January 22, 2011: Buda Hospital in the Rock and Nuclear Bunker

January 22, 2011: This afternoon David and I went to see the Hospital in the Rock that lies below the Buda Castle. 

Rock Hospital under Buda Castle

This hospital was made by connecting caves and tunnels below the castle. Altogether the corridors, rooms, and tunnels after being connected, are 2,400 meters (= 1.5 miles) in length, the tour only visited 800 meters (= .5 mile). Originally there were a number of separate caves and chambers, many of them secret, that were under the Buda Castel. The Germans used one chamber as their headquarters and it was there that they made plans to deal with the Soviets who had surrounded Budapest and were closing in on them. Their plan was to join forces with Hungarians who were on the German side during the war, to fight to get outside the circle of Soviets to flee to the German forces outside the circle. However, somehow, the Soviets learned of this plan and when the Germans fought to get through the Soviet forces, only 700 of the 22,000 German/Hungarian soldiers survived the battle. 

In the early 1940's the Germans connected the tunnels and chambers to form a hospital. This hospital was opened in 1944 and served as a legitimate hospital equipped with the latest technology and best doctors of the time. The hospital could (and did) hold hundreds of injured soldiers. There were operating rooms, wards for recuperating soldiers, and the hospital could be self sufficient with respect to electricity, water, and air conditioning. 

Later, in 1956, the hospital was expanded to also be a nuclear bomb shelter. This shelter could be sealed off for three days after a nuclear blast should one occur. After three days, the doors would be opened and any survivors, if any at all, could enter the facility. They would be taken to a room where all of their hair would be sheared off since hair retains nuclear fallout. Then the next room had showers that sprayed chemicals on these survivors to further wash off nuclear fallout. Fortunately, these facilities never were used for that purpose and it's anyone's guess if the facilities would have worked as planned.

The tour was very interesting and helped fill in more details about the history of Budapest during those traumatic years of WW2 and the Soviet occupation.

After the tour, we walked around St. Matyas Church where the sun shined brightly on the church.

St. Matyas Church

We also went on Fisherman's Bastion 

Fisherman's Bastion

and from the top I took a picture of the Parliament Building across the river as the sun was setting.

Parliament at sunset taken from Fisherman's Bastion

After that, we went to the backside of the Buda Hilton Hotel to see the remains of a church built in 1235 that incorporated into part of the Buda Hilton. There was a statue of a monk who traveled from Hungary to Mongolia to try to identify any Hungarians who were kidnapped years before and bring them back to Hungary. Instead, this monk learned of plans by the Mongolians to invade Hungary, so he returned to Hungary to warn the political leaders of the time, Unfortunately, the political leaders were feuding with leaders of the church at the time so no one did anything to defend the country against the invading Mongols and the Mongols overtook Hungary.

Church built in 1235 with statue of monk in front

After viewing the ruins from 1235, we descended the steps from Fisherman's Bastion and passed through some quaint streets, churches, and shops eventually ending at the Danube.

We walked a short way to Batthyany ter where there is a subway stop. I took another picture of the Parliaent -- it's so hard not to!

Parliament

From there we took the subway to our respective homes. And so ends another day of exploring.