Budapest, Hungary

 

Long post today....

After well over 12 hours of much needed sleep, we were back out touring again in the late morning.   We'd planned to ride the funicular (cable railway) up the hill to the "castle district" but the line was long/not moving very fast so we decided against  waiting around for it. 

The castle district sits high on the hill overlooking the Danube.  It's astonishing how many huge intricate buildings and structures are there.

Views over the Danube were spectacular. 

Fisherman's Bastion was overrun with folks enjoying the day.

Mathias church was spectacular  as well.

The view across the river to the Parliament Building.

Selfie near Mathias Church 😄

Did I mention  that there were a lot of folks out??

A different angle of Fisherman's Bastion. 

And yet another view of the Danube.

Buda tower- thought about paying $3 each to climb  but there are no outside viewing points.  

View of part of the city on the other side of Castle Hill.

Then we happened upon a traditional Hungarian dance display. Good fun watching  them!

More views as we continued our walk.

Fountain near the National Gallery.

 

The Hungarian National Gallery that we could see all lighted across the river last night.

And another view of Chain Bridge as we made our way down the hill.

Finished with our tour of the Castle district, we caught a city bus for the 5 mile trip over to Hero Square, a beautiful huge park honoring their war heros. Lovely statues of course. 

And a castle included too.

We wandered the large park, enjoying the day. There was a tethered balloon but was not operating. 

One last cool building before we made our way back on the subway. This was a thermal bath, we knew about it but it seemed like too much trouble....

It took us a few tries on the Metro kiosk, but we secured tickets for our ride back to the station very near our apartment.   Easy peasy and cost about $1.50 USD.

After another little rest, around sunset we started walking to get a night-time view of the Parliament Building.   Normally,  this would be seen directly from the deck of the Viking river boat as we would depart at night specifically for that purpose.   Since we won't see a river boat for the first few days, we took it into our own hands to make sure we'd see that view!  Busy promenade as we crossed over Chain Bridge.

The river cruise boats can't navigate because of low water upstream,  but the local dinner cruise boats are in full operation.

Yet another view of Chain Bridge! 

The Parliament Building is quite spectacular! 

Another mor modern church was lighted as well.

One final look at the Parliament Building  before making our way back.

Across the Danube, we stopped at a hummus/kabob shop called an original  name - hummusbar.....for a light meal before getting back to the apartment for some much needed rest!