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The '90s were not a stellar time for the reborn republic. Its economic development was in limbo and serious economic problems affected all aspects of daily life. Thankfully, those days are past and many now view Hungary, with its intelligent, hard-working populace, and rich and vibrant culture, as the star performer and most interesting destination of the new Europe.
Hungary Hotels
Weather
In general, winters in Hungary are cold, cloudy and damp or windy, and summers are warm - sometimes very hot. July and August are the hottest months (average temperature 26°C) and January the coldest (-4°C). The number of hours of sunshine averages between 1900 and 2500 a year - among the highest in Europe. The average annual precipitation is about 650mm.For information on specific weather conditions nationwide, contact the national weather forecast service (1-346 4600, 06 90 504 001; www.met.hu in Hungarian).
When to go
Hungary has a temperate climate with three climatic zones so there is a certain amount of variation across the country: Mediterranean in the south, Continental in the east and Atlantic in the west.Without taking regional differences into consideration, every season has its attractions in Hungary. But do yourself a favour and drop the 'romantic' notion of a winter on the puszta (Great Plain). Aside from being cold and often bleak, winter sees museums and other tourist sights closed or their hours sharply curtailed.
Although it can be pretty wet in April and May, spring is just glorious throughout Hungary. The weather is usually mild and - a boon for independent travellers - the crowds of tourists have not yet arrived.
The Hungarian summer is warm, sunny and unusually long, and the resorts can get very crowded in late July and August. If you avoid Lake Balaton and the ever-popular Mátra Hills, you should be OK. As elsewhere in Europe, Budapest and other Hungarian cities come to a grinding halt in August, which Hungarians traditionally call 'the cucumber-growing season' (because that's about the only thing happening here).
Autumn is beautiful, particularly in the hills around Budapest and in the Northern Uplands. In Transdanubia and on the Great Plain it's harvest and vintage time. November is one of the rainiest months of the year in certain parts of the country, however.
Money & costs
Costs
Hungary is no longer the bargain-basement destination for foreign travellers that it was even five years ago, but it is still cheaper by a third or even a half than most Western European countries. If you bunk down in private rooms, eat at medium-priced restaurants and travel on public transport, you should get by on €30 a day in the provinces without too much scrimping, though Budapest will cost you closer to €40 a day.Travelling in more style and comfort - restaurant splurges with bottles of wine, a fairly active nightlife, stay in small hotels/guesthouses with 'character' - will cost about twice as much (€60 in the provinces and €80 in the capital). Those putting up at hostels or college dormitories, eating burek street food for lunch and at self-service restaurants for dinner could squeak by for €20 a day.
Tipping
Hungary is a very tip-conscious society, and virtually everyone routinely tips waiters, hairdressers and taxi drivers. Doctors and dentists accept 'gratitude money', and even petrol station attendants who pump your petrol and thermal spa attendants who walk you to your changing cabin expect something. If you were less than impressed with the service at the restaurant, the joyride in the taxi or the way your hair was cut, leave next to nothing or nothing at all. He or she will get the message - loud and clear.The way you tip in restaurants is unusual. You never leave the money on the table - this is considered both rude and stupid in Hungary - but tell the waiter how much you're paying in total. If the bill is, say, 2700Ft, you're paying with a 5000Ft note and you think the waiter deserves a gratuity of around 10%, first ask if service is included (some restaurants in Budapest and other big cities add it to the bill automatic- ally, which makes tipping unnecessary). If it isn't, say you're paying 3000Ft or that you want 2000Ft back.
Money
The Hungarian currency is the forint (Ft) and today there are coins of 5Ft, 10Ft, 20Ft, 50Ft and 100Ft. Notes come in seven denominations: 200Ft, 500Ft, 1000Ft, 2000Ft, 5000Ft, 10, 000Ft and 20, 000Ft.The green 200Ft note features the 14th-century king Charles Robert and his castle at Diósgyőr near Miskolc. The hero of the independence wars, Ferenc Rákóczi II, and Sárospatak Castle are on the burgundy- coloured 500Ft note.
