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Published: February 18th 2007
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Fishermen's Bastion
Great views of the city below! Midnight Arrival! We arrived in Budapest around midnight and much to our English friend's consternation we had not booked a hostel and in fact were not sure where we would stay! He hurriedly wrote his phone number on a piece of paper with the offer of two couches at his place if we were stuck. Such is the kindness of strangers you meet along the way!
Buda and Pest Budapest with a population of two million is located on both sides of the Danube River and in fact is made up of two cities. Buda, on the west bank, is hilly and more residential. It accounts for about one third of the city and is more classy. Pest, on the east bank, is mainly flat and most of the city's public buildings are found there.
We found a budget hostel near the train station with an 8-bed dorm. Borag, the young man running the hostel is studying English and American literature and enjoyed chatting to us in English. He treated us like family and I gave him my copy of Brick Lane that I had just finished. There was only one other guest and we hardly saw him so it
was great as a base. We bought a box from the Post Office to send home some things we had bought or had no further use for and the hostel room was quite a sight as we reorganised our bags! We had quite a few strange looks from people when we turned up at the Post Office later with tape and string and made final adjustments to the box!! It was good to hear from my mum that the parcel has arrived in Australia already all in one piece! Budapest is a great place to visit and explore and as we had done in previous places we headed for the highest hill and climbed to the top. It had been snowing the day before and the ground was very slippery! We had to use the handrails to get up and expended more energy laughing at our attempts than in the actual climb. The views were good and helped to orientate us to the layout of the city spread beneath us. Coming down was even more of a challenge and we literally skated down in places! At one stage we watched Colin take a spectacular tumble. Luckily he landed in a
pile of leaves with no damage done!
Parliament Building This is probably one of the most impressive buildings in Budapest. It really is amazing and none of my photos taken in dull conditions does it justice! There was quite a military presence the day we visited as there had been recent demonstrations. It is best viewed from across the river on the far bank or better still from a boat on the Danube!
Gellert Baths One afternoon Colin and I visited the famous Gellert Baths which are Turkish in origin. It did seem strange to be relaxing in pools with water as hot as 36 and 38 degrees while it was freezing outside! Renovations were in progress so the Men's Baths were open to women as well as men which was a bonus for me. When Michael had visited the baths three years previously only men had been allowed in what is considered the most beautiful of the baths.
Hungarian Handwork I was amazed at the beautifully intricate Hungarian lace on sale everywhere. The designs are mainly floral on a white background, with some on black material. I would have loved to buy some of the
larger pieces but it was very expensive and I am supposed to carry everything I buy (Thanks guys for helping me out here at times!) so I had to content myself with some small pieces! I bought a sample from a shop near the Fishermen's Bastion and in the window of the shop was a signed thank you letter from Princess Diana's lady-in-waiting for a piece of lace that had been sent to Diana as a present!
Heroes' Square One evening we took the Metro to Heroes' Square - an amazing square built in 1896 to mark the 1000th anniversary of the seven Magyar tribes which settled here. It is a huge square, very impressive and we just about had the place to ourselves! Bordering the square we visited The Museum of Fine Arts that had an exhibition on Van Gogh's work. Van Gogh in Budapest featured almost 80 works from every period of Van Gogh's life. The works came from Amsterdam, New York and other museums around the world. Again I was impressed by how many people had come, many of them young people. We really enjoyed wandering around and learning more about the life of this artist.
The Citadella on Gellert Hill
This stronghold was built by the Habsburgs to keep an eye on the city after the 1848-49 War of Independence had been crushed. Next blog......Bucharest!
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Penny
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Enjoying your travelogue and especailly the photos. It makes life back home look very dull! I hope you share your tips on parenting with all and sundry for it is a great credit to you and Colin to have brought up two such fine young men and to be so close as a family. Love to all.