"Whaddya mean - 'the giant teabag's a weird idea'?"

Today is grey and murky so I'll stay in for a bit which means - lucky people! - I can continue with posting about my trips around Budapest.

I've not managed to take many pictures of Budapest by night, mostly because I'm not terribly confident of walking around a foreign city on my own in the dark. I have no doubt that I'll come to no harm - it would not be unlike walking around Leicester Square or Covent Garden on your own at about 9pm, perfectly safe but you wouldn't want to walk down too many little roads you didn't know. So I'm being safe, but I did have to pop out one night and took the opportunity to take just a few shots.

The Chain Bridge leading over to the Buda side of town

The Royal Palace

First of the Christmas lights down one of the 'walking streets' off Vorosmarty Ter

The lights are being put up around trees and lamp posts all around this area but only those above were lit. I don't know when all the others are supposed to be lit or, indeed, if they have any kind of big Turning on the Christmas Lights ceremony here like we do at home, with some Turbofolk Z-list celeb being hauled out to press a big button. I'll nip out again a bit later this week after dark and see if anymore have been lit. TLH is particularly entranced by Christmas lights so I said I'd look out for them for him.

Yesterday was Sunday and the weather was completely glorious. Achingly blue sky with a warm wind, it felt more like spring than mid-November. Everyone was out sunning themselves on benches or walking their well-groomed little dogs to meet other well-groomed little dogs in the special dog park. I had to get out and walk around in it. I wandered back to the Basilica as I knew there would be a big Catholic mass going on again as, indeed, there was, only this time Mr 'No Photo' was wandering around so I couldn't take pictures during the service. No matter as the pictures I took last Sunday were far more atmospheric, it being a darker day then so the candlelight was more impressive.

View from the top of the steps of St Stefan's Basilica, looking down toward the Danube and the Buda Hills beyond.

This was a balcony on a building facing the Basilica - still warm enough for the flowers to be in full bloom.

I walked down the side of the church and came across this fantastic looking building, a bank built at the beginning of the 1900s I think - the colours are mouth-watering:

Round the back of the church. I've forgotten what this bit's called, an apse, is it?

Wandering further, I was struck by the contract between the blue, blue sky and the beautiful yellow ochre of this building:

Then further along I spotted this roof, like something out of a fairy tale (you get a stiff neck in Budapest, from craning your head up all the time!) Believe it or not, this is the Post Office Savings Bank building:

Hercegprima utca, heading back towards the Basilica

I headed back towards Deak Ferenc ter, which is a central square where all the metro lines intersect. There is some weird and wonderful statuary around this square and although I've looked online, I can't find any information about any of it, except that the giant teabag won some sort of art prize in Germany or Switzerland (sorry, can't remember). It's very odd though:

Yes, it's a Liptons teabag - the bane of every English traveller abroad - floating in a shallow pond of cold water. Which is generally how you will be served it in the rest of the world.

Budapest is actually a very clean city, there's little if any rubbish lying around, and absolutely no dog crap anywhere (Amsterdam and Paris, please take note). There is, however, loads of graffiti everywhere, such as on this sculpture, which is a shame.

Thought this was pretty groovy - I hadn't noticed it before, it's not very tall, about average person-height but I loved the shadow it cast.

This is it viewed from the other side.

A single boob. No, I have no idea either.

Behind Deak Ferenc ter, there's the most extraordinary mosaic building facade that I saw earlier in the week when it was raining and vowed to return to photograph when the weather was more clement, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity and headed off that way.

For some reason, I glanced up and spotted this, stopping me dead in my tracks:

Marvin the Paranoid Android (from the original TV version of 'Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy')

See?


Still, onwards down this street and turn right at the church:

And you come to this example of art nouveau loveliness (I can't find out any more information about this):

Isn't that glorious? And all mosaic too.

That's it for now, you're all up to date. I'm hoping to walk up Andrassy utca to Hero Square later and maybe visit a museum or two but it'll depend on how much time I've got. But thanks for reading so far, I hope you're enjoying it!

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.

Post-operative update

The operation seems to have gone well. I have just been to visit and, while uncomfortable, the patient is not in any pain. I honestly cannot convey how relieved I am.

Anyway, I now have 2-3 days to kick around Budapest on my own, interspersed with visits to the clinic. Quite where I'll go I don't know. The weather has taken a turn for the worse - the temperature has plummeted, there's a very strong icy wind blowing off the Danube and it's still raining so I may just stay tucked indoors if it stays like this with my livid green crochet and The Godfather trilogy.

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!