Royal Palace and an Old World Feel

So today was the first full day here in the city and also a day of other firsts as well. First day alone in a foreign city and first day talking to strangers.

I got a really good night's sleep. I got to bed around 11:30PM local time and slept without waking up until about 6/6:30 AM. I fell back asleep and then woke up at 10AM! Amazing what a nice warm bed will do...and 12 hours of traveling! Had my breakfast here and started studying the map on how to get from here up to the (for lack of a better word) compound that encloses the palace and Castle District. A few problems with this at first because I wasn't exactly sure where I was on the map, but after I did some looking I wrote down some street names and hoped that I would find where I needed to be. Confidence level was at about a 4 out of 10.

Out the door and onto the streets I went. A lot of the apprehension and self-doubt went away once I started walking on the sidewalk. Going the way Adrienn had taken me yesterday and my thorough scouting of the map, I found I knew exactly where I was and which way I had to go.

Even better, I saw a sign that pointed to a long set of steps up to the Palace, it really could not have been much easier. Once I got to the top of the steps, I turned around and looked where I had come from.


Note the yellow church in the left of the photo. I'm not too far away from right there.

So now within the compound, it was wide open at the top. Was really cool being there despite the 14 degree temperature.


As you saw yesterday from the night pictures of the illuminated palace, here is a shots looking back towards the Pest side of Budapest.


If you look to the very far right of the last picture, that is where I took the night pictures from.

For those Johnstown folks, guess what, there's another inclined plane out there!


But it was a lot of fun walking around up here around the palace. Was so exhilarating to be seeing this with my own eyes.











I walked to the other side of the palace and came upon a large set of statues. While I had no idea what it was all about, Adrienn later in the evening explained to me that the top figure was King Mátyás. A very revered and popular ruler of Hungary. He was also known to be a very learned king and housed one of the largest libraries which unfortunately was lost to a fire.


There were several large courtyards all around. I had a longing for my widest lens on the camera to try and fit all this in. Still hard to believe even now sitting here that I was there taking pictures of it.


After I finished touring the palace area I moved into what is called the Castle District. This was a really amazing area. Some spots there were hardly any people walking around, but around the larger tourist areas there were plenty!

This is what I would have to say is my quintessential idea of what I envisioned old world Europe to look like. Narrow roads, colorful walls and wrought iron decorations.





Here's a curious little finding. I'm quite sure this cathedral is from 1269.


Here is the one inscription on the front (click for bigger image):


One other observation that I've made while here is the doors to buildings. Most are very large. I'm guessing most of them are about 15 feet tall and about 4 to 6 inches thick. They are very ornate and decorated with some sort of wrought iron too. This is not just in the Castle District either. Even more modern structures feature tall doors (although, not as elaborate in most cases).




By this point and time I had been walking around quite a bit. My left knee was aching slightly and I could feel the back of left foot had developed a blister. I checked the clock and I think I had been out around 4.5 hours by this point. I wasn't overly cold, but my face was feeling a bit numb and my fingers had gotten pretty cold too. Again, not in pain, but I was thinking it'd be nice to be somewhere out of the cold.

The thought had crossed my mind to just head back to where I was staying where I knew it would be very warm, but I stopped and thought "you know, you read about these cafes and coffee shops...man up and get your butt in one. worst that happens is you mess up a phrase and no one will care." Man up I did and went to the one shop that I saw advertised "cafe lattes". There was a man outside who saw me and said "one?" and at this point I gave myself away as American and said "yup"..haha..he said "yes, ok, one!" Ahh..you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. I drank two latte's, warmed up and dropped a few kösönöm's (thank you's) and decided to head back and start this post. It noticed it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and had taken somewhere around 160 pictures today.

For those interested, here's a basic route of where I walked today. Might not be completely accurate, but close enough!
Palace and Castle District

Just as I had finished transferring the pictures off of the camera and started looking through them, Adrienn gave me a call and said she was on her way to get me. She was taking me to meet her parents and feed me a late lunch/early supper so I was introduced and was greeted warmly by her parents. Her mom doesn't speak much English and her father speaks some so we couldn't communicate that well. Before dinner I was offered a cup of strong coffee. Apparently Adrienn's father was told I like strong coffee, so he brewed up a cup of espresso. Of course, I don't drink coffee with milk or sugar (except for my lattes), so even her father was surprised when I drank the espresso black.

After espresso I was given a very tasty meal of cabbage, meatballs and meatballs with rice wrapped in cabbage and some ham and sausage in the mix. It hit the spot and was pretty tasty too. After I finished my plate, I was then cooked up a second portion and then given a plate full of Christmas cookies. Needless to say I was very full when we left that evening.

We went back up to the palace grounds again for some night shots of Pest and the area. Had some funnel cake as a treat. Funny thing is, this is shaped like a funnel and is more like a cinnamon bread instead. Still sweet and tasty though!


Tomorrow I will be off to Hero's Square and some other places in the Pest side of the city. Til then..I'll leave you this tidbit..