Budapest yet again

 Budapest yet again.

I transferred ship 100 metres along the river bank from the Avalon Artistry II to the River Discovery II.

I had already been in Budapest for several days and it was a new group of passengers and the first tour would be a tour of the city. Many of the sights that we drove past I had seen before but I still went as some bits would be different and it would be a chance to get to know some of the other guests.

The Opera House. The city didn't have an opera house and didn't have the money to pay for one. So the prime minister asked the Emperor of Austria for some money which he provided on condition that the building was not larger than the Vienna Opera House. 

The building is in fact smaller than the Vienna Opera House but it is more ornate and the Emperor saw it when it was opened and left and never returned to it again.   

                                       
Further along the same road is the House of Terror. It is a museum and monument to those who were arrested and tortured in the basement. The overhang shades the building but also spells out the name of the house. The brown rectangular offering in front of the house are rusted iron chains.

Also under the road is mainland Europe's oldest underground railway line. The oldest is in London.

At the far end of the boulevard is Hero Square with the Museum of Fine Arts overlooking one side.

Below the column is an empty tomb to remember all those who died fighting for freedom.

Beyond the square is City Park and Vajdahunyad Castle with its own moat and lake. The city was founded in 896 and although built to look old, the castle was built to celebrate the 1,000th year of the city and completed in 1896.

On the opposite side of the lake is a restaurant and cafe complex. The lake freezes in winter and becomes a skating rink.

Th design of the castle is aimed at representing many of the different styles of architecture found in the country and are typically reproductions of other famous buildings.

Some were difficult to see through the trees...

...but many styles are represented, Medieval...

                                                     

...almost Disney like with its multiple turrets....

...a copy of a real church...

....baroque.

The anonymous scribe.

And ore different styles. It was originally made of wood and planned to be temporary but it was so popular that the wooden mock structure was replaced with something more permanent.

Inside the park are more modern structures such as the House of Music.

It is a fascinating building but there was a function being held there and we were not able to go inside.

A statue of George Washington, erected here after a statue of a well known Hungarian and the first foreigner to be honoured with a statue erected in Washington.

Through the trees is the Museum of Ethnology, exhibiting traditional items in a modern building with a green roof.

The most famous restaurant in Budapest.

The entrance to the zoo, one of the oldest in Europe.

The circus.

The Biosphere, modelled n the Eden Project  near St Austell but not yet open to the public.

The Shoe Monument...copies of shoes made from iron the remember the Jews who were shot here and thrown into the river.

The funicular from river level up to the royal palace.

The portal to the tunnel that cuts through the hill that the royal palace sits on.

A common sight on the water once I had walked along the banks for several days...a jet boat ride along the river.

And despite being thousands of miles from Santiago de Compostela, along one of the roads I walked, I saw the unmistakable sign for pilgrims.

Another day in Budapest

 Another day in Budapest

I started my self guided tour of the city with a stop at the Whale which I had already photographed and recorded on my blog but I wanted to see the insides.

But I started with the outsides and another view of one of the old ends of the warehouses.

                                         
One of the outbuildings on the site.

Looking directly into the mouth of the whale.

A view to show how the main body of the Whale dwarfs the older buildings.

                                        

I became Jonah and this is a view inside looking back towards the Whale's mouth. It is an art space but there was no exhibition currently on offer so it was darkness.

                                                      

A view looking the other way towards the tail and the start of the two old buildings, with several restaurants and cafes, plus empty space either waiting for a tenant of for another exhibition.

I passed several Art Nouveau style buildings and I love the architecture so much that I couldn't resist yet another photo...

...and another until I reached Kiraly utica where the palinka museum was located. I missed it at first as I walked up the road but eventually found it as it wasn't a large building but just a doorway. And it didn't open for another hour.

I walked around some of the side streets.

I found the old Jewish quarter with the third largest synagogue in the world which I had passed earlier on a coach tour of the city centre in my time in Budapest but was unable to get a photo but was an opportunity to get a photo of some of the detail of the entrance.

A more distant view to show the towers.