The 1000Ft note is blue and bears a portrait of King Matthias Corvinus, with Hercules Well at Visegrád Castle on the verso. The 17th-century prince of Transylvania Gábor Bethlen is on his own on one side of the 2000Ft bill and meeting with his advisers on the other.
The 'greatest Hungarian', Count István Széchenyi, and his family home at Nagycenk are on the purple 5000Ft note. The 10, 000Ft bears a likeness of King Stephen, with a scene in Esztergom appearing on the other side. The 20, 000Ft note, currently the highest denomination, has Ferenc Deák, the architect of the 1867 Compromise, on the recto and the erstwhile House of Commons in Pest (now the Italian Institute of Culture on VIII Bródy Sándor utca) on the verso.
ATMs
ATMs accepting most credit and cash cards are everywhere in Hungary, even in small villages, and all the banks listed in the Information sections in this guide have them. The best ones to use are the Euronet ATMs as they dispense sums in units of 5000Ft. Many of the ATMS at branches of Országos Takarékpenztár (OTP), the national savings bank, give out 20,000Ft notes, which are difficult to break.Cash
Nothing beats cash for convenience - or risk. It's always prudent to carry a little foreign cash, though, preferably euros or US dollars, in case you can't find an ATM nearby or there's no bank or travel agency open to cash your travellers cheques. You can always change cash at a hotel.Credit cards
Credit cards, especially Visa, MasterCard and American Express, are widely accepted in Hungary, and you'll be able to use them at many restaurants, shops, hotels, car-rental firms, travel agencies and petrol stations. They are not usually accepted at museums, supermarkets, or train and bus stations.Many banks, including K&H, give cash advances on major credit cards.
International transfers
Having money wired to Hungary through an agent of Western Union Money Transfer (1-235 8484; www.intercash.hu) is fast and fairly straightforward, and the procedure generally takes less than 30 minutes. You should know the sender's full name, the exact amount and the reference number when you're picking up the cash. The sender pays the service fee (about US$40 for US$500 sent, US$60 for US$1000).Moneychangers
It is easy to change money at banks, post offices, tourist offices, travel agencies and private exchange offices. Look for the words valuta (foreign currency) and váltó (exchange) to guide you to the correct place or window.There's no black market in Hungary to speak of but exchange rates can vary substantially, so it pays to keep your eyes open. And while the forint is a totally convertible currency, you should avoid changing too much as it will be difficult exchanging it beyond the borders of Hungary and its immediate neighbours.
Taxes & refunds
ÁFA, a value-added tax of between 5% and 25%, covers the purchase of all new goods in Hungary. It's usually included in the price but not always, so it pays to check. Visitors are not exempt, but non-EU residents can claim refunds for total purchases of at least 50, 000Ft on one receipt, as long as they take the goods out of the country (and the EU) within 90 days. The ÁFA receipts (available from where you made the purchases) should be stamped by customs at the border, and the claim has to be made within 183 days of exporting the goods. You can then collect your refund - minus commission - from the Global Refund (www.globalrefund.com) desk in the departures halls of Terminal 2A and 2B at Ferihegy International Airport in Budapest, or branches of the Ibusz chain of travel agencies at some 16 border crossings. You can also have it sent by bank cheque or deposited into your credit-card account.Travellers cheques
You can change travellers cheques - American Express, Visa, MasterCard and Thomas Cook are the most recognisable brands - at most banks and post offices. Banks and bureaux de change generally don't take a commission, but exchange rates can vary; private agencies are always the most expensive. OTP has branches every- where and offer among the best rates; Ibusz is also a good bet. Travel agents usually take a commission of 1% to 2%. Shops never accept travellers cheques as payment in Hungary.Early inhabitants
The Carpathian Basin, in which Hungary lies, has been populated for hundreds of thousands of years. Bone fragments found at Vértesszőlős, about 5km southeast of Tata, in the 1960s are believed to be half a million years old. These findings suggest that Palaeolithic and later Neanderthal humans were attracted to the area by the hot springs and the abundance of reindeer, bears and mammoths.During the Neolithic period (3500-2500 BC), climatic changes forced much of the indigenous wildlife to migrate northward. As a result the domestication of animals and the first forms of agriculture appeared, simultaneously with the rest of Europe. Remnants of the Körös culture in the Szeged area of the southeast suggest that these goddess-worshipping people herded sheep, fished and hunted.
