June 22, 2018
Budapest
Today we slept in (*aaaaahhhhhh) and left the hotel a little before noon (we asked for a slightly later check-out). It was miraculously in the 60s!! It was even slightly cool! J The two block walk to the train station was easy (even carrying our bags). We found a café in the station to eat at and waited for our train to appear on the board. When it did, we found our platform, then pushed onto the train with the others to find a seat (no reserved seating since it wasn’t an overnight train). Joshua found a seat in one car and Randy and I found seats together in the next car (Joshua decided not to change seats to be nearer to us).
A little less than three hours later we arrived in Budapest. We bought our tickets for Sunday’s departure train, then found where to buy transit passes to get us closer to our apartment on the other side of the river and up the hill. The bus got us across the city and to the other side of the river, then we had to climb the hill carrying our bags. I had to stop and rest several times along the way. Thank goodness the temps were in the 60s and the dewpoints in the 40s!! Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to make it!! For one part there was an elevator, but I kept looking up and seeing another set of stairs, several blocks long--over and over again. Finally we got to our apartment. It is very snug with a loft for one bedroom, with a toilet/sink room, a bathtub room, and a kitchenette tucked underneath it. There is a living space with a table with four chairs and two couches with quite a bit of floor space.
 |
| Budapest Train Station |
We left our bags, then went to the grocery store for breakfast stuff (muesli, milk, juice) and some snacks. We returned everything to the apartment and visited Matthias Church a few blocks away. We didn't go inside (it was closed), but it has great grounds and castle-like walls that look over the city.
 |
| Matthias Church |
 |
| The grounds of the church |
 |
| The church |
 |
| The view from the church |
 |
| The grounds of the church |
 |
| detail from the church |
 |
| Half of the walls |
 |
| The church--note the bright roof! |
 |
| Joshua at the church |
 |
| More of the church |
 |
| The Hungarian Parliament building from the church grounds |
 |
| Another view of the church |
 |
| Joshua at the wall |
 |
| Detail from the wall |
 |
| More of the walls |
 |
| The parliament building in sunlight |
 |
| detail of the walls (and the second set of steps going down) |
After that, we found an Italian cafe for dinner then went down all of those steps to the riverside; we wanted to see the parliament building lit up as did a crowd of other tourists. We walked along the river, waiting for the sun to set and for it to get dark. Finally it did and it was beautiful! We'll try to get tickets to see it inside tomorrow.
 |
| Stopped for more photos before going down to the river |
 |
| Joshua |
 |
| I believe this is an epitaph of a boy who died at the age of 18. I'm not sure if he died here, by falling off the wall (like the statue) or if someone was being allegorical or whimsical. |
 |
| A small church by the river |
 |
| The church with dramatic clouds rolling in |
 |
| Parliament building |
 |
| Parliament building |
 |
| Residential Budapest (actually Pest because this side is Buda--they used to be separate cities, but combined back in the 1830s) |
 |
| The Parliament Building all lit up! |
 |
| The Parliament Building all lit up! |
 |
| The Széchenyi Chain Bridge all lit up. It was the first permanent bridge linking Buda and Pest. |
 |
| The little wavy gray thing on the side shows where the water rose to in the flooding of 2013. |
 |
| The little church all lit up |
 |
| Another building by the river all lit up |
 |
| Joshua by the wall of Matthias Church |
 |
| The Parliament Building from up above |
Then we walked back up(!) those stairs again--minus bags, but still exhausting. Back to our apartment.
 |
| A public works access cover |
No comments:
Post a Comment