I went back to the Palinka Museum and it was finally open. I went through the door and into a bar. I was expecting a stuffy, dusty museum but this was more of a bar with modern decor with a few items of interest to those interested in the production of palinka. It was far too early in the morning for me to have a drink but from what Barbie, my guide the day before had told us  was that rural folk get up early and have a glass (or two) of palinka at dawn before going into the fields to work and rural bars will open at 5am.

I crossed over the Elizabeth Bridge and came face to face with the waterfall and statue to commemorate St Gerard Sagredo, one of Hungary's patron saints. He was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land but was blown off course by a storm and was persuaded to go to Hungary to promote conversion to Christianity, becoming a bishop there in 1030. The pagans revolted and he was rolled down the hill in a nailed barrel, beaten and thrown into the Danube in 1046. He was canonised in 1083. 

My first stop on this side of the river in Buda was a museum dedicated to the First World War and some of the conflicts that continued or followed after signing of the Versailles treaty ending war on the Western Front but other conflicts would continue for several years.

The main entrance.

Another statue display at another door.

No photos were allowed inside except this exhibit of the Hungarian Crown Jewels...but they are only copies as the real ones are held in the Parliament building.

I spent some time trying to find the Hospital in the Rock under the castle. It has a modest and remote entrance but it utilises some of the caves within the limestone with several expansions and modifications. It was started in 1938 and its present extent was completed in 1944. It treated both soldiers and civilians and had its own generators and had some of the state of the art equipment. But I forgot to take a photo of the entrance but photography was banned on the inside.

I walked back to the boat and as I walked along the edge of the river, I notices this duck plus nine large ducklings, so she had been very successful in raising so many ducklings.

Bites of Budapest

Bites of Budapest

This was a walk around the city trying some of their delicacies.

A detail of the Central Market. 

A detail of the roof.

Looking down one of the central aisles.

Looking towards the central area.

A Calvinist church, easily identifiable by the star at the top inside of a cross which would indicate a Catholic church.

We moved on to a local modern market, the building itself is nothing special but the inside has all the food and ingredients the locals would buy on a daily basis. Sausages.

 Pork butcher. Pork figures significantly as under Ottoman occupation for 150 years, they ate the cows, goats and sheep so only pork was in plentiful supply for the locals.

A cheese shop which also sold...

pickles and we sampled gherkins, melon and sauerkraut.

                                        

Another cheese shop.

                                                      
Fruits and berries, the strawberry season had just finished (they still grew strawberries under glass but our guide said that the taste was different).

A stall selling honey.

Langos, a flatbread with cottage cheese and grated hard cheese.

We took another bus to the New Jewish area which is full of artists, cafes and restaurants and stopped at a delicatessen which doubled as a cafe. where we tried some paprika, washed down with palinka, a spirit traditionally made by farmers who fermented surplus fruit and distilled it. There is also a plink museum for those who want to know more.

Followed by a soft cheese blended with paprika served on bread.

Two types of sausage with on the left, soft crackling...

,,,and for a dessert, we tried some honey...

...and paprika chocolate which tasted really nice. Other flavours are available...

...including sushi chocolate which is green like wasabi and with an 8cms square costing EUR7.50, it is expensive and sounds an unusual combination but it works well just like other unexpected combinations such as chocolate and chilli or strawberries and black pepper.

Just a short walk further and we had rates which is an Hungarian version of apfelstrudle which comes in various flavours and not just apple including raspberry, chocolate and wild cherry plus cheese and paprika.

A relief and the street named after Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat who issued documents to Jews so that they could flee the country. He was warned to leave the country but stayed to save more Jews but when the Russians occupied the city, he was denounced as a American spies and arrested by the Russians and allegedly died of a heart attack in the Lubijyamka NKVD prison in Moscow at the age of 33.

And for some unknown reason, on a street corner, there is a statue of Peter Falk, aka Columbo and his dog.

On the way back to the ship we walked past the entrance to the Parliament building...

...a detail of the entrance...

...and this is what the crowd were looking at, a military band and we listened to a few tunes before moving on.

And as if I hadn't eaten enough...dinner was a beef consommé...

...with corn fed chicken...

...and a dessert with an unpronounceable Hungarian name with more syllables than I have fingers containing...guess what?...paprika.