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.