European Adventure-Day 5 Budapest, Hungary

Since today was our last day to visit Budapest, we decided to go to the national museum and see what it had to offer.  We ate breakfast first to fuel up for the long day ahead.  We had already been told to be willing to give it a full day.

Chris is always happy when he eats.....:-).  Unless it's sweet potatoes...ha. He doesn't like those!

We never did get the coffee machine thing worked out.  But oh well.......

It was interesting that in Oklahoma just a week ago it was 90 degrees.  It has been in the 70's since we got here and it is clear that fall is here.  There are fallen leaves all over the ground...:-)

We always walk past this store in the mornings while on our way to the train station. We did stop here one evening and get some potato chips.  They were "different" too....:-)

I see they play the lottery here as well as in the United States.......

ok, already out of breath from climbing all the stairs, we finally made it to the train station....

There was a statue of John Calvin at street level where we got off the train.  John Calvin 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. ( source-Wikipedia).  He died after having become hourse from preaching and went into a coughing fit.  He coughed so much that he burst a blood vessel in his lung and his health declined from there.  He died about a month later.

There was even a bistro named after him....

And then just down the road was the National Museum; our destination for today.....

Outside the museum sat this huge statue of "somebodies" who I have no idea who they were or what they represented.  I was hopeful that something inside the museum would be in English!

This is the front of the statue......

and this is the far side of it.......

I cannot believe  have to walk up all those stairs....haha.  ok.  here we go!

 Scootard purchased our tickets which were 3,200Huf or $13.00.

The building was beautifully done inside even though most of it seemed to be hollow and vacant....

I was NOT looking foward to all of those steps.....haha.

This is the view looking down the stairs.  So, as you can see- I made it up!

And this was on the ceiling above the stairs.....

This is the second time that Scootard found himself alone in the middle of a round room and took advantage of the acoustics....haha.  He started singing and it started echoing!

Here is a closer look at the pattern on the ceiling.......

Anyway, somewhere along the way, we were escorted to the basement to use the rest rooms if need be.  This is "Atilla".  He is a young historian who would guide us through the labyrinth of a hallway and then inform us that if we wanted to take pictures we had to have a "photo pass".  ok.  where do we get it?  UPSTAIRS!?  haha...  I was soooo done! haha  Well, we started our journey back upstairs to get the photo passes.
 

which cost an additional 1.000Huf ($4.37).

After going back and forth on the stair case, we were left alone to explore the "stone room" of Ancient Rome.  Here are a few pictures of that room. Most of the stones in this room are actually head stones of graves of the Roman nobles that lived during the reign of Cesar Augustus and others.

It was a large room that also held the sarcophagus of the wealthy of that day.

This book was placed there to help the visit understand what they were looking at.  But I didn't take the time to read through it.

Here is one sarcophagus which I could not fine a name for.

This was a floor that was made for a temple......it looks like a rug, but is made of marble and different types of stone....

This is a bust of Augustus....

 Whenever possible, I tried to use the museum's write up about a particular sculpture, relief or tomb stone.

and here she is.....

This is a military diploma granted to a veteran soldier who had completed the required training for service.
It is cast in bronze.

Very cool belt....:-).  I would sport that with a black dress...:-).

These folks went out in style.......

made with lime stone and cement which made for a very durable encasement.....

 We were told that it was better to start in the basement and then venture to the top floor of the museum one floor at a time.  So, we started our journey up.  The building is 200 years old and most of it was not being used at all except for storage space and offices.

He likes to read EVERYTHING.  I just want to get on with it until something catches my attention....

by now, it was almost lunch time and we thought that it best to just grab a snack at the museum rather than leave and come back.

It was a typical snack bar with mostly pastry and other things including coffee and tea.....

We decided to try the ginger ale and some kind of torte.....

a closer look at the bottle reveal the influence of the Western world.....

The Coca cola Company......and here I thought I was drinking Hungarian ginger ale! ha.  oh well.....

When we arrived at the second level, we came across this penny machine that Scootard likes to put money into.  Once you choose the impression that you want on your coin, you crank the handle and it cranks out the souvenir.

We ventured into the next exhibit......

and here is some of it....

It's amazing the things that we are able to construct from practically nothing.  No modern tools.......

Very nice indeed.......

more gold jewelry.....

