We lucked out. The day we arrived to Budapest, the weather turned really warm and sunny. The day we “conquered” Buda was no exception. This is the day (Thursday) when we were planning to take our Free Walking Tour.
On the way to the meeting point, we stopped at St. Stephen’s Basilica. It is a majestic building, dedicated, of course, to the guy who turned Hungarians to Christianity. As we walked inside the building, I tried to find out how much it was to get in, but the lady at the entrance, just waved us in, telling us to go in without paying. So we walked in, trying to find THE HAND! What hand you might wonder?
This is me…looking for THE HAND. And this is my last illegal picture of the day. I’ll explain in a minute.
Some of the pictures of the inside.
So after looking around, we come to this point where it says “Tourist Stop”, at the same time, some other signs point to go in there to see THE HAND.
I exchange a few words with another American/Canadian couple about why it wouldn’t be open and walk away. Just a minute or two later, as I pass this place again, one of the workers starts taking down the ropes and waves at me and the kids to go inside. I barely had time to look for Robert before we were swallowed into the “cabinet of THE HAND”.
And here is what THE HAND looks like.
What? You think you cannot see clearly where the hand is? What are you talking about, it’s lit up for you? I dropped 50 cents or so into a special automated machine right next to this treasure that allowed me to have the case be lit up for two minutes! And I could snap this picture.
Okay, here is the explanation.
The funny part is that it says here “It was carried away to the west”. Hehehe. It was actually somehow taken to the US, to Tennessee, I believe….Or maybe it is just a legend….
The hand looks like an old mummy’s hand (not like an old mommy’s hand).
This is the exterior for you.
So, after we were walking outside the building and while Katya and Robert were trying to take a few more pictures, I noticed a couple of Russian tour groups gathered in front of the entrance. I overheard their tour guide tell the group “It is okay to take pictures of the inside of the Basilica, but you are not allowed to take pictures of yourselves or other people inside the building”. Oops. I did not see any signs prohibiting taking pictures of people, therefore I will just assume the rule applies only to Russians.
It was time for us to meet up with our Free Walking Tour guide. This was our second time taking a free walking tour in Europe and we were not disappointed. Obviously, the tours are not free but you pay at the end as much as you think the tour was worth to you.
Our group consisted of maybe ten people in all, so it was perfect.
At first we walked over to the most famous bridge in Budapest—the Chain Bridge.
At the time of its construction, the Chain Bridge was the suspension bridge with the second-largest span in the world. It connects Buda and Pest, and here is Katya on the bridge with the view of Buda behind her.
Once we crossed the bridge, we had a choice of going up the hill via this funicular or walk a windy road up the hill. Although the funicular looked fun, it was just too short for the price we’d have had to pay. So the whole group opted to walk instead.
In the middle of our walk up the hill, we took a long break while our guide told us an abbreviated version of history of Budapest and a whole bunch of interested information. Robert and Alex were listening intently.
Mark was walking around playing with grass and sticks.
And Katya was “listening” and taking pictures of everyone around her and then herself.
When we got to the top of Buda Hill, a beautiful view of the opposite side of Danube emerged. St. Stephen’s Basilica with THE HAND inside is that tallest building you see.
The Parliament.
And at this point, our memory card in our fancy camera died, or at least went into coma. We could not get any more pictures taken with it and I was worried the pictures from the first two days of our trip were gone forever. But no, after returned home, we were able to recover all of them with the help of $40 and some downloaded software Robert found online. So all those pictures you saw in the last two posts are way more expensive than your regular every day shot, I must say.
We got to the president’s house just in time to watch a short change of guard ceremony. The kids loved that.
We saw St. Matthias Church (cannot explain why we have no evidence of that) and then Fisherman’s Bastion with St. Stephen’s monument.
Here is another view of Fisherman’s Bastion. It is not that old—built in 1906, mostly to give people another opportunity to see Budapest from up high. Nowadays it is a popular tourist spot and nothing more.
It was about 2 pm when we finished our tour and were on our way to the next destination high in Buda Hills. We wanted to ride on a Children’s Railway train.
To get to the train station, we first had to take a tram from Castle Hill part to the cogwheel train station.
I cannot believe these sort of trains still exist in a city like Budapest.
In fact, it was quite functional, as many people got on and off at various stops as we were climbing through the hills full of residential houses.
After about twenty minutes we got off the cogwheel train and walked five more minutes to the Children’s Railway station. The reason why it is called “Children’s” is because it is operated entirely by children (except an adult drives the train). So kids are the ones who sell and check your tickets and explain when and where to get on the train.
Ready to depart.
Checking tickets.
We passed through several train stops and at almost each one we were saluted by the kids working at the railway. They resemble the “pioneers” of the USSR, even in the way they salute. (Katya, watch and learn, see how obedient those kids are?).
It was a very calm hour or so when we were riding the train, almost like a dip in the past since you could not see any cars or houses on the way. It was all woods and hills—it was hard to believe we were riding through Budapest.
Glad we did something for the kids—kept them occupied and we all rested our tired feet.
Not sure how in the world we found our way back to Pest part and even found the restaurant I was recommended to eat at (by Tripadvisor).Rosenstein is one of the best places to eat in Budapest! We loved their goulash. And the kids loved there pasta with meat (although you cannot tell from Mark’s facial expression, he is actually really enjoying his meal-haha).
Oh, Hungarian food is soo good! I could write another post about just food in Budapest. If in Barcelona we had a hard time finding food that we liked, here, on the opposite, we had too many choices with fantastic meals.
We walked home for almost an hour, but the kids did great (we had to walk off all that filling food). Granted, Mark was riding in a stroller, so at least he was not whining. Robert said next time we should wrap up his leg in a bandage or something, so that people would not be thinking why such a big boy is still using the stroller (for his parents’ sanity sake! That’s why!).
We got some dessert at a pastry café near our house, and finally made it home around 9 pm.
Hope you are still following me, as we have one more day to tell you about. Maybe I can convince Robert to write about it…but then he is busy studying for his GRE test (but that is another story).
Cheers!
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