Sophie's travels 2011-2012: 21/8/2011 Budapest, Hungary

We started the day with a driving tour of the city (Budapest is known as ‘the Paris of the East’). We started on the Buda side of the river Danube up Castle hill and the Neo Gothic Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. We saw the Royal Palace and Citadela with the peace statue on top and had amazing views out over the city. We then drove back down over the Elizabeth bridge to the Pest side of the river where we drove past the Great Synagogue, Opera house, House of Terror to Heroes Square and back past St. Stephens cathedral. We then had free time to explore the city ourselves so we walked to the House of Terror (or Terror House) which is a museum of spying and atrocities located in the former headquarters of the AVH secret police. It was pretty scary and sad (especially the cells in the lower ground section of the building). From there we walked to Heroes Square to see the monument constructed to honour the 1000^th anniversary of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Then we relaxed in the city park just north of this for a bit by the lake – it was another 40+ degree day. We walked back past the Opera house to St. Stephens’s church which had a big convert being set up with masses of people at the front entrance and a service going on inside which we managed to see. It was really spectacular inside and amazing to hear the choir singing, it had been St. Stephens day the day we arrived so celebrations were still going on while we were there. We walked down to the water front and crossed the Szechenyl Chain Bridge to get a view of the parliament building which was designed to replicate the Houses of Parliament – pretty impressive. We followed this with a river cruise down the Danube which included a guided tour and buffet dinner – very tasty and great views.