Budapest,Hungary continued.....

 
Budapest. Tuesday, April 26, 2011
     
      On Tuesday, after a short walk to Deak Square, we hopped on the subway to go to Heroes Square. Rita had given us excellent directions only... Whoops! We went the wrong way on. Who would have thought that they had two streets on the subway with almost the same name...Vorosmarty utz. and Vorosmarty ter. While wondering up the street we found a travel shop. We stopped and the young gentleman who spoke great English gave us excellent directions for our road trip south that we were planning to do starting Thursday.

      We continued on to Heroes Square, deemed the most spectacular square in the capital which was the opening entrance into City Park which housed a zoo, a circus, a "funfair" amusement park, the Szechenyi Spa and lots of open green park land. Fascinating figures of the "greats" from Hungarian history were placed in a half circle upon the huge square with a 36 meter high column in the center of the Millennium Memorial, on top of which is a statue of the Archangel, Gabriel, holding the Hungarian Holy Crown and apostolic double cross. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is positioned in front of the monument. Magnificent buildings of the Art Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts are to the right and left of the monuments . 

Can you see the archangel, Gabriel?

Half of the semicircle of heroes

The end of the Heroes semicircle

        We continued walking to Vajdahunyad Castle that was right behind Heroes Square. It was so spectacular with its entryway and a beautiful baroque church. We walked back out of the castle and headed for the park to have a pic-er-nic lunch on a pretty pond in the park.

Wow!

Outside the Castle Church...such a grand entrance!

The castle area was well groomed with panseys.

What a cool gate!

      What a beautiful day! Gorgeous sun and warmth...nothing like yesterday. We watched kiddies feed the ducks. Two sets of baby ducklings followed their mother to and fro.     
     

Quack, quack...Peep,peep

      After lunch we went to the Szechenyi Spa Baths, a thermal hot spring spa. It is one of the largest bathing complexes in Europe with 15 different pools... and Larry and I found one that was just the right temperature. This place had a fantastic, relaxing atmosphere. The beautiful day was perfect for sitting in the "just right pool" and enjoying the sun. Many others were doing the same. Some were even playing chess while sitting in the pool. While in the pool we were surrounded by a ultra neo-classical old building, very similar to the classical Roman pools. Anyway, the scenery was candy to the eyes...especially those little European male bathing suits. Ha! Have to say this was another one of those fantastic days.



Entrance to the Szechenyi

Next to the Spa

Ahhhhh...just right!

Places to lounge

Another great day!

      Wednesday was a shopping day. We walked all the way up Elizabeth Street to the electronic store which was about two miles. We could have easily caught a bus or tram but it is much more interesting to walk the city streets. Larry also had to exchange money for our trip south on Thursday. We went to our favorite Chinese Restaurant....Larry has made friends with the server there. She recognized us from some visits last week. On our walk back we made some purchases with a street vendor. Larry enjoyed negotiating with the owner and his wife. Both were so happy to have our business,
      We walked down a couple of backstreets to the oldest Jewish Synagogue in the city and the second largest in the world. The largest is in New York City and it is modeled after the Budapest one. It was interesting how the police were checking all bags and purses thoroughly. We suspect that there have been some attempts to do harm to the building since the Jewish pursecution was not so many years ago. We walked back to the apartment taking a side street through a new area and came across a small park with lots of kiddie entertainment...a huge sandbox, city sized, swings and some brillant tulips and spring flowers. It is so nice that the city residents have these areas to come to visit and enjoy the outdoors. Then we continued on to the Market Hall to get some fresh fruits and vegetables. We navigated through it so much quicker today than the last time that we went.
We had an enjoyable evening having a glass of ice tea and people watching sitting on a bench outside our apartment ....since the only thing that was on CNN was about Obama's Birth Certificate.

      Thursday we rented a car from Balazs' friend. The rental car dealer came to our apartment to deliver the car and get the papers signed. We were on the road around 9:00 stopping to get gas. The attendant filled the gas tank up for us and Larry went to pay for it. He came out thinking that he had been cheated, but the gas gauge is opposite of the one in the US. We then realized that we only had a quarter of a tank of gas instead of three quarters. The attendant had put in 36 liters which was about 9 gallons costing a little over $70.00 or over 14,000 forenths. We are starting to understand why the Hungarians seem to stay close to home and use the public transportation.
      Driving down the four lane highway out of the city there are vast fields that farmers have been working in planting. Huge fields of a yellow flowering fragrant crop are stretching over the rolling hills amongst green fields and rich brown plowed soil.... quite a contrast to the city.Occasionally we are passing small villages on a hillside or on a flat land with church steeple reaching up above the reddish orange tile roofs. Although the highways are clean with no trash, the air appears to have a thick layer of smog that seems to be dispersing as we go further into the countryside.


Huge fields of yellow flowering crops

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