Indo-European tribes from the Balkans stormed the Carpathian Basin in horse-drawn carts in about 2000 BC, bringing with them copper tools and weapons. After the introduction of the more durable metal bronze, forts were built and a military elite began to develop.
Over the next millennium, invaders from the west (Illyrians, Thracians) and east (Scythians) brought iron, but it was not in common use until the Celts arrived at the start of the 4th century BC. They introduced glass and crafted some of the fine gold jewellery that can still be seen in museums throughout Hungary.
Some three decades before the start of the Christian era the Romans conquered the area west and south of the Danube River and established the province of Pannonia - later divided into Upper (Superior) and Lower (Inferior) Pannonia. Subsequent victories over the Celts extended Roman domination across the Tisza River as far as Dacia (today's Romania). The Romans brought writing, viticulture and stone architecture, and established garrison towns and other settlements, the remains of which can still be seen in Óbuda (Aquincum in Roman times), Szombathely (Savaria), Pécs (Sophianae) and Sopron (Scarabantia). They also built baths near the region's thermal waters and their soldiers introduced the new religion of Christianity.
The great migrations
The first of the so-called Great Migrations of nomadic peoples from Asia reached the eastern outposts of the Roman Empire late in the 2nd century AD, and in 270 the Romans abandoned Dacia altogether. Within less than two centuries they were also forced to flee Pannonia by the Huns, whose short-lived empire was established by Attila; he had previously conquered the Magyars near the lower Volga River and for centuries these two groups were thought - erroneously - to share a common ancestry. Attila remains a very common given name for males in Hungary, however.Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Gepids and Longobards occupied the region for the next century and a half until the Avars, a powerful Turkic people, gained control of the Carpathian Basin in the late 6th century. They in turn were subdued by Charlemagne in 796 and converted to Christianity. By that time, the Carpathian Basin was virtually unpopulated except for groups of Turkic and Germanic tribes on the plains and Slavs in the northern hills.
The Magyars & the conquest of the Carpathian basin
The origin of the Magyars is a complex issue, not in the least helped by the similarity in English of the words 'Hun' and 'Hungary', which are not related. One thing is certain: Magyars are part of the Finno-Ugric group of peoples who inhabited the forests somewhere between the middle Volga River and the Ural Mountains in western Siberia as early as 4000 BC.By about 2000 BC population growth had forced the Finnish-Estonian branch of the group to move westward, ultimately reaching the Baltic Sea. The Ugrians migrated from the southeastern slopes of the Urals into the valleys, and switched from hunting and fishing to primitive farming and raising livestock, especially horses. The Magyars' equestrian skills proved useful half a millennium later when climatic changes brought drought, forcing them to move north to the steppes.
On the plains, the Ugrians turned to nomadic herding. After 500 BC, by which time the use of iron had become commonplace, some of the tribes moved westward to the area of Bashkiria in central Asia. Here they lived among Persians and Bulgars and began referring to themselves as Magyars (from the Finno-Ugric words mon, 'to speak', and e, 'man').
Several centuries later another group split away and moved south to the Don River under the control of the Khazars, a Turkic people. Here they lived among various groups under a tribal alliance called onogur, or '10 peoples'. This is the derivation of the word 'Hungary' in English and 'Ungarn' in German. Their penultimate migration brought them to what modern Hungarians call the Etelköz, the region between the Dnieper and lower Danube Rivers just north of the Black Sea.
