Budapest: Day 1 (cont.)

Also in the castle grounds are beautiful views of the Danube River and Pest. We walked along the fisherman's bastion, which was where the medieval fish market was held, and looked over the city of Budapest. It was beautiful. The bridges across the Danube were amazing. Budapest has a lot of monuments built in the 19^th century in celebration of the millennial anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian capital (founded sometime in 9^th century). There is the Chain Bridge, which is an icon of Budapest and the first bridge connecting Buda and Pest. It was built in 1840s when there was a death of some important guy. The funeral of this man was in Buda and the Danube had not frozen over completely, and the guy's son couldn't go to the funeral because he couldn't get across the river. Although the original bridge was destroyed in WWII, it was rebuilt in 1949. There is also Elizabeth Bridge, named after the Austrian empress of the Hapsburg family who came from Hungary, which is a beautiful green suspension bridge. There is also Liberty Bridge, originally named Franz Joseph bridge, which is a spectacular modern bridge with a thin white square supporting the cables. The two bridges were named in honor of the Austrian rulers as a monument to their eternal love for each other. After WWII, both bridges were essentially destroyed, and Liberty Bridge was given its name. There is also a spectacular view of Hungarian Parliament and the churches of Pest.

After enjoying the view, we decided not to waste our only evening in Pest. We knew we had the horse show to go to in the evening, but we didn't know what to do to keep ourselves occupied beforehand. When we first arrived at the castle, some other tourists asked us if we knew where the labyrinth was, and we didn't know. Tete's brother had been to Budapest not too long ago, and she remembered him saying something about a labyrinth and saying he enjoyed it a lot. We decided to find the labyrinth and when we got there we descended underground to begin. The labyrinth is underground and I don't really know why it was built, but there was always a "fountain of endless wine" in the center. Whoever was in the labyrinth had more to worry about than finding the wine. They were haunted by several things: the deepest darkness imaginable and the random statues and wall paintings. The statues were placed in dead ends, around corners, and in other clever places. For us tourists, the labyrinth was blocked to only a small section. For every two people, there was one lantern and we began the labyrinth journey together. It was really a lot of fun. We eventually found the "fountain of wine" with a mysterious red liquid flowing from the spout and we were also surprised by the cold air, the dripping water and the statues placed in the corners. I was leading the group through the maze. We would come to dead ends, weird statues, weird rooms, gates, chains, giant heads, and other intriguing objects. The best part was when I found a particular dead end, and I decided to just wait behind the corner until the girls came poking their heads around and BAHH! I scared them so bad! It was wonderful. They were not pleased to say the least. It was really eerie and weird until the very end, when we were exiting the labyrinth and they turned it into a tourist trap. I didn't quite understand what was going on because the introduction video was in German, but the rooms began to have old computers, dead televisions, and other ancient technologies like radios and old equipment. Then they had some weird stuff like "frozen" walkie-talkies and other things. It was really stupid and I hated that they changed the mood from spooky and mysterious to weird.

When we finished the labyrinth we had only an hour or so to kill before the horse show at nine. We walked around the castle some more and found a restaurant to ask where the horse show was going to be. The waitress was very helpful and offered us a 20% coupon voucher if we ate at the restaurant beforehand. We went to go find the horse show and more information. We arrived at the show and the ticket salesman told us our voucher wouldn't work with the student tickets so we bought our ticket at a special discount he gave us. We went back to the restaurant to have a drink before the show. The waitress noticed we had already bought our ticket and told us we should have waited because our voucher would've given us 20% off the student price! So after we had our drink, we went back to the ticket office and of course couldn't find the guy we were talking to, so we had to argue with the lady to get some of our money back. We were just about to give up, when the guy came around, and he completely agreed with us, and gave us our money back. Thank God!

The horse show was great! Located in the Lion's Court of the royal castle, it showcased the Spanish Equestrian School, founded in 1933 by the Hungarian Royal Guard. There are only four academies in existence in the world, Vienna, Lisbon, Jerez de la Frontera, and the Cadre Noir from Saumur. The Spanish Equestrian School has been performing in the Buda castle for many years and the riders represent the best in the ancient Xenophon and Guereniere principles of horse riding. The show was only an hour long, but it was totally worth it. After, we made our way back home, and called it a day.