Budapest, Hungary August 19-22 Part 1

 

Before we start Budapest, here are two pictures we just had to share from Priestnay, from our “balcony”.  Guess it was worth something

 

                                                                                                                    

Now, on to Budapest…………

We arrived on August 19th to learn that the 20th is the biggest holiday in Budapest.  It celebrates the birth of Hungary and their first king, King Stephen, who afterwards became a saint, so it is called St. Stephen’s Day.  So we went to see what they had in store.  Well, they had people in period costumes, doing craft work and making music.

                                         

               

                    There were quite a few people there, as you can see.  These were just the people getting from one side of the Danube to the other.  Many more times that many were at the fair.

There was a ceremony celebrating the harvest with some public official and a clergy of some sort and a young girl singing (beautifully) some national songs.  There were people in costume with loaves of bread on the stage and some presented their loaves to the officials.  In the audience were other people holding loaves of bread.  On the stage, each participant took a piece of broken bread from a woven basket.  It was neat.  Afterwards, people went through the crowd offering pieces of bread.  So we partook of the bread sharing and became part of Budapest.

                                                                          

We made reservations at the same hotel that Duane’s sister was staying at, the Hilton.  We had to take a taxi there, from the train station.  It turned out to be pretty far.  Budapest is made up of what used to be two cities.  (actually 3 cities, but the third was the northern part of one of the cities)  Buda and Pest (pronounced Peshed)  The train station is in Pest, the flat part and the hotel is in Buda, the hilly part.  Turns out the hotel is right on the castle hill.  What a view we had after we got our room changed from smoking to non.

 

  But it didn’t compare with Bill and Eileen’s view 

Some other views from our area………….

 

             St Stephen’s Cathedral

                                                           The Parliament at night

Budapest Part 2

 

After the fairs, the town put on a wonderful fireworks display for us.  They were certainly glad we came to visit…..OK, so they were still celebrating St. Stephen’s Day.  It is not the same, but here are some highlights of the fireworks.

 

                   

                                                              

                                                                   

                                                                            

We took all these pictures from Eileen’s room.

 

 

 

Budapest Part 3

 

We took another on/off bus for the next 2 days and took some wonderful pictures (if we do say so ourselves).  We also took a cruise on the Danube, even though we are going on a 7 day cruise on the Danube on Wednesday.  We got good pictures on the boat.

We went to the historical museum at the palace and I thought this old head was really neat.  

The Parliament in the day time 

Hero’s square   

The palace                totally rebuilt after the war

                       The Danube……                                               

Inside St Stephen’s Church

                                  

One of the many spas in Budapest.  There are many hot springs in the city.  We didn’t know that before we came and we didn’t even know it in time to take advantage of it.  We are sure they would be very fancy and expensive.

                                                         

We saw this sculpture on the side of a building on the way to our boat for our cruise.  What does it look like to you?

                                                                       

It looked like George Washington at the signing of the Declaration of Independence to all of us.

It isn’t…………….It is the signing of the starting of a university.  Strange similarities, don’t you think.

Well we leave on Wednesday, the 22nd  on our cruise of the Danube.  More then.

 

 

 

Piestnay, Slovakia August 16-18

 

We are here to rest.  We have a room with an outside balcony and if you don’t turn sideways you can go out on it.  At least we can open the door and get cooler air.

The town is a spa because it has hot springs that are supposed to cure everything.  We have a pool in our hotel, but it does not have spa water.  So we walked to the spa pool on a nearby island and spent most of the day soaking up healing minerals and sun.  Just for your info, the gelato here is not up to par.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are off to meet Duane’s sister and brother-in-law in Budapest.

Prague, Czech Republic August 13 -15

 

You didn’t think we were going to miss Prague, or Praha, did you?

Prague is a HUGE city.  Our apartment is on Wenceslaus Square. which like almost all squares, is not square.  We walked from the station to our hotel and went up to our apartment, which we booked because it had a washing machine.  Laundry is an ever present concern.  It had not been made up when the previous tenants left.  So down I went.  Amazed was the desk clerk.  She called the cleaning lady at home, since it was 4:30 and she had gone home long ago.  So she sent us to another room.  We keep relearning that you cannot assume anything, even if you have been told to expect it.  For example, our first apartment came with a balcony.  The “balcony” was actually what they called a split level unit, the kitchen 2 steps below the bed area.  Our second room didn’t have a “balcony” and it didn’t have a washing machine.  The clerk couldn’t believe that they had an apartment without a washing machine and came all the up to our place to see if I missed seeing it.  Now come on, miss seeing a washing machine?  Well our third room, which was not available until the next night had a washing machine and enough beds for 5 adults.  So all’s well that ends well.  The only complication was that we had to buy laundry detergent.  I managed to find a store and guess which box had laundry soap.  Then I asked 3 people how much soap to use for one load.  They told me in grams…..how many grams in a cup of detergent?  No one knows….so we guessed.  We also had to guess how to use the machine since, even though we are in a major tourist area, none of the info had any English on it.  Finally, at about 4:30 in the morning, I hung up the very wet laundry all over the apartment.

Being on Wenceslaus Square is very convenient.  Here is the view of the museum at the end of the square

                                                            

The thing about Prague is that it is like the other old towns we have seen, but much much bigger.  The interesting architecture goes on forever.  We took an on-off bus and enjoyed this trip, no mishaps this time.

                  

                                                                         

              These buildings are called “Fred and Ginger” because they remind people of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing.

 

                                                   Of course there is a castle and a cathedral

Another happy little accident was when we followed some music, as we must, and we treated to a folk dance show from Estonia, performed by young adults, a band from Hungary and a band and twirling troupe from Hungary.

 

               

The twirlers had an enthusiastic supporter who tried to join them, to the chagrin of her mother.  The area in Hungary where the troupe was from had hot springs.  We thought we would go there before traveling on to Budapest.  It turns out to be in the wrong direction.  So we found a place in Slovakia called Piestnay and we will head there next.

Just a picture of how we are starting to see the beautiful buildings……….

Bratislava, Slovakia August 8-12

 

Czechoslovakia has been re-divided into the original 2 countries, The Czech Republic and Slovakia.  We are first visiting Slovakia and its capital Bratislava.

Bratislava loves statues.  You find them everywhere.  You round a corner and have to make sure whether the person sitting on a bench is real or not.

Here are some examples:

       

                                                                              

Of course, Bratislava has a castle and an old town.

                                                     

                                                         

The castle looks like a five star hotel, doesn’t it?  So we never went up there.  Instead we took a boat ride up the Danube river to the ruin of Devin Castle.  Much more to our liking.  We are taking a Danube river cruise next week that will go right by here, probably during the night, but it does not stop in Bratislava, so we did.

                                                    

We loved it, so here are just some of the pictures we took.

                         

                 

                                             

We went on a free walking tour of Bratislava, well actually we started on the tour and got distracted.  While walking from one site to another I heard music.  You have to understand how we sightsee.  If there is a crowd of people, we go there.  If we hear music we go there.  This time we heard a marching band.  I asked the guide of our tour what was going on.  He said, “Oh, some military something” and kept walking.  We did not follow.  It turns out to be a celebration of a WW II hero from Bratislava, who joined the British army and rose to the rank of general.  He died 3 years ago and the city put up a plaque about him and celebrated it with military honors….a marching band and lots of marching soldiers.  His son-in-law and grand daughter were there.  Sorry, I didn’t get his name.

                                                                 

These types of things are what make this trip even more special for us.

Other things that make our time extra special are the other surprises we encounter….like getting a cordial after dinner as a gift from the restaurant…………….or finding a dance on xylophone on the street, just sitting there to be danced on.