Sunday August 23, 2015 Budapest

 

After breakfast at our hotel, which again has an old bombed out church in the middle, photo, we went on a bus tour of the city.

In Hero’s Square, we saw the main monuments. 

The column is topped by a statue of the archangel Gabriel. In his right hand the angel holds the Holy Crown of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary. In his left hand the angel holds a two barred apostolic cross, a symbol awarded to St. Stephen by the Pope in recognition of his efforts to convert Hungary to Christianity. In Hungarian it is referred to as the double cross or the apostolic double cross.

At the base of the column is a group of seven mounted figures representing the Magyar chieftains who led the Hungarian people into the Carpathian basin.

At the inner top edge of the left colonnade is a male figure driving a chariot using a snake as a whip representing War.

We then drove up citadel hill, where we had panoramic views of Budapest.

We then drove to the small town of Szentendre.  Szentendre is on the Danube river and has become an artist colony and shopping area.

 

We visited this Serbian church, which has skulls and cross bones on the outside to scare away evil spirits.

We had lunch at a sidewalk vendor who had wonderful sausages and kraut, salads and potatoes.

 

We visited a museum with the smallest art in the world.  For example this pyramid and camels inside the eye of a needle.  The first picture is a sign they have for the museum, the second is the actual pin, with a microscope aimed at it so you can see the art, and the third is a picture taken through the microscope.  They had a 12 page book that was maybe 3mm by 1mm, the artist used spider web to sew the pages together.

When we arrived back at the hotel we visited the nearby Matthias Church.   We tried to get to the Hospital in the Rock, a 120 bed hospital built and used during WWII, but we did not have enough time to see it.   It looks amazing, with a dramatic recreation of what it looked like during the siege of Budapest, which was the second longest siege of a city during the war.   They had 300 patients, and at times staff were killed just going out to try to get supplies and water.

We had dinner on a Danube river cruise that included entertainment.  Unfortunately the entertainment lasted from the start of the cruise to the end, so you could not really spend the time to talk and enjoy the scenery.   We did get this last look at the beautiful parliament building.

Tomorrow we are off for Vienna.