I woke up early this morning, enjoyed a coffee in the morning on the balcony and planned our itinerary for the next couple days. There is definitely a lot to see in Budapest and a certain order if you want to make your days efficient. Today we decided to do the Budapest Castle and a bunch of other stuff. So we had a little breakfast and set out on foot.
The city is very pretty, buildings adorned in decorative plaster and statues everywhere. We first stopped at a market to pick up some beverages and a snack.
We stopped at the Belvarosi Plebaniatemplom church, the oldest church in Budapest. The Church was built in the 14th Century, with some restorations through out its life span but we must keep in mind that much of the city was destroyed in World War II either by bombings or by the retreating Germans.
The church had many beautiful statues; far too many to post. The ceiling was arched and beautifully painted.
We made our way across the Danube river on the Liberty bridge; a modern white steal bridge. Half the bridge had been closed in preparation of the fireworks that would happen tomorrow on St Stephen's Day. The view at the end of the bridge was breathtaking. We are going to walk that hill sometime this week.
We made a quick stop at a statue Queen Elizabeth.
Most of the waterfront was closed off to vehicle traffic for the festival. We walked along the Danube to the entrance area to Buda Hill. After a bit of confusion, we found the stairs up. What confused us was a Festival of Folk Art was on and we were looking for tickets to the National Gallery. We were not interested in the festival, but it basically had taken over the area.
We bought tickets and walked stand to stand looking at the clothing, trinkets and food. Most of the stalls were homemade goods and some of the vendors were making their products right there. The blacksmith was particularly interesting.
The food at the festival looked amazing so despite it being overpriced we had to indulge. The food was amazing, the chicken reminded us of Mexican, the pork was smoked and delicious and the sausage smoked, greasy and the best we had all day ;-)
The National Gallery was filled with amazing art. They had a Picasso exhibit which we closely inspected (no photos allowed). We also gazed at art dating as old as the 16th century. The recommended stay here is 2 hours, but a person that really enjoyed art could spend a whole day; we were not.
Our final destination was the Buda Castle Museum. The castle was bombed in WWII, but they did an amazing job collecting and restoring artifacts from the wreckage.
We crossed the Chain Bridge and made our way to the St Stephen's Basilica. This church is where the exhumed mummified St Stephen's hand is (he was the first king of Hungary around the end of the first century).
We enjoyed some gyros, pizza and balaclava for dinner and headed back to the apartment to relax our tired legs.
