Hi Blavelers. We spent a second day exploring Budapest and this time checked out the Buda side of the city over the river Danube. This is the older section of the city and it's just gorgeous! We were blessed with an absolutly gorgeous day though so that probably helped heaps but we definitely loved the city more after the second day! Before we did cross the river to the Buda side though we checked out St Istvan Basilica (St Stephens) which was quite different to many of the churches we have seen so far. It's really lovely inside, not gothic looking at all and there seems to be a lot of gold everywhere! Inside the Basilica in a glass memorial is the preserved hand of some King who lived goodness knows when ago so that was a bit odd. It was amusing to see that you had to put a coin into the machine for the hand to be lit up for 2 minutes! No thanks!
From there we walked to the Parliament building which sits beside the river. It is supposedly modelled on Westminster in London and it does look slightly similiar but still amazing in it's own right. Then we walked beside the river for ages and enjoyed the sun! Europe isn't actually gray in winter, there is sun after all!!! There was a great view of the Buda side of the city all along the river edge and then we crossed Margit bridge and walked through the little lanes before walking up heaps of steps to the Fisherman's Bastion. It was amazing! It was truly fascinating coming up to all these arcways and turrets with Mathias church poking up just behind it. Mathias church has a really colourful roof which is very different from most but we couldn't look through it as it was undergoing renos.
From there we walked to Buda Royal Palace which was really walls enclosing a selection of buildings. It was interesting too but Fisherman's Bastion was a bit more romantic. Fisherman's Bastion and the Palace had beautiful views over the river and the Pest side of the city but from them we could see the Citadell perced higher up a hill and so we took off hoping to be able to find it! We did surprisingly! It was a bit of a hike but well worth it. Check out the pics, just lovely if I do say so myself! Oh, on the way up the hill we also came across another 'sight' that kinda looked like roman ruins, pretty cool.
So in the end we actually really loved Budapest! It was cheap to eat and stay which is always good but it also had heaps of really charming things to see. We didn't catch the metro at all to sightsee and it's definitely worth just walking, you find so many interesting buildings that randomly pop up along the way.
So that's it! This is our last Blavel from our Germany/Prague/Vienna and Budapest experience. We hope you enjoyed our Blavels and we'll hopefully be exploring the UK a bit more so stay tuned!
