Budapest: Looking Much Better In The Sun

[smallhobbit]

Finally, the sun came out - clearly it knew it was my birthday.

First off we took to bus up to the castle area.  The bus went from near our hotel and took us all the way up to the top of the castle hill.

 

There are a number of sights to visit up there, but we'd decided on the Hungarian National Gallery, which displays a lot of art by Hungarian artists, as well as other European artists.  The galleries are arranged thematically and very spacious.

 

There were also some impressive medieval altar fronts and statues:

 

There's also a magnificent view over the river and the city from in front of the gallery:

  

We then took the funicular back down and walked over the Chain Bridge (the first bridge to join the separate cities of Buda and Pest):



We walked along the bank of the Danube to where there's a display of metal shoes, to commemorate the death of Jews in 1944/45 on the bank of the river.  It's a very moving display.



After which we headed back towards our hotel, stopping to enjoy a trip on the Budapest Eye.  The sun set while we were on the Eye and it was very beautiful.

 

It being my birthday we went out for dinner that evening, where we ate traditional Hungarian food, drank Hungarian wine and I tried Palinka (a fruit brandy - I had the apricot one).

We both thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Budapest, tried out a few Hungarian words - I recognised some on signs etc.  Most people spoke English, but seemed to really appreciate us saying Thank you in Hungarian.

Comments

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Sounds like a wonderful birthday! Great photos!

[smallhobbit]

It was a great day! Thank you very much!

[debriswoman]

Pleased you had some sun, and the gallery looked good, and the river, and your birthday celebration. The shoes are such a sad display.

[smallhobbit]

Thank you - it made such a difference. The shoes are very poignant.

[margaret_r]

A wonderful way to celebrate your birthday, glad the sun came out for you and you were able to do so much on the day. And thanks for sharing with such great photos.

[smallhobbit]

Thank you very much. I'm really pleased you like my photos.

[adafrog]

Thanks. And Happy Birthday!

[smallhobbit]

Thank you very much.

[clarasteam]

Egészségedre! I'm glad you had such a good birthday.

I don't have an apricot brandy icon, but I did write a fic about it *grins*

[smallhobbit]

Thank you very much. I do like your fic - and I recognise a number of the places mentioned now, which is good.

[melagan]

Happy Birthday!

[smallhobbit]

Thank you very much.

[aome]

Sounds like a lovely birthday! I've heard Budapest is gorgeous, so I appreciated your virtual tour. Ugh to the rain, but at least it didn't rain all the time.

I'm curious - the altar fronts in the museum - what happened to the churches they were originally part of?

Also, how does one say "thank you" in Hungarian?

[smallhobbit]

It was a good day. Budapest is lovely, well worth a visit.

I have no idea what happened to the original churches - for more information on the altar fronts see here

Thank you is köszönöm.

[scfrankles]

...we ate traditional Hungarian food, drank Hungarian wine and I tried Palinka (a fruit brandy - I had the apricot one). Glad to see you enjoying yourself ^____^ And it's lovely that you were able to have a go at speaking a little Hungarian ^__^

The art and the views are so beautiful - I particularly like the picture of the altar front. And the artwork of the metal shoes wasn't quite what I was expecting. The different colours, the lack of regularity to the way they're set out, and the position of the shoes all suggest the living people who are no longer there - it's a commemoration of their lives as well as their deaths, which only goes to make it the more heartbreaking.

[smallhobbit]

Yes, it was an excellent birthday meal :) And after spending months struggling with Hungarian, I was pleased some of it had stuck.

The altar fronts were stunning. My photo doesn't capture the full impact of the shoes, but it really does speak very clearly of 'man's inhumanity to man'.

[moth2fic]

That all sounds lovely. I'm glad you had such a good birthday!

[smallhobbit]

It was. Thank you very much.