Friday, September 6, 2013

European Adventure- Day 4, Budapest, Hungary


We drug ourselves out of bed this morning, missing breakfast in the hotel breakfast room and starting out on our days adventure.  Scootard was asleep on his feet, but still had a good sense of direction about where we needed to be.


I was starting to perk up over the thought of some java!



By the time we got to near to we were suppose to be, it became apparent that we needed to eat "something" before going headlong into the day.....it was lunch time and I got a chicken sandwhich and some onion rings.



Scootard got us some coffee while I contemplated the day......


I figured I was here.  Might as well see what the chicken tasted like.  The eggs didn't taste like much....ha


It wasn't bad at all.  The interesting thing is that the onion rings which are usually batter dipped and deep fried in the states were batter and corn meal mixed and then deep fried.  It made for a cruncher ring....not bad.


We finished our "lunch" and decided to do the last part of our bus tour which was on the Yellow Line this time.  We passed this building which is suppose to be the most expensive resturant with the most expensive coffee in Budapest....The inside of the building is decorated with Chrystal chandeliers.


We crossed one of the bridges and carried on .......


This monument was erected in memory of St. Gellert who was a martyr in the city long ago......



This is the Gellert Hill Cave. A poor family lived in the cave many years ago.  An order of Monks took the cave over and have been there every since.


and as you can see, part of the castle is built into the hillside....


These four guys are said to have tried to help fight a battle for Hungary only to discover that they had been betrayed somehow. The leader of the group was captured, set upon a flaming medal throne with a flaming medal crown placed upon his head and thereby executed.....sheesh.  What a way to go...:-(.


a quick shot of a park area and the Chain Bridge.


and onward we went.  Scootard was settled in with his feet resting on the front frame of the bus.  We were sitting upstairs...


This building has been used as a hospital by some nuns and is now being used for what is called a "social home".  I have no idea what that means......nursing home..??  Low income housing....??


These obilisk dotted the sides of the bridge as we passed.  Looks like a miniature Washington Monument with dragons protruding from them.


And at one bus stop there was this tree growing this huge mushroom out of it's side.....



We headed  back across the bridge that was guarded by huge stone figures of lions on each side.


Every where you look on the Buda side of the city you can see some form of the ancient past.  This was from the late 1800's and served as a support for the walk way.


I was glad that we went back past the Embassy so that I could learn which one it was.  Turned out to be the British Embassy.  Wouldn't have done me a bit of good if I needed to get out of dodge!


I regretted that I was not able to get a good shot of this building.  But it is a Jewish Synogue.  This part of the city was considered the ghetto a long time ago.


And from time to time you would pass a hostel.  I have never stayed in a hostel and I don't know that I ever would.  I feel they are more for younger folks although people of all ages stay in them.


This statue is on the top of this hill in memory of St. Gellert who was placed in a barrel by pagan Hungarians (that is what the historian called them), which was run through with long nails and tossed off the hill because of his faith in God. It was impossible for us to get any closer as we were on a tour bus.


There were several tour companies hard at work driving people hither, thither and yon!



We decided to "hop off" the bus and get our last shot of coffee for the day and discuss our options for dinner.


The coffee shop was just over a mile or so from the hotel so we stopped there.....


Chris was on tilt from exhaustion and I was quickly following suit! I decided to try the cheese cake.  It was interesting and the coffee was good......


We made the trek back to the hotel since we didn't see a cab anywhere in sight and unloaded our backpack in the room.  After a short break, we headed back down for dinner with the adapter in hand that the manager had loaned us when we blew our transformers. We thanked them at the desk and asked if they would please return it to the manager who was not on duty at the time.  Scootard ordered chicken and veggies.


I decided to get what he had the other day which was spinach and blue cheese risotto.  It was good and way too much for me to finish.  Scootard helped me after some persuasion.....:-)



and so ended a short, but full day.  tomorrow is our last day to visit the city as Sunday we check out of this hotel and head for Bratislava, Slovakia.....:-).

Stay tuned!

1 comment:

Trobairitz said...

It is a bummer that the food hasn't turned out as good as it looked.

I love all the architecture pictures.