Posts Tagged ‘museum’

House of Terror

Each country that we’ve visited in continental Europe has had its own story to tell about the events surrounding and following WWII.  Hungary, being a territory on the front of the war, was successively occupied by the Nazis (in Hungary the party was known as the Arrow Cross) and then by the Russians.  Both of these groups were well known for the activities of their secret police organizations, and for the real horrors subjected on the population both during and after the war.

In Budapest, there is a museum called the House of Terror which chronicles the acts perpetrated on the Hungarian people by these two groups over the years.  The name is particularly appropriate, because the building that the museum is housed in was actually the headquarters of the secret police for BOTH of the occupying forces!  Inside is a really powerful museum, featuring tons of multimedia – especially videos – that really brings the stories to life.  We spent about 3 hours in the museum and only really watched about half the videos on display.  The most compelling and disturbing part of the museum was the basement which housed many interrogation rooms and still retains the character of what it must have been like while in use.  This museum is highly recommended if you visit Budapest.

We’ve been really busy traveling for the past 2 weeks or so, but will gradually try and get things updated here!  When last I wrote we were in Buenos Aires, and from there we went on to Santiago, Chile.  It was a quick, pleasant flight and we had a few really nice days of exploring the city.

All of the photos link to our galleries which have more photos and I´ve started adding captions to explain them, so you can get even more about our trip if you click through to those!

Our first afternoon in Santiago we headed to the Museo de la Memoria, which is in memory of the incredibly difficult time that Chile has been through from the 1970s until the 1990s.  It was a very well put together museum and we learned so much about the recent history of Chile, despite not much of the text being in English.

Justin has been doing an awesome job filling you in on our “W” hike, but we’ve been really busy since then as well, so I’ll try to catch things up!  We had a day of recovery after all of the hiking and two awesome nights at our favorite hostel in Puerto Natales.

The next stop on our agenda was El Calafate, Argentina which is known almost exclusively for its glacier.  We took a bus to get there and had a very easy 6 hour ride, spending only an hour at the Chile-Argentina border crossing.  We weren’t quite prepared for what El Calafate would be like since it was pretty different from Ushuaia and Puerto Natales.  Firstly, it was EXPENSIVE.  Especially the food.  Secondly, it seemed to be built just for the tourists and while the other towns had shops for tourists and tours for tourists, this place had a kind of Disneyland overpricedness to it.  We were very lucky though because we stayed at a wonderful hostel (Hospedaje Lautaro) run by an incredibly welcoming family who did masses to ensure that we could make the most of the glacier and the town.  They also provided a very tasty breakfast each day.  We were also able to save a bit of money by using the kitchen instead of the overpriced restaurants.

The first night in town we cooked dinner and then went and did a little beer tasting at the local brewery, Sholken. The beer was interesting!  We agreed that their pale ale was the favorite, but the dark beer tasted EXACTLY like beef jerky.  They must use hickory or something in the process.  I have never had a beer that tastes like meat before!

Beer tasting!

(more…)

There were several options for a boat trip from Ushuaia (including Antarctica!) but we chose a tour to a penguin breeding colony and it was definitely the right choice.  Penguins are absolutely adorable, and not something you often get to see in the wild.  The tour promised us that we would be able to “walk within the penguins” and it was the only trip in town that has permission to take tourists to this penguin island.

Flag trees on the way to the penguins

We stopped at a couple of scenic spots along the way and after about an hour on gravel roads we arrived at a ranch.  Justin and I had thought that the ranch would have a tour that involved ranchy things, but we were wrong about this.  It was actually a marine museum and research station and we got a tour of all kinds of bones and even got to see a dolphin being dissected.  That was smelly!

Scientists hard at work

Ok, so that´s not a cute penguin picture, but I´m getting to those!  We took a short boat ride out to the island and then had an hour walking around looking at the breeding colony.  There were Magellanic and Gentoo penguins.  The Gentoo are more rare and have orange feet while the Magellanic were plentiful, nest in burrows and are plain black and white.  And here are the cute penguins…