Our last day! I don’t count tomorrow as it’s purely a travel day. Luckily the sun was shining on us for our last day in Europe. The breakfast buffet was excellent and we noticed plenty of American accents at the egg counter, Americans do love their Marriotts! Id planned a few things for us to see today, all on the Pest side of the river, so we didnt linger over our eggs. 😊
We set out down along the river bank to the Grand Market, just near the green Franz Josef Bridge. Its one of those vast edifices with ironwork trusses that are so popular for train stations in the UK. There are three levels inside, the main floor is the general food market and this one was thronged with local Hungarians buying their salami snd cabbage and being very patient with the tourists getting in their way. You could also pick up several kinds of Paprika and Hungarian snapps if you fancied some.
The Grand Market facade
The top level is given over to a multitude of souvenir stalls and several stalls selling cheap goulash, hot dogs and other quick tasty meals. It was too soon after breakfast for us to be tempted though.
Quitting the market we strolled up part of the long, pedestrian Vaci Street which is the main shopping street. We veered off around the centre of town because I wanted to inflict one more Cathedral on Neil. St Stephens is another huge Baroque masterpiece, in dark greens, rusts and gold. We were treated to some music as there seemed to be a small choir rehearsal going on, lovely to hear the organ playing and voices singing in such a grand place.
Neil looking excited to be visiting another Cathedral 😂
The dome
Setting our backs to the church we walked back to the riverbank and turned right, this time heading up towards the Parliament building. We weren’t going there but wanted to see a small but powerful sculpture along the banks of the river nearby. It was built to memorialise Budapest Jews who were shot by fascists during WWII. They were forced to take their shoes off then shot so their bodies would fall in the river. The sculpture is of the shoes left behind.
Heading back towards the hotel I made friends with another popular sculpture on the esplanade. The “Little Princess” wears a crown made of newspaper.
We walked through the tunnel under the Chain Bridge, which as usual was thronged with people and traffic . Back at the hotel we stopped for a drink on the terrace, watching the segway riders roll past.
Chain bridge
Back to the room to let the legs recover for a bit before we set out again to get to the Hungarian State Opera house for the 3pm tour. We caught the metro again and had to help out a group in front of us who were totally perplexed by the ticket machines. Tourists! 😜 We arrived at the opera house just on 2.45 and joined the queue to buy tickets. Paid extra for the privelige of taking photos and also to see the mini-concert after the tour. The Opera House is beautiful! Im pretty sure Erin saw an opera here when she was in Budapest and I know Jo and Steve saw Swan Lake here before they went home last week. I’m green with envy! It would be lovely to see performance and enjoy a glass of bubbly in the magnificent bar room, maybe next time 😁
Opera House on Andrassy Avenue
Gorgeous interior!
The mini concert was performed on the grand entry staircase. It was a nice little finish to the tour.
We decided to walk back and tucked into an ice cream on the way. Tonight we had our last drink in the bar downstairs and sat on the terrace for our last dinner by the Danube. Hungarian wine, goulash soup for entree and “Granny’s Paprika Chicken” forthe main was a good hearty Hungarian farewell.
Goulash by the Danube
We both count Budapest as our favourite city of the holiday. I remember Erin telling me after her big Europe backpacking trip that she preferred Budapest to Prague, and being very surprised. After all, Prague has THE reputation, but now I understand and agree with her. Maybe its because Budapest is larger and you dont feel that its overrun with hordes of tourists, or maybe its the thermal baths and the fabulous buildings all lit up at night, or the music playing in the evening by the river from all the restaurants, or all the paprika and wonderful Hungarian food? I dont know but I do love Budapest!
Farewell Budapest!
