Well, here we are in beautiful Budapest after a fairly uninteresting 7-hour train journey from Prague. Our apartment is modern and spacious, and very well-equipped, set in a narrow back street dotted with retro bars, but just a short walk from the Tesco supermarket, which has all our food needs for the week, and close to the Metro and to Pest town centre. We headed out for the Buda side of the Danube this morning but coudn't resist stopping at St Stephens Basilica on the way. One of its major drawcards is the holy chapel, which contains the mummified hand of St Stephen, dating back to 1038.
Next we reached the Chain Bridge, the first stone bridge to be built over the Danube. Nine bridges span the Danube linking Buda to Pest but Chain Bridge, with its famous lion statues, takes pride of place. We continued on to the funicular which took us up to Castle Hill, where we had magnificent views back over the Danube to Pest. Then to the 700-year-old Mattias Church. It has a distinctive multi-coloured tiled roof and Gothic spire. When the Ottoman Turks occupied Buda castle in 1541, St Mattias was converted into a mosque and all the frescoes were white-washed over. It was restored to its present state in the nineteenth century, including the medieval frescoes. Next door to the church is the Fishermen's Bastion, a rampart built in 1905 on the medieval castle walls. It was the Buda fishermen's duty to defend this side of the hill during the middle ages. The existing bastion is solely ornamental but offers spectacular views over the Danube to Parliament House and beyond.
After a quick Metro ride underneath the Danube, our last stop for the day was the Great Synagogue, a short walk from our apartment. It is set in an area that was to become a World War II Jewish ghetto and is the largest synagogue in Europe, second largest in the world (to New York). It seats 3,000 people over three levels. The style is typically Byzantine-Moorish and it is beautifully decorated inside with gilded arches and large, suspended chandelier-type lights. In the courtyard is the Holocaust memorial in the shape of a metal weeping willow, each leaf engraved with the name of a Budapest Holocaust victim,. The memorial lies over the mass graves of hundreds of those murdered by the Nazis in 1944-45.
Tomorrow - back up the hill to have a really good look at Buda Castle and all it contains.
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