Small nomadic groups of Magyars probably reached the Carpathian Basin as early as the mid-9th century AD, acting as mercenaries for various armies. It is believed that while the men were away on a campaign in about 889, the Pechenegs, a fierce people from the Asiatic steppe, allied themselves with the Bulgars and attacked the Etelköz settlements. When they were attacked again in about 895, seven tribes under the leadership of Árpád - the gyula (chief military commander) - upped stakes. They crossed the Verecke Pass (in today's Ukraine) into the Carpathian Basin.
The Magyars met almost no resistance and the tribes dispersed in three directions: the Bulgars were quickly dispatched eastward; the Germans had already taken care of the Slavs in the west; and Transylvania was wide open. Known for their ability to ride and shoot, and no longer content with being hired guns, the Magyars began plundering and pillaging. Their raids took them as far as Spain, northern Germany and southern Italy, but in the early 10th century they began to suffer a string of defeats. In 955 they were stopped in their tracks for good by the German king Otto I at the Battle of Augsburg.
This and subsequent defeats - the Magyars' raids on Byzantium ended in 970 - left the tribes in disarray, and they had to choose between their more powerful neighbours - Byzantium to the south and east or the Holy Roman Empire to the west - to form an alliance. In 973 Prince Géza, the great-grandson of Árpád, asked the Holy Roman emperor Otto II to send Catholic missionaries to Hungary. Géza was baptised along with his son Vajk, who took the Christian name Stephen (István), after the first martyr. When Géza died, Stephen ruled as prince. Three years later, he was crowned 'Christian King' Stephen I, with a crown sent from Rome by Otto's erstwhile tutor, Pope Sylvester II. Hungary the kingdom - and the nation - was born.
King Stephen i & the Árpád dynasty
Stephen set about consolidating royal authority by siezing the land of the independent-minded clan chieftains and establishing a system of megye (counties) protected by fortified vár (castles). The crown began minting coins and, shrewdly, Stephen transferred much land to his most loyal (mostly Germanic) knights. The king sought the support of the church throughout and, to hasten the conversion of the population, ordered that one in every 10 villages build a church. He also established 10 episcopates, two of which - Kalocsa and Esztergom - were made archbishoprics. Monasteries were set up around the country and staffed by foreign - notably Irish - scholars. By the time Stephen died in 1038 - he was canonised less than half a century after his death - Hungary was a nascent Christian nation, increasingly westward-looking and multiethnic.Despite this apparent consolidation, the next two and a half centuries until 1301 - the reign of the House of Árpád - would test the kingdom to its limit. The period was marked by continuous struggles between rival pretenders to the throne, weakening the young nation's defences against its more powerful neighbours. There was a brief hiatus under King Ladislas I (László; r 1077-95), who ruled with an iron fist and fended off attacks from Byzantium; and also under his successor Koloman the Booklover (Könyves Kálmán; r 1095-1116), who encouraged literature, art and the writing of chronicles until his death in 1116.
Tensions flared again when the Byzantine emperor made a grab for Hungary's provinces in Dalmatia and Croatia, which it had acquired by the early 12th century. Béla III (r 1172-96) successfully resisted the invasion and had a permanent residence built at Esztergom, which was then the alternative royal seat to Székesfehérvár. Béla's son, Andrew II (András; r 1205-35), however, weakened the crown when, to help fund his crusades, he gave in to local barons' demands for more land. This led to the Golden Bull, a kind of Magna Carta signed at Székesfehérvár in 1222, which limited some of the king's powers in favour of the nobility.
