Still here!

I am still in Budapest. I've had to leave the blog for a few days as my attentions were required elsewhere, but everything is now okay, progress is being made and healing is underway, so I can return to taking photos of interesting bits of architecture, etc. I did take some pics before I vanished from here so I'll put a selection of them up today. There are lots but Budapest is a bit like that, wherever you point your camera there's a photo-opportunity. This place is a complete delight for those who like taking photos of buildings and sculpture - I've been here 8 days now and have so far taken 329 photos. I'm still here for another 6 days so God alone knows how many more I'll have at the end of it.

So let's get on with it, shall we? A few days ago I went for a wander down towards the Parliament building which is on the Pest side of the Danube. It was designed by the same chappy who built the Houses of Parliament in London. It's quite something to look at.

A view down a side street towards the Parliament building.

Impressive, non?

As always, and seemingly everywhere, there are some statues dotted about the place.

Jozsef Attila, national poet (in Hungarian, like Chinese, they put the family name first, i.e., Bloggs Joe, so in the UK, he would be Attila Jozsef, but I shall follow Hungarian convention as it's easier)

"I can see my house from here!"
Lajos Kossuth, Governor-President of Hungary in 1849 and instrumental in Hungary gaining independence from the Austrian Empire.

A couple of buildings I passed on my walk to the Parliament. Bear in mind these are just ordinary buildings, not fancy-schmancy Embassies or anything like that:


Opposite the Parliament building there is an Ethnographic Museum and I was quite taken by these windows with grilles at pavement level:



and next door to that is some sort of Ministry building which has a portico-arcade thing with busts of worthies, and a really quite extraordinary bronze wall plaque that looks like rocks thrown through glass:


Fascinatingly, this particular building was hit by many bullets during the failed Hungarian uprising against the Soviets in 1956 and rather than repair the holes made in the facade of the building, it was decided to mark them more permanently with little round metal balls:


Just behind the ministry there's an interesting sculpture of a man on a bridge. This is Imre Nagy who was Prime Minister at the time of the 1956 uprising. The Soviets captured him and executed him two years later.

Imre Nagy, instigator of the failed 1956 Uprising.

I walked on, further into the city away from the river and the Parliament building, towards Liberty Square (Szabadsag Ter in Hungarian). It looked quite big on the map so thought it might be worth checking out. On the way I found this lovely deco building


Carpets and rugs hung out over a balcony for an airing:


The park was really very nice. There was a lawn in the centre with walkways for promenading along each side, bounded by beautiful black iron curlicued fencing:


Oh, and, of course, the emergency exit of F4 atomic bunker (really):


I then made my way back to St Stefan's Basilica to try and get the elusive zombie hand but, once again, I was outsmarted. The little chapel was far too dark to get a decent picture of the casket (and you're not allowed to use flash),

but I did manage to take this very dark picture of the information board which has images of the hand taken during conservation. Considering it's over 1000 years old, it's not in bad nick:


Anyway, I've got square eyes from looking at this laptop screen for so long, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for pictures of the sculptures of the single boob and the giant teabag.