Day 8: Is it the Buda or the Pest?

June 23, 2018

Budapest

Last night I went online to order tickets for seeing the parliament building today, but 45 minutes later, during checkout, found out that you have to have the ability to print out your tickets.  We, of course, don't have that ability here.  And the state website and tourist web sites said to expect about three hours to get tickets in person.  All of the English tours for today were also out of tickets.  So this morning, Randy decided to go to the ticket desk right away when they opened, and got tickets right away for an English tour at 12:15!

So after breakfast and showers we decided to take advantage of our public transit pass and take the subway.  We weren't able to take the chain bridge because it was closed to traffic because of a Red Bull Air Race.  All roads around and crossing the river near the parliament building were closed.

One of the planes over the Danube

Another plane

The subway brought us under the river and right to the parliament building.  Very cool tour!!  Before entering the building was a memorial that I wasn't able to get a picture of.  It was to the fallen of the 1956 revolution against the Soviet occupation.  It was a piece of metal with bullet holes all over it.  We're not sure if it's real or simulated.  One of the rooms on our tour was recently redone/restored and only opened two days ago!  Also, as of Monday, the legislature chambers won't be available due to their being in session.   Looks like we hit the sweet spot!

The parliament building

We were informed that all of the ceilings and upper pillars are all gold leaf.

stained glass windows

All of the stained glass windows are original--right before world war II they removed all of the windows and put them in the basement for safe-keeping!

The grand staircase

The ceiling above the grand staircase

The original stained glass windows

the original chandeliers

Looking into the dome room--the only room we are not allowed to photograph in.  There are armed soldiers in there guarding the crown, scepter, sword, and mace of the ruling king or queen.

This room just reopened.

All of the statues are careers and jobs of the people, such as teaching, law, medicine, farming, etc.

This is the legislative room.  The moved from a bicameral (2 houses--lords/commons) to a unicameral (one house)

ceiling

legislators' desks

There is a card slot by the screen where they insert their card to show that they are present so that they can vote

These were from the original house when men smoked cigars.  Smoking was allowed in the halls, just not the house chamber.  So when a vote or something they needed to hear came up, they put their cigar in their numbered space until they could come back out.

The button to switch from central heating to central cooling.  The same system is being used as the original, except they use antifreeze in the heating system and freon (?) instead of ice in the air conditioning.  

detail from one of the courtyards, through a leaded window

3D model

Cut-away of the 3D model

Lots of empty space in all of the spaces, especially the dome

The bulbs of the chandelier of the dome room are changed through roof access.  (All of the other chandeliers raise and lower.

After the tour, we took a subway and bus to the Great Market Hall.  It is two floors in an old train building, with the first floor full of food stands and the second floor full of souvenirs.  Most of the souvenirs are very mass-produced and cheap, but Joshua found a miniature model of the parliament building that he wanted (he has a collection of these) and a wooden puzzle box--you have to open a secret space in the box in just the right way to get the hidden key that unlocks the box.  Shelby got one there when we were last here and Joshua has always liked it.

One of the steep, fast escalators for the subway

Market Hall

Market Hall

First floor is food

After that we took a tram and a bus to go to Margaret Island.  It is an island in the Danube that used to be home to a castle and a nunnery.  Now it is a giant park with paths for walking, trees, the ruins of the castle and nunnery, sports fields, and a water park and swimming pool.  They also have those little carts to rent and bike around the island so we rented one.  Randy took the first turn steering the cart as we all pedaled.  I had trouble reaching the pedals as they hit the bottom of the stroke so my feet kept slipping off.  Joshua also steered for about half of the trip--oh my--he is never getting the keys to the car!  ;)

Sculpture

Fountain

Randy and Joshua in our pedal cart

I've never seen this flower before--looks like a delphinium, but it's not

When we finished with our hour of rental, Randy wanted to be done.  Our original plan had been to be at the island at dark because it is supposed to be very pretty, but we had four more hours until then and we didn't want to wait that long!  So we watched the ending of the air show (it was going on all day long--you could hear them everywhere we went) and we walked back to our apartment.  Back along the river, then back up all of  those stairs again!  We picked up cereal and milk for tomorrow's breakfast and returned to the apartment.  We rested, then headed out for dinner.  We decided to go to the Italian place again that we went to last night.  It is across the street and down a few doors.  The inside was full so we ate at one of the sidewalk tables (I was glad that I wore my jacket!).   Then Joshua and I were tired so we came back to the apartment and Randy went out on his own to take more pictures.

Here are some more photos of the Parliament building that I took:

Matthius church from the parliament building

Parliament Building from Margaret Island bridge

detail of a window I saw while I was eating dinner

PS:  While I was waiting the two hours for these photos to upload, Joshua showed me a cool 20 minute video of the history of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.  They lost.  They became democratic with the fall of communism.  It was very interesting.