23/6 Michelangelo, heroes square, and a night cruise

On our last day in Budapest we ad a late start with a late breakfast. We lingered over breakfast because we wanted to spend just a little more time with some of the people from our previous group who were leaving that day.
After then heading upstairs for our showers we lingered a little more in the lobby, having a decent cup of tea made with actual boiling water.

It had rained all night and showed no signs of stopping so on with the raincoats and off we went into the rain.
We had seen an exhibition of Michelangelo advertised at the fine art gallery near Heroes Square, so we headed for there along the wide boulevard called Andrassy Ut.

This style of flower boxes with height is used quite a lot here. When blooming fully it is a great sight.

We only had to line up for about 20 minutes to get in to the exhibition and then spent a few hours looking not only at the Michelangelo (with a shared audio guide) , but also at the magnificent rooms of the art gallery and some of their other permanent exhibition.

This particular hall was closed off for many years  , with the roof damaged from war , water leakage, and basically used for storage of objects of no interest. The beautiful frescoes have only been recently restored and are very impressive.

The central room that everyone walks through is not to be sneezed at either.

one of the articles in the general collection.  We were not allowed to take pictures of the Michelangelo exhibition

Exhausted from our culture binge, we headed out of the door to Heroes square and found ourselves a cache in Budapest before going off on a search for the huge timer (like an egg timer) that only needs turning once a year.  We found the timer, but unfortunately could not get right to it as there were workman's partitions up. It is currently on a building site, so we looked at what we could see over the barricade and went away again.

one of the heroes

The ice skating rink. 

The timer

Since it was still raining , we decided to hop on a bus again, and caught the bus back over the river to the lookout, where we hopped off and had ourselves an icecream reward while we waited for the next bus to head back again.

Walking from the stop closest to our hotel, we only just made it back in time to have a quick wash up and head out again with mates from our first tour who were still around. For one reason or another we had all failed to use our second boat trip voucher, so had planned to make the night trip at 9.30.

We sat at some street tables under umbrellas for our last meal (pasta) and then headed for dock 10 again.  We arrived in plenty of time to enjoy the sunset as we waited to board (and even found a cache on the way) .

The night trip was very different.  Budapest has done a great job of lighting their beautiful riverside buildings, and it was really quite spectacular.

By the time we headed off on our walk home we were all pretty weary. 

22/6/19 Buda Castle, Hospital in the rock, tour on the Danube and a new tour group

Today we had a day to ourselves in Budapest.

We had a morning walk to the hop on bus stop. The first bus to come along was the "shopping bus" which stops only at shopping areas.  We hopped on here and took one stop.

A short time later the red bus came along and we hopped on- for one stop.

Now we were at the chain bridge, so we walked across here to the Buda side of the city (across the Danube).   On the way we checked whether the lions did, indeed, have tongues.  We could not see into their mouths,  but we also couldn't see any tongues

chain bridge

you can see the bike chain effect in this picture. 

one of the river boats that cruise along the Danube just passing under the bridge

the furnicular going up the hill on the Buda side 

The Castle seen from the bridge

One of the lions - it is a long way up to check for tongues.

In the square on the far side it was very busy. We were met by a sales person selling tickets to catch  a bus up and around the hill.  Some of our tour group had decided that this was a good way to go the previous day, so we agreed to buy tickets for this.  When the expected bus came along we went to get on, and were told that this was not our bus- we needed to wait for longer!  It turned out that there were at least 3 types of bus doing this route (all very similarly named) and we had bought from one of the "other" firms.

We took our bus (more an elongated electric  large golf cart) to the first stop and got off at the square. As our planned tour did not start until on the hour, we decided to go for a stroll, and walked along the terraces, admiring the view down over the Pest side of the river.
Gardens and terraces cascade down the hill to the river on this side and you could take paths all day and never take the same one.  It  would be fantastic for an orienteering sprint event, with many blind corners, different levels and spectacular as well.

Guards at the Preesdient's place

views form the terraces

Ancient ruins- ? from the Ottoman Empire times

The president lives in this area but basically the castle now holds a museum (as so many seem to) and "the castle" is actually spread across the hill and includes a number of buildings.
There are ruins here as well - rows of stones,  obviously the walls of ancient buildings, - we couldn't figure out exactly what - but maybe from the times of the Ottoman invasion and occupation.



We walked our way around to the hospital in the rock, which was our main goal here, with Trevor managing to identify the small stairway that we needed to take to another level of the hill to find the doorway into the hill which is the entrance to the hospital.  They told us that they were not running tours on the hour, but were waiting for enough people to accumulate for the English language tour and then taking it.  If we waited we could then  be invited to come inside and pay our money, so we found a patch of shade in the hot sun and waited and waited.  It took about half an hour for 20 or so English speakers to build up.  When we did go to pay we found that the price was reduced today because there was some special museum day on - all museums open for free or very cheap until into the night.  We bought an orange arm band and this gave us access to other places which were to be open from about 4pm with this special deal.

The Hospital in the Rock was initially built during the cold war due to the fear of nuclear fall out. Using the natural cave network in this hill (which is extensive) they prepared a whole hospital area which could be used. Later it was used briefly during the 50s and again in 1991 when the city was under siege. (being a little more expanded by then).  At that stage they had 600 people crammed in the musty rooms, ran out of water and started washing out bandages due to lack of stock - causing huge spread of infection.  Bunks were pushed together and 3 people "top and tailed" to keep warm and fit them all in.  We were also shown information about Hiroshima and Nagasaki with chilling reminders of what a nuclear bomb can do - and the ones we have now are  much much larger.

After this chilling tour we walked back out into the hot sunshine, and  to the intricate church on the hill (St Matthias) were we saw one in a long line of brides waiting outside of the doors of the church to be married.  We saw at least 3 but possibly more brides near this church in the hour or so that we were here, so they must have been really pushing them through at a high rate.

We have seen flowers on the bonnet for weddings and for birthdays on this trip

The Fishermans Bastion

Beside a giant chess set you could be challenged to a game by this chess whiz. 

Instead of attending a wedding we ate icecream and looked out over the terraces to the views of Budapest, and watched the old man challenge all comers to chess games and dispense with them within a few moves each time.. Not sure if this was some scam he was working or just a friendly thing to pass the time of day

Since we were unable to locate a green "bus" to take us down again we decided to walk down through the gardens to the chain bridge, and along the bank of the river to the dock for the boat ride which we had bought with our hop on bus tickets (we were eligible to use 2 boat tours) .

houses of parliament from the river

down the ramp

and in she goes

all in a day's sailing

 We caught the 4pm boat and took a ride up and down the river, past the island in the middle.  We saw the water bus take off for a tourist trip, and some of the less central city areas this way.
When the boat docked , we walked home to the hotel and arrived just in time to have a quick wash up before heading out to dinner with out tour group.

We ate at the same restaurant that we had used the previous night, and our old tour leader was there also with his new group.  The service was just as slow.

When we emerged from the restaurant it was raining, so we decided not to go on to see some of the museums, but to go home to bed instead.

21/6 Walking in Budapest, frustration and the end of our tour.

We started out day with a much needed late start  and late breakfast in hotel (breakfast goes until 1030am).  They have a lady on the dining room who is a bit of a hungarian dragon lady - and tries to run the place in a regimented way. Lots of telling people off and huffing.

We met some of the others in our group at the Basilica (stop number one on the hop on, hop off bus) and took the free walking tour.  Free walking tours are practically never free - they almost always rely on tips at the end.  This one was not the best of tours we have had, but it still gave us some perspective and took us to some places that we would otherwise not have seen.  It took a bit over an hour and left us by the chain bridge to find out own way onward.

memorial square.   - The first memorial says "It was Germany's fault, not the Hungarian government" 

the second "peoples" memorial remembers many missing Jews killed by the Germans 

an ornate building built by a very rich man.

flag half mast to recognise the local ferry disaster

soldiers guarding the flag. - they take shifts to march around and around the flagpole for an hour. 

Parliament buildings - built symmetrically but now only one side needed as they no longer have two houses of parliament. 

Shoes by the Danube memorial - to remember the Jews who were made to take off their shoes so that they sank faster when shot and they fell into the Danube

The Basilica

Paving outside the Basilica in the Square

View of one of the Basilica towers from the main dome vantage point.

From the Basilica dome

Part of the Ceiling are work

I cannot resist stained glass

the central dome

By this time we were pretty tired in the hot and humid conditions, so we headed for home via the amazing basilica.  Here we stopped to go up the tower, wonder at yet another marvellous view and ooh and ahh inside the church itself , which was , unsurprisingly lavishly decorated.

While Trevor rested I attempted to do laundry - only to meet fully loaded machines. I waited for them to finish, then a card machine that would not work and then a laundromat operator who was less than helpful speaking hungarian via an intercom.  This experience ended in my quiet tears as I walked home to the hotel (still with my dirty washing) , and a certain amount of ranting and raving to my beloved.  I did have a few quick words with the reception desk staff asking about alternatives, but stopped that discussion soon in fear of collapsing into a distressed maiden - I think they must have seen my distress despite my effort to hide it.

I returned to the room, only to find that my card would no longer open the door - meaning that Trevor now was awake and had to get out of bed to open it to his frustrated wife.

When the reception staff  later were asked to replace my card, and also overhead me telling the tour leader about my frustration at not being able to get money from three successive ATMs they poured a glass of champagne and offered it to me on the house! (The kindness of strangers can never be underestimated)

After the frustrating afternoon, we headed out with our group for our last dinner all together.  While we waited for the very slow delivery of dinner, we discussed the highlights of our trip.  General discussion highlighted the activities that we had actually participated in, rather than watched (the rides, walks etc)  as being most;y the highlights. The walk in the Tatra mountains which we were looking forward to, but missed will be a lasting memory for many.
The people we have met and the art and architecture and history that we have learnt about will also remain in our memories.
We are so thankful for the great tour group who included us back into the group as one of them again after our little stay in Prague and helped to look after us and support us through that hard time.  They are all great people and we are sad to be going separate ways.
Five of us will travel on together into the next tour group.