Budapest - City of Statues

Hey Everyone! I am back from vacation. I did Budapest with my friends Monique and Mitch (from study abroad two years ago), and then went to visit Anne who was an aupair for my cousins in Berlin. I ended up not going to Switzerland because things just weren't working out. So I am back in France. On the bright side I have some downtime to get some work done before I rush into my last week of classes, and I can get these photos up (some of which I have already forgotten why I took them).

Budapest for the most part was really great, although the weather on the last day was chilly. It has been a freezing April!!!!! I met up with Mitch at CDG and we flew together and met up with Monique at the airport in Budapest. Our hostel was cool, a penthouse turned into dorms, and the owners were the ones actually working there. One of them even made us dinner one night! We also met some really cool people, Alison from Paris, a couple from the west of Germany, a few other French people (the French really seem to love traveling in eastern Europe), and people from Montreal.

On the downside, I was unable to find my camera when I was packing for my trip.... I was able to call mom and ask her for a birthday present and she gave me some money to buy a new one. On the brightside Hungary is dirt cheap, I got my camera and memory card for a total of 62 euros... about 80 dollars. On the downside the camera took some time to adjust so all of my first hundred pictures are discolored and have these horrible lines going through them. Luckily after the first hundred pictures the problem stopped and the pictures are turning out really well. On the downside the first 100 pictures I took were on the walking tour... and were some of the most beautiful shots. Hoping I can get some of Mitch and Monique's pictures for when I print them out back home.

So first day, I went out bought my camera and met up with Mitch and Monique on the walking tour. For a free tour it was really good.

Is this statue a boy or girl?

To be honest I forgot myself, I think it was a girl... and it had something to do with communism... this is why I need to blog straight away when I get done with a trip!!!

From there we headed over to a really nice park, where apparently people love drinking because it was a sign that you didn't care about what the government said if you drank in public even though it is technically illegal.

In this park there is also this tree, which is protected. Apparently if you are truly in love you can buy a lock to put around the tree and your love will last forever or something.

View of the Parliament building from one of the bridges as we made our way up to the castle and cathedral.

Statue of a very fat Hungarian policeman. Apparently Hungarians like very heavy greasy food and that's how he got the belly.

View of the city from the palace area...

One of the gates/doors to the palace.

Apparently the palace itself although nice on the outside is very ugly on the inside because the Nazi's used it during occupation. The rooms inside are apparently ugly and white, and are now filled with museum artifacts. The windows are made of plastic so they couldn't be broken when people shot at them. Some parts of the palace still have lots of bullet holes in the walls.

From the castle we walked over to the cathedral. Budapest is one of those places that is becoming "trendy" but isn't full blown with tourists yet. It's still super cheap because of this, and there's lots of renovations going on. The roof of the church was added on recently with the color to make it nicer for people to come and see. We didn't go inside because our tour guide warned us that you have to pay, and it's under reconstruction (once again to make it nicer for tourists) and wasn't worth it.

Around the church there are the 7 fisherman's towers. There are two stories that go along with the towers, but the one that I remember is that there used to be seven guilds and the one that met in this area was the fisherman's guild. Here's some pictures of me walking around the cathedral and towers.

After the tour we went for lunch with the tourguide. I got to try some Hungarian stuffed/ fried mushrooms filled with goat cheese (which is very different in Hungary), along with potato's and a dumpling soup. Then we headed back towards the palace to get some more pictures. At this point my camera had adjusted so you won't have those stupid lines in the photos anymore.

View of the super tiny mountains/ hills that Budapest has.

Underground tunnels and ruins that they are still in the process of recovering. You can actually tunnel under Budapest.. there's a whole labyrinth... there's also an old cave that was secretly used by the communists that you can visit now.

More pictures of the palace area...

From there we made our way down and back to our hostel. Here's some pictures of the walk... the bridges of course...

Budapest's statue of liberty.

We rested up at the hostel after the tour and then decided to go on a night walk to the Parliament. Here's the night pictures.

The Parliament at night, we tried to go around to the front but it was impossible, we were disappointed.

The next morning we headed to the famous covered market. You can find real Hungarian food there and it's super cheap. The place is jam packed and at some points you can't even move.

After lunch at the market we headed by the river to get some nice views of the city.

The statue of liberty again.

From the bridge and the market we headed over to the Jewish neighborhood which has a lot of really cool architecture and a beautiful synagogue (which is closed except for prayer unfortunately). This sculpture I found on my way to the neighborhood.

The Jewish quarter and the Synagogue.

The Synagogue...

From there we walked to the cathedral...

The cathedral! The first picture was actually taken on the walking tour day one, the rest were day two.

Views from the top of the cathedral.

Inside the cathedral everything was covered in gold. We couldn't walk around too much because there was a wedding going on. We got to watch the bride come in, she was so beautiful!

After the cathedral we stopped in a cafe where we met some other Americans and a man from Copenhagen who just one day came to Budapest and never left. If you like meeting other people Budapest really is the place to go. Then we walked down to the opera house and the big park. Here's the Opera House.

This is the house of terror, its supposed to be a great museum about what life was like during the communist days.

Walk towards the park.

The Hero's Square just in front of the park!

The small but really enchanting castle in the Park.

The weather got really chilly while we were in the park so we decided to head back. That night we didn't do much we just hung out with Alison at the hostel and then we went to a really cool bar called Szimpla (I think). The bar is essentially a building that was bombed, and they just left it that way and decorated it with old cars, movie theater seats, anything random that you could possibly imagine. It was super cool.

The next morning we went our separate ways! Monique and Mitch headed to Madrid I believe and I headed off to Berlin to visit Anne. Pictures of Berlin to come soon!!!