Budapest, Hungary

Here is a quick, late post about Budapest, Hungary, where the group spent one day after our trip to Nagykörű. We arrived in Budapest at about 7pm and trekked to the apartment we were staying in for one night. By the time we got there and had settled in, I was far too exhausted to go out. The group of girls went for dinner and drinks, while I ate some delicious salami, bread, and jam that we had not eaten from the pile of breakfast food that Bela and Peter brought for us. I was very happy to have a few hours to myself to relax and watch some tv on my Nook.

The next morning I headed off with Vicky and Marie for a day of sightseeing. We headed towards the Castle Hill area, stopping at some of the bigger churches along the way. We crossed the oldest bridge in Budapest, the Chain Bridge, which was built starting in 1839. At the time of it's building, it was one of the largest center spans in Europe (the part of the bridge between the two pillars is 202 m long).

Street art and posters in Budapest

A big cathedral that we stopped at.

Stained glass inside the cathedral.

I posed with this statue...didn't know what it was for!

Chain Bridge

We walked up Castle Hill in Buda, the western part of the two merged cities, and the hillier of two. Here we were lucky to see the changing of the guards at the Hungarian Presidential Palace, which was an elaborate display of synchronized footwork and rifle twirling. The walk up Castle Hill was really pretty and the view from the top was awesome. There was also a sweet sculpture of the Turul, a large mythical bird of prey, which has significance in the Hungarian origin myth. Obviously I was excited at the site of this sculpture.

Our walk up to Castle Hill

View from the top of Castle Hill

The Turul, this sculpture was huge!

Changing of the guards.

After watching the changing of guards, we headed north towards more interesting buildings and wandered through some curvy streets. We stopped for lunch at a cute little cafe. Although our food was slow to come out, we were glad for the break and the sandwiches. After lunch we headed back to Pest across the Margaret Bridge, the second oldest in Budapest, which connects to Margaret Islands in the Danube River. Once back in Pest, we walked past the Parliament Building, where everything from sidewalks, to tram tracks, to roads were under construction, meaning we didn't have a great view of the building.

Another view from the hill.

Parliament Building was actually better seen from across the Danube.

Some crazy decorations on this old building.

One of the winding streets we walked down.

An old building under renovations.

Everything around Parliament was under construction.

We then headed up Andrassy Way, which is supposedly one of the nicest streets in Budapest and is a World Heritage Site. I was not so impressed. It was just a normal street it seemed, but we did pass by the nice Opera House and the Alexander Bookstore with it's famous cafe. After stopping for a few minutes at the Heroes' Square, we turned back to meet our group for dinner.

Inside the Opera House, it looks similar to the Vienna Statsoper

Heroes' Square...this lady bothered me because she
saw us taking photos, after she had finished her photos,
and proceeded to walk in front anyways.

Alexander Bookstore Cafe.

We tried to go to one place for dinner, but when we found that it was closed we went next door. This turned into a fortunate occurrence, since the place next door was awesome. The waitress was very friendly, and the food was delicious. I could not even finish all of my food, which was a traditional Hungarian dish with meat and cabbage. I would say it was a great trip, albeit rushed, to Budapest!

My Hungarian meal...looks gross, tasted great.