My technical competence must be called into question. Several days ago, I wrote quite the interesting blog entry on Marc and Isambard Brunel – and apparently did not save it. Rats! Now, when it is certainly time for an update for this blog to be posted, I don’t have anything ready. Rats, again! So, I am moving on to the next topic and will update you on the work of the Brunel family at a later time.
In blog 18 I shared that one of the items Andy lost with his wallet in Prague was his BRP, his Biometric Resident Permit. The cards we both have that we are to carry any time we travel outside the country. While the website said that it may take up to eight weeks for the replacement to arrive, it only took three. We could leave the UK again, so we did.
In taking full advantage of our time and location here in London, we went to Budapest, Hungary for no better reason than we could. It is a couple hours by plane and EasyJet flies there. We were able to get a lovely hotel room for a weekend and off we went. We studied up by watching a twenty-minute Rick Steves video and thought we were ready to go. Rick told us that Budapest is divided by the Danube River. That at one time it was two cities, Buda and Pest, which have been joined together, and that the city was a co-capital under Hapsburg rule in the 19th century. We also learned about the ‘ruin bars’ which are squeezed between and next to buildings in the central (old) city.
Holy cow! Were we unprepared and need at least another five days to see and do what we wanted to see and do. Most of the ruin bars are in the old Jewish Quarter – we know nothing about the old Jewish Quarter. The streets and buildings are beautiful, we know nothing about the architectural history of the city. The arts and crafts are amazing, we know nothing about the cultural heritage of this area.
We were able to do a lot of walking. After a great breakfast at a bar/restaurant called Mazel Tov, https://www.mazeltov.hu/ we followed Andrassy Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1ssy_%C3%BAt toward the river. We climbed to the top of St. Stephen’s Basilica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Basilica which offers terrific views of the church’s construction on the inside and once to the top, views of the whole city on the outside. We used the Chain Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C3%A9chenyi_Chain_Bridge to cross the river where we followed the sloping trail up to Buda Castle. http://budacastlebudapest.com/ We did not see the actual Castle or the other museums and buildings surrounding it. We did see a Folk Festival on the trail which not only had music and goods for sale but also demonstrations of blacksmithing, weaving, pottery throwing, wood working, embroidery, and painting. For reasons we don’t know, a whole section of the festival was devoted to Japanese arts which was great fun too. After the festival we took a dinner and entertainment cruise down the Danube. The entertainment was a little corny, the food was good, and the views of the city were outstanding.
Our goal for Sunday was to visit the City Park. (Rick Steves suggested this also) https://www.budapestbylocals.com/budapest-city-park.html This is a huge city park with multiple museums, gardens, and restaurants. We got as far as the first museum, the Museum of Architecture, and used all our ‘park time’ there, having never set foot in the actual park itself. It was already time to head back to the hotel, head back to the airport, head back to London.
We feel that Budapest is a ‘find’. Beautiful with friendly and helpful people. It is not crowded over with lots of little shops (that we saw, anyway), but it is also not crowded over with people. We can imagine easily spending a whole day at Buda Castle if not longer. We could easily spend a whole weekend at the City Park; and these are just two big things. There is lots more to see and do here. I had also wanted to go the Memento Park where the artifacts of their communist heritage have been saved including the statues previously positioned on streets and parks. http://www.mementopark.hu/
Meanwhile, we put the short trip to Budapest in our own memories and look forward to a fall full of new adventures – including seeing the NFL in London. Finally a football game we can understand.