Can you believe that this was found in the river?  It looked like it had almost rusted through on the edges....

I cracked up when I read this.  So much so that Scootard came to see what I was laughing about.  The part about the coloring of their hair just made me laugh!  Vanity has a long history......haha

Here is some of the jewelry of the Galls......

next......

The Romans ruled Hungary for quite some time....There are still some remnants of their occupation in some of the building and artifacts that were left behind....

I have read about the Roman shields and how some of them were so large that they were the full height of the person carrying it. This one fell a bit short of what I have read.

This is the frontal view of that chariot you just saw......

The Romans also liked to use a lot of herbs when they cooked.  They are the same way today.....:-).  I like Italian food!

These spice bags are the early cousins of bags that are used today for tea and other spices if you don't want to have to strain it out of the liquid it is in.

 And they were very much into fashion just like today

That second one , you know- the plaid one might make a nice scarf for somebody.....:-)

Christianity suffered many years of persecution and still does today.

Here are some artifacts from that period.....

 These appear to be oil lamps, but I am not sure about that.....the writing was in Hungarian...

Next exhibit......

There was a lot of fan fare about fashion; much like today.  They wore large broches and earrings that you would not believe could be worn without tearing the ear right off the head for the weight of it.....

uh oh....somebody got distracted! haha

anyway, these are kinda like the things that we wear on our scarfs today...... or like buckles in some cases....

and they were made from all types of available metals.....

I can't imagine wearing that heavy stuff on my head......

And then if you whacked in the head, it probably "rang"!

I guess when they were done fighting, they ate like kings.......

I believe I saw some of this when we were in Vienna ........

This was a huge museum as promised and I didn't even record most of what I saw.  The exhibits went on all the way up to the 21st century!  I think I stopped taking pictures long before that.  So, here are the few that are left........

Not that great looking of a crown....fashion no-no if you ask me....ha.  I would have added a little color!

now, who is that!   hummmm...

There was an exhibit of the brutality done by the Catholic Church to those who would not swear their allegiance for one reason or another......Their heads were sawn off; usually with a dull blade.  It was not a quick death.

moving on to more modern times.....this is period furniture from the early 1800's I believe......

And now, after having seen the entire display in that massive building... it was time to make our exit and find some dinner.  We made our way back down those stairs and headed for the train.....

The massive statue that greeted us when we came bade us farewell as we left........:-)

Scootard must have been hungry!  He beat me down the stairs.....but then again, my feet were hurting after several hours of walking!

We made our way to a coffee shop.

We were going to sit outside, but decided that the sun was a bit much.  So, we went inside and found some leather chairs to melt into.....

We still had to discuss what we were going to do about dinner, but hey...as they say,,"life is short.  Eat desert first"!  It wasn't that good.....:-(.  I picked the orange cheese cake and he picked the plain one.

This company is the same one that was outside of the St Stephens Church....I think they are in competition with Starbucks.  Who know.  They might be owned by Starbucks like Seattle's Best Coffee is.

After having our desert, we decided to try to find somewhere in the area to have our dinner.  There was a wedding taking place just as we were approaching......:-). I didn't want to crash the wedding, so i just snuck a picture from a distance.....:-).  They started their wedding march toward the alter just when we walked up....she looked quite pretty....:-).

 We found our dinner spot for the evening; our last dinner in Hungary.....:-(.

Scootard ordered some Roquefort stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer.  I only ate a bite or two because I didn't want to ruin my dinner. We were both very tired by now....

But for his main course he ordered veal in lemon cream sauce with potato dumpling/donut thingees.

I ordered some "sheat-fish" (Bass) with asparagus and parsley potatoes....

a quick trip to the bathroom after dinner revealed the smallest sink I had ever seen in my life!  Seriously, the picture makes it look twice the size it really was! haha.....wow.....

We started our journey back to the train station passing the church where the wedding had been earlier.  All that was left were rose petals on the ground outside and a few people inside.  No sight of the bride or groom...

We were leaving the city of Budapest in the morning and I stood there thinking about all that I had seen and done during the past 5 days.  The music was about to stop for me in regard to my adventure in this "bucket list" city.

And so, we made our way back to the hotel where we began to pack and think about the next destination tomorrow which will be Bratislava, Slovakia!!
See you soon.......:-)