When Béla IV (r 1235-70) tried to regain the estates, the barons were able to oppose him on equal terms. Fearing Mongol expansion and realising he could not count on the support of his subjects, Béla looked to the west and brought in German and Slovak settlers. He also gave asylum to Turkic Cuman (Kun) tribes displaced by the Mongols in the east. In 1241 the Mongols arrived in Hungary and swept through the country, burning it virtually to the ground and killing an estimated one-third to one-half of its two million people.
To rebuild the country as quickly as possible Béla, known as the 'second founding father', again encouraged immigration, inviting Germans to settle in Transdanubia, Saxons in Transylvania and Cumans on the Great Plain. He also built a string of defensive hilltop castles, including the ones at Buda and Visegrád. But in a bid to appease the lesser nobility, he handed them large tracts of land. This strengthened their position and demands for more independence even further; by the time of Béla's death in 1270, anarchy had descended upon Hungary. The rule of his reprobate son and heir Ladislas the Cuman (so-called because his mother was a Cuman princess) was equally unsettled. The Árpád line died out in 1301 with the death of Andrew III, who left no heir.
Medieval Hungary
The struggle for the Hungarian throne following the death of Andrew III involved several European dynasties, but it was Charles Robert (Károly Róbert) of the French House of Anjou who, with the pope's blessing, finally won out in 1308 and ruled for the next three and a half decades. Charles Robert was an able administrator who managed to break the power of the provincial barons (though much of the land remained in private hands), sought diplomatic links with his neighbours and introduced a stable gold currency called the florin (or forint). In 1335 Charles Robert met the Polish and Bohemian kings at the new royal palace in Visegrád to discuss territorial disputes and to forge an alliance that would smash Vienna's control of trade.Under Charles Robert's son, Louis I the Great (Nagy Lajos; r 1342-82), Hungary returned to a policy of conquest. A brilliant military strategist, Louis acquired territory in the Balkans as far as Dalmatia and Romania and as far north as Poland. He was crowned king of Poland in 1370, but his successes were short-lived; the menace of the Ottoman Turks had begun.
As Louis had no sons, one of his daughters, Mary (r 1382-87), succeeded him. This was deemed unacceptable by the barons, who rose up against the 'petticoat throne'. Within a short time Mary's husband, Sigismund (Zsigmond; r 1387-1437) of Luxembourg, was crowned king. Sigismund's 50-year reign brought peace at home, and there was a great flowering of Gothic art and architecture in Hungary. But while he managed to procure the coveted crown of Bohemia and was made Holy Roman emperor in 1433, he was unable to stop the Ottoman onslaught and was defeated by the Turks at Nicopolis (now Bulgaria) in 1396.
There was an alliance between Poland and Hungary in 1440 that gave Poland the Hungarian crown. When Vladislav I (Úlászló) of the Polish Jagiellon dynasty was killed fighting the Turks at Varna in 1444, János Hunyadi was declared regent. A Transylvanian general born of a Wallachian (Romanian) father, János Hunyadi began his career at the court of Sigismund. His 1456 decisive victory over the Turks at Belgrade (Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) checked the Ottoman advance into Hungary for 70 years and assured the coronation of his son Matthias (Mátyás), the greatest ruler of medieval Hungary.
Wisely, Matthias (r 1458-90), nicknamed Corvinus (the Raven) from his coat of arms, maintained a mercenary force of 8000 to 10, 000 men by taxing the nobility, and this 'Black Army' conquered Moravia, Bohemia and even parts of lower Austria. Not only did Matthias Corvinus make Hungary one of central Europe's leading powers, but under his rule the nation enjoyed its first golden age. His second wife, the Neapolitan princess Beatrice, brought artisans from Italy who completely rebuilt and extended the Gothic palace at Visegrád; the beauty and sheer size of the Renaissance residence was beyond compare in the Europe of the time.
But while Matthias, a fair and just king, busied himself with centralising power for the crown, he ignored the growing Turkish threat. His successor Vladislav II (Úlászló; r 1490-1516) was unable to maintain even royal authority, as the members of the diet (assembly), which met to approve royal decrees, squandered royal funds and expropriated land. In May 1514, what had begun as a crusade organised by the power-hungry archbishop of Esztergom, Tamás Bakócz, turned into a peasant uprising against landlords under the leadership of one György Dózsa.
