Slept another good night here and woke up again at 10AM. Felt really good and felt fully rested. Rustled out of bed grab a shower and sat down in front of my good friend Google Maps. I wanted to go over and get some pictures of the Chain Bridge, the Parliament building and St. Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika).
Trekked on through the tunnel to get to Chain Bridge and navigated my way through traffic. Lots of people crossing the bridge and was sometimes hard finding a open time to take a picture.
Once I got over to the Pest side of the city, it was a little difficult getting through Roosevelt Square. Normally most of the city streets in Budapest are fairly pedestrian friendly, but this particular section was a little tricky crossing.
Around here was the Four Season hotel and to the left the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Apparently this place is older than I had realized. Established somewhere around 1826.
As I turned up Akadémia utca there was a building right on the corner that I noticed looked a little different. There seemed to be chunks of stone missing. What saw then was that there were machine gun hits. There were even places you could see the slugs still buried in the stone.
Walking down this street made me feel a little different. Makes you realized how different the world can really be. Sure you could go to Gettysburg and see bullets still in the walls there, but this is from modern weaponry...very sobering.
But Akadémia held some beautiful other buildings as well.
I then walked into Szabadság tér and found the monument erected to commemorate the liberation of Hungary by the Soviets during WWII. Right now there is a gate around it to stop Hungarians from vandalizing it. Apparently it's not a very welcome monument.
And some there are some other beautiful buildings just nearby.
Next I headed over to the Parliament building. Man, what an impressive structure. I just couldn't find a spot to really capture this place. It was so big and ornate. What a gorgeous building!
And then across the street the Museum of Ethnography
Finally I wanted to get over to St. Stephen's Basilica. So back across Szabadság tér..and really, you could see this towering above the other buildings.
Headed back to "home" and across the Chain Bridge again.
And here is the traveling route for the day
Parliament, St. Stephen's, Chain Bridge
After I got home, Adrienn got in touch with me and we were going out for dinner and then head up to Hero's Square.
So this was New Year's Eve day for me. Now I'm going to take a shower and head on over to Adrienn's place and hang out for the evening and relax!
Happy New Year to all my friends and family!
1 comment:
Happy New Year's from across the pond!
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