Eastern Europe -Day Five

The cost of Internet at our hotel was out of this world, so I'm limiting my purchases and posting a bunch of stuff at once.

First day of sightseeing in Budapest. I’m finding that when you travel with Al and Sandy you are not going to be doing a leisurely schedule. They have things they want to see. My main job is porter, carrying wife’s backpack with her camera equipment and providing point-to-point navigation skills (and humble obedient attitude) to Supreme Leader Sandy. We’re getting tons of walking in and that’s great for me and my staying in good shape.

Budapest is substantially bigger than Prague. It feels bigger. In Prague we could walk about most of the major scenic areas. In Budapest we are taking public transportation more often. Whereas Prague was often on the outskirts of things during its many hundred’s of years under Hapsburg rule, Budapest became one of the Empire’s twin capitals. It therefore has a feeling of grandeur associated with many of the buildings. The city is really two cities combined. Buda is on one side of the Danube River. It traditionally held out from being conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the late middle ages. Pest is on the other side and was conquered. The Hapsburgs eventually captured it back and it wasn’t really rebuilt until the early 18th century. Hence the buildings are much newer.

Here are the highlights of the day for me.

• Size, scope, grandeur – I used the word grandeur earlier. You read it in the guidebooks but the buildings and monuments of this city fit a larger place and time.

• Neat Metro system – One of the Metro lines dates back to 1896 and was one of the first put in Europe. The stations had a particularly attractive décor. If you don’t save your validated ticket they nick you at the exit for a fee 10 times the price of the ticket!

• Crappy attitude – We are staying smack dab in the middle of the tourist central area of Budapest. It is non-stop bad attitude and attempts to take advantage of you from information from our hotel people that directed us to absolutely tourist driven rip off joints on the first night (in spite of our specifically asking for the opposite and finding reasonable places close by the next day), to terribly over priced drinks to surly wait staff.

• Bullet Holes in Buildings – While walking to our restaurant this evening, we were off the main tourist path going down a side street when we passed a building whose façade was riddled with gun shot holes, and not just small arms, the evidence of fairly hefty gunnery. It was sobering.

Pictures

Castle in Buda seen from Pest across the river

Another view of Castle over the Chain Bridge

Saint Steven's Basilica

Parliament

Soviet Era Memorial Statue

Hero's Square

13th Century Abby

Looks like a castle - really a 19th century recreation

Al met these German ladies in Prague and they followed him to Budapest

The Cruise One professionals doing their daily accounting
(I probably should give him credit for doing some of the navigation and being Supreme Leader Sandy' s lacky...but I should probably charge him extra for forcing me to eat goose tonight)

Buda Castle seen at night