The revolt was brutally repressed by noble leader John Szapolyai (Zápolyai János). Some 70, 000 peasants were tortured and executed; Dózsa himself was fried alive on a red-hot iron throne. The retrograde Tripartitum Law that followed the crackdown codified the rights and privileges of the barons and nobles, and reduced the peasants to perpetual serfdom. By the time Louis II (Lajos) took the throne in 1516 at the tender age of nine, he couldn't count on either side.
The battle of Mohács & Turkish occupation
The defeat of Louis' ragtag army by the Ottoman Turks at Mohács in 1526 is a watershed in Hungarian history. On the battlefield near this small town in Southern Transdanubia a relatively prosperous and independent medieval Hungary died, sending the nation into a tailspin of partition, foreign domination and despair that would be felt for centuries afterward.It would be unfair to lay all the blame on the weak and indecisive teenage King Louis or on his commander-in-chief, Pál Tomori, the archbishop of Kalocsa. Bickering among the nobility and the brutal response to the peasant uprising a dozen years before had severely diminished Hungary's military might, and there was virtually nothing left in the royal coffers. By 1526 the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent occupied much of the Balkans, including Belgrade, and was poised to march on Buda and then Vienna with a force of 100, 000 men.
Unable - or, more likely, unwilling - to wait for reinforcements from Transylvania under the command of his rival John Szapolyai, Louis rushed south with a motley army of 26, 000 men to battle the Turks and was soundly thrashed in less than two hours. Along with bishops, nobles and an estimated 20, 000 soldiers, the king was killed - crushed by his horse while trying to retreat across a stream. John Szapolyai, who had sat out the battle in Tokaj, was crowned king six weeks later. Despite grovelling before the Turks, Szapolyai was never able to exploit the power he had sought so single-mindedly. In many ways greed, self-interest and ambition had led Hungary to defeat itself.
After Buda Castle fell to the Turks in 1541, Hungary was torn into three parts. The central section, including Buda, went to the Turks, while parts of Transdanubia and what is now Slovakia were governed by the Austrian House of Habsburg and assisted by the Hungarian nobility based at Bratislava. The principality of Transylvania, east of the Tisza River, prospered as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, initially under Szapolyai's son John Sigismund (Zsigmond János; r 1559-71). Though heroic resistance continued against the Turks throughout Hungary, most notably at Kőszeg in 1532, Eger 20 years later and Szigetvár in 1566, this division would remain in place for more than a century and a half.
The Turkish occupation was marked by constant fighting among the three divisions; Catholic 'Royal Hungary' was pitted against both the Turks and the Protestant Transylvanian princes. Gábor Bethlen, who ruled Transylvania from 1613 to 1629, tried to end the warfare by conquering 'Royal Hungary' with a mercenary army of Heyduck peasants and some Turkish assistance in 1620. But both the Habsburgs and the Hungarians themselves viewed the 'infidel' Ottomans as the greatest threat to Europe since the Mongols and blocked the advance.
As Ottoman power began to wane in the 17th century, Hungarian resistance to the Habsburgs, who had used 'Royal Hungary' as a buffer zone between Vienna and the Turks, increased. A plot inspired by the palatine Ferenc Wesselényi was foiled in 1670 and a revolt (1682) by Imre Thököly and his army of kuruc (anti-Habsburg mercenaries) was quelled. But with the help of the Polish army, Austrian and Hungarian forces liberated Buda from the Turks in 1686. An imperial army under Eugene of Savoy wiped out the last Turkish army in Hungary at the Battle of Zenta (now Senta in Serbia) 11 years later. Peace was signed with the Turks at Karlowitz (now in Serbia) in 1699.
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