Hungary 3 - Budapest /the funicular railway/the church and the Fishermans Bastion/almost a lost watch/Hungarian Goulash and dumplings

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Cities are strange things - you either love them or hate them. Some cities like London and Paris call you back many times. Others are one day visits. Budapest is a pretty city and one that you could come back to many times.

After walking around Buda we stopped beneath the funicular that runs all the way up to Castle Hill. We picked up an orange juice and the pasty and then set off for Adam Clark Road. The road was actually written in Hungarian and the only thing we could read was the name of Adam Smith. He was a scottish engineer who had a hand in building the Chain Bridge and the built the tunnel under Buda Hill . . He was honoured by having the street named after him. Adam was born in Edinburgh in 1811 and died in Budapest in 1866.



We had three choices to get to the top of Pest. Walk , catch the shuttle bus or go up on the old funicular . We chose the more fanciful option the funicular. Slowly it climbed the hill giving us chance to photograph the river and the parliament building. The cost was 1800 HUF's.

The Royal Palace was guarded by some dour looking soldiers . They did not smile and reminded me of the guards guarding the palace in San Marino. The changing of the guard was not as fancy as that in Greece. None of the pom poms or skirts but a lone drummer who drummed his way round the palace as the guards changed positions.

The church was a gothic fantasy with a tiled roof in a Burgundian style. We wanted to go in but the queues were long and we decided not to go in. The blurb reads that the church was used as a coronation church by Hungarian kings for centuries. It was also a mosque for over 150 years by the Ottoman Turks, once owned by Franciscans, Jesuits, now its a thriving Catholic church with holy masses, concerts, plenty of weddings, thousands of tourists. That much is true . The graceful architecture and stunningly rich, all embracing wall paintings of the majestic building will leave you speechless. Well we never got to find out.

While the outside of Matthias Church offers the historical beauty of traditional Gothic churches with delicate turrets, the coloured tile roofs already give away that this church is not following the usual recipe: entering inside the church you will experience one of the most welcoming combinations of warm lights, shadows and colours with orange, brown, golden hewed frescos reaching from floor to ceiling, beautiful stain glass windows, far reaching arches, century old wooden pews, medieval remnants. Sadly when I read the blurb I think we missed something special. What a shame you have to queue to get a ticket . Matthias Church (officially called the Church of Our Lady, but all locals call it “Matyas Templom”) has quite the history and a story to tell. According to historians a church called Church of Mary stood on the site of the current building founded by Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary in 1015. a statue of the king has pride of place in the square. The current Roman Catholic church was founded by King Bela IV. after the Mongol invaders left Hungary in 1242 in complete ruins, and King Bela IV decided to move the royal residence from Esztergom to the Buda Castle .

OUr last stop was the Fishermans Bastion. It was heaving with people and you needed to pay to get in. A wedding was taking place on the steps. The bride in white was walking down and having her photographs taken. The Fishermans Bastion has lovely lookout towers and decorative fortifications. It was built in the 19th century and has the best panoramic views of the city below. We walked around it and enjoyed that view. We found it a fascinating place.

Coming home we decided to arrive by taxi rather than walk all the way back to the bus station. The driver in his electric car drove through the city quickly. He said nothing all the way home. He charged us 2400 huffs which was a good price to pay.

At night we went to the restuarant for an evening meal. We were the only ones in there and the menu was fairly limited. Goulash Soup. Hungarian Goulash and dumplings or some kind of cheese dish. We thought the meals might be interested and home cooked . We waited a fair while and then heard the ping. In Welsh the microwave is called a Popty Ping - a Pinging Bakehouse. A lovely name . But what I wanted was authenticity not microwaved dinner. The meal was Ok , fairly cheap, the meat part fine but the dumplings thin and rather cold. Pudding could be pancakes with nut filling or jam. We decided not to bother with pudding and went back to Suzy to read. Latest book The Knights of the Seven kingdoms by G R R Martin the writer of Game of Thrones or to give it the proper title A story of ice and Fire. The story takes Dunk a hedge knight on his travels with Egg his squire. Egg is really the son of the king and will become a wise king in later life.

We slept well, we woke early. The plan to get out of Budapest - it was a Saturday and we hoped to miss the traffic. We hoped that Silly would take us out of the city another way. And yes she did. She took us a completely different way . This time out of the quiet suburbs . Why on earth didnt she bring us this way in the first place?

Later today we will end up in Austria and heading home.

So what's the story of the lost watch? Well I got home and thought my watch strap felt odd. When I touched it my watch fell off in my hands. I was lucky it did not fall off in Budapest . I would have hated losing a watch I had cherished for the last twenty years. This holiday is really a funny one.

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Comments

[jackieandchris2011]

Matthias Church
We must have missed this as well :-( Sounds quite interesting! Will have to go back now!!

[Dancing Dave]

Beautiful castle
Nice one

[JenGog]

Fishermans bastion - bit too busy for me but it did look nice