This church has. beautifully tiled roof...

 

We look forward to returning to take a tour of the interior. After resting a bit in the late afternoon I snapped a photo of the exterior of the apartment in which we're staying. The interior is decorated completely with IKEA... all the way down to the dish towels and all cabinetry! You can see Jim in the corner.

 

We went to check out the location of the second largest synagogue in the world but ran into torrential rain. Instead we went to Bob's Pizza where we had an outstanding Hungarian meal! We did notice the prices of the pizzas... would you prefer 24 cm or 32 cm pizza?

So much for our adventures today!