Budapest: Night tour

You've seen most of this already (as had we when we took the night tour) but now you get to see them at night. Let's see if you remember them. :)

St. Stephan's Basilica

Ferris wheel in Deak Ferenc square. No, we didn't take a ride as there were so many other more interesting ways to get a bird's eye view of the city.

Jewish Synagog. We had hoped to tour this as neither of us has ever been in a synagog, but ran out of time unfortunately. 

 Fisherman's Bastion

 St. Stephan's Basilica again - this time from the Buda side of the river.

 Hungarian Parliament building

Budapest: Other random gorgeous-ness

As you can probably tell, we loved Budapest. It's a really beautiful city with gorgeous views, history and culture everywhere you look. After 3 1/2 years in the sparkly, new and sometimes surreal Dubai and Abu Dhabi, this quieter, more mature and rich historical city was just what we needed. Here are some remaining photos I just had to share.

The story is that this statue was set up to keep an eye on a known den of thieves across the street and the that if you rub his belly, mustache or ears, you will have good fortune.

 An art of a gelato cone. They make little flower shapes out of their ice cream!

This is one of the lions at the entrance of the Charles Bridge. The story goes that the builder of the bridge was quite boastful about how perfect it was. At the unveiling, a spectator remarked that the lions had no tongues and the builder was so distraught he threw himself off the bridge into the water. Lucky for him, they pulled him out and he survived.

Random gorgeous protestant church on the Buda side.

Budapest: Views of the Danube

The Danube dominates any trip to Budapest as it's the landmark for everything. It's used to orient yourself, estimate how far something is and in which direction. And it's gorgeous. We had many different opportunities to view the Danube and here are our best photos.

This day was a little cloudy so the photos aren't as clear as I would have liked. Still, looks like a painting instead of a photo, doesn't it?

Budapest: Matthias Church

In the same area as Fisherman's Bastion is the Mathias Church. The church is Roman Catholic and was founded in 1242 by King Bela IV after the Mongol invaders left Hungary. It's gone through many restorations and reconstructions over the years and is a very unique and interesting church.

As you can see, it was another gorgeous day. We did actually experience some rain and a few downpours (which we really enjoyed now that we live in a dry sandpit!) but this day was perfect - not too hot, nice and sunny and clear blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

Here's the main altar of the church. If you zoom in you can see the unique decoration on the walls - I hadn't seen this before and found it really interesting.

 A closer view of the altar.

 This is a view of the ceiling architecture from the balcony areas - really beautiful.

 And some of the stained glass - so hard to get a decent photo of a stained glass window.

Budapest: Fisherman's Bastion

Fisherman's Bastion is an area on the Buda side of the Danube river that used to be a strategic lookout for the city. It was originally a fish market, hence the name. Today, it's a Disney-esque tourist attraction with amazing views of the river and city.

This view is from the bottom. You can take the stairs to the top or a funicular closer to the Buda castle or, as we did, the hop on, hop off bus tour.

One of the spectacular views from the top.

This gives you an idea of the crowd - Budapest was busy everywhere but we never had to wait too long for anything, just work through the crowds a bit.

This is my best photo of the main parapet of the bastion - you can see how Disney may have been influenced a bit.

You can walk along the wall with a cheap ticket.