Budapest: The Second Day

The second day in Budapest was just as exciting as the first. We decided to stay on the Pest side of Budapest. Once again, on the way to the metro, we passed by the central market and looked at all the goods, just for fun. We then headed to Hungarian Parliament, where we took pictures. Remember how I was talking about the bridges of Budapest and how many of them were rebuilt after WWII? Well, many things in Budapest were subject to international architecture competitions, including the Parliament. The Parliament building was built after the 100^th anniversary of the uniting of Buda and Pest as the Hungarian capital. There were hundreds of designs submitted from all over Europe, by some of the most famous architects of the time. The winning design was by an English architect who built the Hungarian parliament based off the British parliament, except the one in Budapest has one dome more and one clock tower less than the counterpart in London. Having been to London, the similarities between the Hungarian and British parliament are striking, both are located on the river, both have spires and windows and are massive buildings. The Hungarian parliament is particularly beautiful, mostly because of its beautiful maroon dome soaring hundreds of feet into the air. It's quite magnificent. Surrounding the parliament are other beautiful buildings, those of the 2^nd and 3^rd place winners in the competition for parliament. These are now government buildings that house offices and such.

After parliament, we went to St. Stephens Basilica, the largest church in Budapest. This is a beautiful church with a 96 m dome. It is even more majestic because it is quite new, built in the late 19^th century and finished in 1905. Inside is beautiful marble and gold leafed ceilings and lights. There are turquoise inlaid panels and of course statues and frescos decorating the walls. It was beautiful. We made our way to the Hungarian Opera House afterwards, only to find out if we could buy cheap tickets to see a show. It turns out that it was closed since it was not opera season and it was only for tours and having already toured the opera house in Vienna, we decided not to tour the one in Budapest.

After this, it was already too hot to be walking around and we were already tired. The salesman at the horse show recommended we go on a 1 hour boat tour on the Danube to see many of the main attractions of Budapest. I led the group down to the docks to purchase tickets for this cruise and we then made our way to Pest center. We first stopped at a Hungarian Orthodox Church to look inside, but it was only open 4 PM until 8 PM. We then decided to kill time until lunch and went to find the Jewish museum attached to the beautiful Dohány Street Synagogue. Of course, we forgot it was Saturday and the Jewish museum is always closed on Saturday. Wonderful. After striking out twice with sight-seeing, we took it as a sign that we need to get out of the heat and eat lunch. Lunch was spent at various places to accommodate the different palates and budgets of our group. I was hungry and wanted to get some Hungarian food. The heat was so unbearable and of course all the restaurants had only outdoor seating. We decided to eat a special lunch menu from a restaurant, that had three courses for a fixed price of €12 or something. It was delicious food, with a soup, goulash, and chocolate dessert. After the great lunch, we moved on to go see Heroes' Square, which is the best square in Budapest. It is at the entrance to City Park, and it has a huge column in the center dedicated to the Millennium anniversary of Budapest. On top of the column is a statue of the Angel Gabriel (that's you Dad!) holding the Hungarian Holy Crown.