Sunday
26 May
Drove
through the Carpathian Mountains and across Slovakia in 95 minutes.
Beautiful forest and pastures. Stopped for lunch where our choice of restaurant
had good cabbage soup (David's choice) and awful garlic soup (our guide's
favourite but probably not from this restaurant).
Ate a
good dinner of chicken breast with bed of green peas and potato, then left for
our 8:30 night cruise on the Danube. Very touristy scene but lights on
buildings were like fairyland. D refused to take his camera – took awful
photos using my phone.
24 people
on a small boat like ours were killed on Monday night when a river cruise boat
ploughed into it.
 |
| Typical cruise ship |
Interesting
city tour starting from the Pest side which is flat and going to Buda which is
hilly and green. Budapest has 1.7
million people including 80,000 Jews. It has many handsome buildings and bridges.
The Russians left in 1989 and since then, there has been much renovation. Now apartments are privately owned but people
can compete at Town Hall for money to update buildings.
 |
| Museum of Fine Arts |
 |
| Statues of 7 chieftains |
 |
| Art Gallery |
 |
| Dohany Street Synagogue largest in Europe, opened 1859, seating 3000 |
The Buda Castle aka Royal Palace of the Hungarian kings dates from 1265 but palace today was built in the mid 1700s. It was mostly destroyed in WW2 and not reconstructed until 1966.
 | ||
| Matthias Church named for King Matthias. Note Raven statue on top |
 | ||
| Buda Castle Square |
 |
| Raven with ring, given to King Matthias by his mother |
Views
below taken from castle area
 |
| Hungarian Parliament |
 |
| Bronze statue of the mythical Turul bird of death, a symbol of the Kingdom of Hungary |
 |
| Railway Station 1884 |
 |
| Brudern House 1912 aka Paris Courtyard arcade of shops |
 |
| Hungarian restaurant band - good musicians |
 |
| We could have any amount of any drink - wine, spirits ... |
