A Full Day in Budapest... and Another Nap!

This morning we woke up (and when I say morning... think dark o'clock again!) and headed down to meet the family for breakfast, which was thoughtfully provided by our hotel.

* Side note: our hotel was Hotel Parlament and I would highly recommend it! It is on the Pest (say Pesht... s is pronounced sh here... ex. you say Budapesht) side of Budapest close to the Parliament building. I booked it on hotels.com because I love their rewards program but you can also book directly with them. It was a very nice room for 99 Euros per night which included breakfast, free wifi(strong enough to stream videos), and during the day free water, coffee and tea.

Taking a free lemonade break in the hotel.

This was actually one of the best hotel "included" breakfasts I've seen. There were some hot selections, loads of pastries and breads, yogurt, granola, different fruits, vegetables, cheese, sausages and more. There was even CHAMPAGNE! I am not making this up! I did not partake in the champagne however due largely to the fact it was breakfast time 😁And also due to the fact that I am quite a mess from the sleep disruption!

So impressed by the architecture. Imagine if this was your front door?!?!

After breakfast we headed out on a walk to the Parliament building. It was quite impressive! The parliament is one of the two tallest buildings in Budapest and contains 691 rooms. The other tallest building is St. Stephen's Basilica. They were built at exactly the same height to show that worldly and spiritual thinking were equally important. To me this is really one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.

Soldiers on guard 

1956 is an important date in Hungary. The Hungarian uprising was a revolt against the Soviet control in Hungary. Eventually Soviet forces invaded Budapest and crushed the uprising regaining control. Over 2500 Hungarians were killed and 200,000 fled as refugees. The years that followed were difficult for Hungarians. I didn't realize they didn't have true independence until very recently in 1989

Just checking out how this fountain works!

After admiring the parliament we headed down for a walk by the Danube.

A little break in the shade. These European guys can't keep their hands off me 😉

I was looking for the "Shoes on the Danube" which I had read about on the internet. This is a memorial to the Jews who were killed by a fascist group in Hungary in 1944. They were taken down to the Danube, ordered to remove their shoes, and then shot at the edge so their bodies fell into the water and were washed away. The memorial is 60 pairs of period appropriate shoes sculpted out of iron and  carefully placed along the river embankment. It is one of the most simple but moving remembrances of the horrors of the war that I have seen.

When we came across the memorial there was a lady being interviewed on camera who looked quite sad. I couldn't understand though as, of course, it was in Hungarian. (Did I mention that Hungarian has no other language that is similar to it? It is one of the only languages where their word for police is not recognizable "rendorseg".)

At this point I was failing fast from the lack of sleep so went back to the hotel for a nap. I know this is not the best way to deal with jet lag but there was no stopping it 🤷

Steve and his family all headed out for a drink at a cute little cafe (or so they tell me) and then Steve and Senne perused the local grocery store to pick out some drinks and treats, while John, Angie and Dianne went and had a look at St. Stephen's Cathedral.

I'm a bit foggy on what happened directly after this, but assume it had something to do with wandering the streets of Budapest. 😁 This is one of my favourite past times in new cities. Particularly in cities like this with such gorgeous architecture!

We decided to head out for dinner at a normal time this night and were armed with two recommendations. Both ended up being full and having no room for 6 people so we headed back to the Strudel House and even got our same table out on the sidewalk. Dinner was delicious two nights in a row, so I can heartily recommend this restaurant. It is also on a nice  street filled with restaurants and cafes. Steve was particularly impressed with the calibre of scenery on the street and was quite distracted during dinner 😉

After dinner we took a little stroll through the nearby park and played a bit in the fountain. It was super cool! Water shot up about shoulder height in a large rectangular shape. When you got about one foot from the water it stopped so you could walk in and stand inside the fountain. The the water shot up again. It was also a nice way to cool off your feet.

Next we dropped the family off at the hotel and went for an evening stroll. Steve loves taking photos at night in beautiful cities and I love admiring the scenery.

We had a look at another holocaust memorial which had various period pieces and photos and information about victims of the holocaust in Budapest.

Then we walked down towards St. Stephen's Basilica. Of course you can't go inside at night, but the building is still impressive at night. They do a very good job of lighting the buildings and bridges here so that they look quite dramatic at night.

 

After approximately 2 bajillion photos were taken we wandered around in a little area with bars and cafes. The nightlife was quite busy and people were even just taking drinks from bars out into the courtyard and hanging out there.

Finally we walked down towards the Chain Bridge (named because it finally chained the two cities of Buda and Pest together into one city... and also because there are chains between the two towers!) The bridge was rebuilt after WWII in which all of Budapest's bridges joining the two sides were destroyed.

Fun Fact: It is also featured in Katy Perry's Firework Video! We headed over past the Parliament Building again and marvelled at it's beauty and then continued home to attempt to sleep (no such luck😦)

Look! I'm wide awake in the middle of the night!