Day one sightseeing in Budapest

---

Here is something for the next time you play trivial pursuit and this question comes up.How did Budapest get its name???Well,Buda was the name for the old part of the city on the western side of the Danube while Pest is the name of the more recent part of the city on the eastern side of the Danube.Joined together the city became Budapest!!So there you go - you are all that much more knowledgable now.
The weather changed overnight and it is much cooler this morning with a lot of cloud cover which will make walking about a bit easier than if the heat of yesterday had continued.
We get breakfast with our €32 a night hotel so the toaster has stayed in the car!!The selection at breakfast is not too bad but someone had got to all the white bread before we did and we find the brown bread so much heavier and not so good to toast.We shall have to be earlier tomorrow.
There is a real mix of people staying at the Attila from backpackers to families to a group of Germans who look like they are bikies.They did surprise us as they greeted us this morning in English!!
We are staying about 20 minutes out from the city by train and the railway station is just a few minutes walk away.
We headed off to catch the train thinking that there would be a machine selling tickets on the platform only to find there wasn't a machine.Gretchen asked a group of teenage boys if we could get a ticket on the train.They laughed and one that spoke English said no need to worry about a ticket as if an inspector gets on to check tickets that they don't understand English and wouldn't trouble us.
Now we like a bit of adventure,we wouldn't be doing this otherwise,but riding a train with Hungarian speaking train inspectators who don't speak English challenging us because we don't have a ticket is not the sort of adventure we want to start the day with.
Gretchen got out the guide book and found that newsagents sold tickets and there was a shop next to the station so we walked over to it and found that yes they did sell tickets.
The ride to town was an interesting one AND a ticket inspector did get on and the very next stop so we were pleased we hadn't taken the teens advice!!
Our first view as we emerged from the underground railway terminus was the magnificent looking neo-Gothic Parliament Building that commands the eastern side right on the edge of the Danube.It is the largest building in Hungary with 691 rooms and has a frontage of nearly 270 metres long.
The first site we wanted to visit was on the Pest side so walked down to walk across the Chain Bridge,the oldest bridge spanning the Danube of the 5 or 6 other bridges that were in sight.The bridge didn't look like it had had a lot of manienance done on it in recent years with a lot of rust in the structure which had us wondering if we were doing the right thing by walking across it.
The guidebook suggested that we would see many elaborate building on the avenue as we walked up to Heroes Square.There were some very expensive shops such as Gucchi and other famous brands set amongst other empty shops giving a strange mix.Further up the very long avenue we came across the Opera House which was quite grand looking and then further on apartment buildings although not the old communist style buildings of the suburbs.
The Heroes Square was certainly worth the 45 minute walk with the tall and imposing statue in the middle of the square and other smaller statues around the sides.
A few spots of rain from a threatening sky made us decide to take the 125 year old subway back to where we started from at the edge of the river and save our legs.
McDonalds and Burger King have invested big in this city since the end of communism and it wasn't hard finding a McD's for a bite of lunch while we waited to see whether the spots of rain was going to get any heavier.
By the time we had finished the weather actually looked like it was going to clear so we strolled back over the Chain Bridge and caught the funicular up the to Castle Hill,the oldest part of the city.At HUF760 or nearly €3 for a two minute ride this little business is a lecence to make a good living for whoever owns it!!!We were able to travel 20 minutes on a train to town for HUF300!!
However it is one of those touristy things to do and it did save our legs from walking up the zigzag streets to get to the top.
The cobbled streets and heritage buildings are a tourists dream and there were many photograpic opportunites as we walked along the ridge.Gretchen had thoughts of buying one of the beautifully made runners for our coffee table but got scared off by the price at nearly €200.Whether this was just for the tourists or not we are not sure.
One of the interesting buildings on the hill is the Hilton Hotel that was built on the site of an old monestary from 1285 which the owners of the hotel had to excavate and incorporate into the hotel to get to put their hotel on the site.A good deal all around we would say.
The two buildings we wanted to view inside were both closed for renovations!!The Matthias church is built in the Gothic style and would have been interesting to see inside.Behind it is the Fishermans Bastion bult on the old fish market.From here there are panoramic vistas of the eastern side of the city and up and down the Danube.
This side of the river is where the tourists were although the place was not crowded which may be down to the fact that schools in Europe are due to go back after the weekend and the summer season is coming to an end.
We saved money and walked back down the hill and back to the railway station for the ride home as the weather looked like turning to rain again.
We had achieved about half of what we wanted to do and see and will now rely on the weather coming right as predicted tomorrow to do the rest.And we did make it home just in time as large spots of rain with some thunder in the distance arrived.

---

Comments

[Rin]

Good memories
Looking at your photos brings back some nice memories of Budapest - we have some very similar photos from our time there :-) Sounds like you're starting to come across the problem that constantly plagued our European Adventure, where every second old building or church was either closed or covered in scaffolding for renovations!!