Sore feet now....

I'm tired today, and my feet hurt, so we didn't go very far. Which was a shame because the sun came out and, at one point, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but I'm here for another 11 days so anything I didn't get to see today I can see later on.

The apartment is very close to the river. The picture (click on all pictures to make them bigger) shows the view from literally outside the big front door of the building, and you can see the Buda hillside which is the other side of the river from where we are, which is the Pest side.


We decided to walk across the Chain Bridge to the other side and back again, so I can take pictures of yet more grand buildings for your edification. We went down to the riverside and walked along beside the river towards the Bridge. It reminded me a great deal of the South Bank of the Thames in London, except without the joggers or cyclists.

But there are cheery yellow trams instead:

Budapest is very good on its statuary - there's loads of it, and I rather liked the two modern bronze sculptures on the riverside that we passed:


This young boy seems to be wearing a paper crown. Note how polished his legs have got - obviously much fondling by passersby...

We decided that we weren't going to visit the Royal Palace on the other side of the river as our feet would probably mutiny, but this is what it looks like viewed from the Pest side:


Many years ago, no bridges forded the Danube in Budapest and the only means of access was via a ferry. The story goes that in December 1820 a Pest businessman, Count Szechenyi, received the news that his father had died in Vienna. The river was frozen and the ferries were out of action. The Count was stranded for a week (although why he couldn't have walked across the ice, I don't know...) and vowed that he would finance construction of a bridge. It took him nearly 50 years to achieve the building of the Chain Bridge.


The entrance to the bridge, on both sides of the river, is guarded by a large pair of fierce lions

I have no idea how you can tell which direction is 'upstream' and which is 'downstream', but this was the view westwards, halfway across the bridge:

The wind started to get a bit cheeky although it's been surprisingly warm today, so we trotted across the bridge fairly sharply. Got to the other side, crossed over and returned back down the other side. Not only does this side have the better views but the Danube was actually Blue!

This is the very spectacular Parliament building, designed by the same chap who built the Houses of Parliament in London.


Finally, a picture of me in unflattering coat, just to prove I was actually there: