We stayed at the Best Western (which was really quite a nice hotel!) and got a good 2 days of sightseeing in. On Friday, we just kind of rambled around Pest on foot.
This is the synagogue, one of the largest in Europe.
And this fountain has sensors that turn off the water when you approach. It was actually quite fun :-)
St. Stephen's Basilica is at the end of this street.
And we had dinner here, at the Tigris. We did not have reservations, but we walked up to the waiter's stand and asked for a table for 2. This is what the restaurant looked like. As I took the picture, the waiter took a long breath and said, "Let me check to see if I have any room..." Kyle and I kind of looked at one another with puzzled grins, and said, "Okay..." He told us that he would seat us if we ate quickly. "Um, sure, whatever, dude."
Anyway, it was a nice meal :-)
On Saturday, we bought tickets for one of the open air city bus tours. For 4500 Forinths, we could ride these buses at out leisure for 24 hours, and also take a tour of the Danube by boat. Not bad at all. We got a really good feel for the city this way.
Pest is quite flat, but Buda is really hilly. It's pretty much spring here, and many of the trees were in bloom.
We crossed the Elisabeth Bridge a couple of times.
Which looks really bright, clean, and new.
The bus stopped for several minutes at of couple of stops, maintaining a precise schedule, I presume. At this stop, I notice a couple of buildings with strikingly ornate balconies.
All of those were taken from the same spot.
We got off of the bus for a bit, and grabbed lunch, making our way over to the dock on the river where we'd catch our boat.
We walked across a square where there were windows that showed some ruins of the ancient Roman city below.
This was pretty cool! I very much would have liked to have explored this a bit. But unfortunately, this was about as much as we could get.
So we waited a few minutes for our boat to arrive.
And got some prime seats right in front, on the upper deck.
We spent about an hour or so riding up and down the Danube, listening to interesting facts about the city in both English and Hungarian.
Here we can see the prominent castle on the hill on the Buda side of the river.
And the chain bridge, designed and executed by the Scotsman, Adam Clark. This was the first permanent bridge built across the Danube to connect Buda to Pest, built in the 19th century.
The Hungarian Parliament building was extraordinarily impressive, with its symmetry and Gothic architecture. It could certainly give the British Parliament a run for its money.
This odd little creature served as the proud masthead of our boat :-)
And this is the oldest of all of the Turkish baths in Budapest.
The rear part of this church is actually a cave in the side of this mountain.
Near the Citadella at the top of Gellert Hill stands Hungary's Statue of Liberty.
Kyle and I had a great time on the river.
After the boat ride, we walked back across the Elizabeth Bridge (named for one of the last queens of Hungary).
The view up the river is quite stunning.
I liked the cable construction of the bridge. It looked quite sturdy.
I bought Kim a handmade table runner from this kind lady.
Kyle and I hiked up Gellert Hill, named for the personage of this statue, Bishop Gellert.
According to local legend, St. Gellert was martyred by pagans who threw him from the top of the hill in the 11th century.
We hiked a few hundred meters up the hill, and were rewarded with some nice views and beautiful weather.
The Basilica from above...
There were several WWII anti-aircraft guns on display from the Citadella, a bunker on the top of Gellert Hill.
Notice how flat Pest is, as the Danube River wraps around that side of the city.
Hungary's Statue of Liberty holds an olive branch high above the city.
She's flanked by a couple of statues, presumably Mercury carrying the torch...
...and Hercules slaying the Hydra?
I didn't make very far down this direction into the city...
A closeup of the olive branch.
We cooled down at the top of the hill with a couple of tall Hungarian beers.
And then back down the hill, and across the bridge.
And finally, we found the right words to ask for "dark" Dreher beers. Mmm. That's better.
We had a nice dinner and called it a night.
The next morning, the weather was a little soggy, so we took a train from Pest over to Buda. Budapest has the second oldest underground metro system in Europe (behind London). The train cars are kind of showing their age.
Across from the chain bridge, there's an impressive tunnel, also engineered by Adam Clark.
And his chain bridge, guarded by two lions on either side.
Next to the tunnel, there's a funicular.
Which we did not ride, but we did walk across a bridge over it, at the halfway point.
We walked around the castle a bit, as the weather cleared somewhat.
And then down to the Labyrinth of Budapest.
The Labyrinth consists of nearly 5km of caves, caverns, and tunnels beneath the castle district of Buda.
We were a bit confused for a while, but eventually realized that it's sort of an underground art museum. There were a number of reproductions of some of Europe's most famous cave paintings.
Parts of the caves were used for religious rituals. At one point, by Christians who were hiding from Pagans. And later, by Pagans who were hiding from Christians.
Some of the caverns were actually connected to houses or parts of the castle above, and were used as wine cellars.
Guess who's Kyle and who's Dustin in this shadow portrait... :-)
Back out into the light of day, we walked around the Cathedral at the top of the hill, where there was some kind of a local festival
There was Hungarian music and dancing, and not a word of English.
For a few hundred forinth, you could have your picture taken with a gorgeous golden eagle.
This bird had some very serious talons.
Walking back down the hill, we killed the last bit of our evening in a Belgian pub, talking about all the things very old friends talk about.
Cheers,
:-Dustin
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