Negyedik nap - Days 4

In the morning Anna went and took care of official business with address changing and her condo so I stayed at the hotel and slept. It was good - I needed the extra sleep to finally fully adjust to the time difference and alot of walking from the previous two days. The only problem with the whole scenario was that I was on my own in the wilds of Budapest to meet up with Anna and her mom later in the day at the market house. Anna gave me some pretty good directions and, relying quite a bit on memory, I was able to find my way to meet them in the afternoon.

We met in front of the main city market building. It is a very large building - think train station scale. Inside are all local people selling all kinds of vegetables, meat, fruit, breads, pastries, chatchka, you name it. We walked around for a bit but once you've seen cow stomach five times you've seen enough - so we left.

The Historic Market Building

Rob's favorite Hungarian salami ;-)

From there we walked across one of the bridges to the Buda side of the city and up the hill into a cave church that had recently been re-opened after it had been abandoned for quite some time. We walked around in there for a bit and then headed across the street to the Gellert Bath / Hotel - quite possibly the most overrated hotel / bath in the city. All of the tour books and guides tell you to go there but it was very dissapointing - very run down form all of the tourists, and the people we saw working there couldn't have looked less thrilled to be there - so we left.

Cave Church

We took a tram (like a surface street electric train) back across the river and walked up along the Danube heading to the Parliament building but I spotted St. Stephen's Basilica through some buildings so we went there instead. St. Stephen's is the largest basilica in the city and it is very beautiful inside. I thought Catholics in the U.S. had the market cornered on over-the-top ornament and decoration in churches but this place took it to a whole new level.

St. Stephen's Basilica

The most interesting part of the Church was seeing the mummified right hand of St. Stephen himself. Appartently the hand is a national treasure of Hungary and seeing it is one of the things you must do if you are Hungarian - or a tourist. There is a small catch though - you have to pay 200 Forint (about a dollar) to turn on a light for two minutes to see the hand in the glass case - who says the communists haven't embraced capitalism?

The Holy Right Hand of St. Stephen

From the Basilica we went home and did laundry - clean clothes were running low - and then headed back out after dark to get some night pictures of the city with my ancient film camera and Anna with her digital. The city is very beautiful at night when all of the buildings are lit up.

The Parliament

The Chain Bridge and the Buda Castle