Lamps, padlocks and fag smoking statues

Weather is foul today, driving horizontal rain. We're not going outside to play today so instead I thought I'd do a post to put up some of the other pictures I've taken around Budapest that I haven't got round to uploading yet.

Fortunately there's broadband WiFi in the apartment but, unfortunately, due to the size of the images it takes absolutely forever to download the pictures. At the moment, each blog is literally taking me about 3-4 hours to write, load and arrange the pictures. TLH says there is image manipulation software loaded on this laptop (which I've just found this morning) but it's not one I'm used to working with so might take me a while to get the hang of it. I'll have a go with today's pictures and if it works, hoorah!! [It does! There is a God and I'm married to him!]


So these, then, are the images of interesting bits of architecture, street furniture and sculpture from around Budapest.

But we'll start with a closeup of a bunch of dried red chillies. They like their peppers over here and you can buy great strings of dried chillies for decoration.

Building in Vorosmarty Ter with cherubs and ornate street lamp in front.

I have been extremely taken with just how gorgeously ornate the street lamps are. These are in Vorosmarty Ter, opposite the famous Gerbeaud Cafe (which we have yet to visit, but we will, we will...)

Kiraly utca, just on the edge of the Jewish district, is lined with these stunning Art Nouveau style streetlamps.

I particularly liked the juxtaposition of this streetlamp next to these Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired suspended lamps hanging from a building.

This Victorian-looking lamp was at the end of the Chain Bridge on the Buda side. Somehow the angle I took it from makes it look a bit drunken, but it's vertical really.

It's not just the streetlamps that are ornate, check out these manhole covers for the electricity supply and the Post Office.

Below are a few more pictures from the Grand Synagogue:

Like I said in my post the other day, I've never been in a synagogue before and I didn't even know they had pulpits (although I don't expect they're called that).

This is a chandelier from inside the Synagogue (I am a bit obsessed with lighting, aren't I?)

A gilded Candelabrum

This is a stained glass panel dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg in the memorial park behind the Synagogue.

This very Hitchcockian view of intersecting passages is down Kiraly utca

Apart from the obvious big buildings, such as this imposing yellow one opposite Erszebet Ter ('Ter' means 'Square' in Hungarian) which we pass everyday and have no idea what it is...[22.11.09 update - it's called the Anker Palace and is now a hotel and residential apartments]


...even the ordinary shops in the pedestrianised areas have the most extraordinary facades (click for bigger):

(Not strictly a shop like the other two, this is the front of the Gresham Palace Hotel)

As I said previously, they're big on statuary/public art here in Budapest and one of the most romantic things I've seen in a very long time is this unprepossessing interactive piece in Erszebet Ter. We think it's called 'The Lock of Happiness' and the idea is that young lovers get a padlock, write their names on it, then attach it, indicating that they are as locked to each other as the padlock is to the structure.

And not far away from this in the park is a more traditional large fountain with goddesses all sitting around, one of which looks as if she's taking the weight off her slingbacks anyway, and then I noticed someone had 'enhanced' it - weirdly it looks really appropriate:


I may well not post tomorrow, depends on where I go and what I see!