Budapest Sept 10

We all slept in this morning..I wonder why.

We wanted to see the Parliament, and bought tickets for the English tour. Pricey, 26 dollars.

We took the tram to the market. Lovely building. A lot of the buildings use ceramic tiles as roofing materials. They use different colours to create patterns, which are very attractive.

The market had a lot of Hungarian crafts, along the usual food stalls. The selection of paprika was staggering.

As we left it started to rain. We have 3 raincoats, and 2 umbrellas, all safely nice and dry at the apartment. We had lunch at a nice restaurant, and by the time we finished, the rain had stopped. It was actually cool, as we walked along Vaci Utca, the main shopping street. It is a pedestrian only street, lots of interesting stores and cafes.

As I mentioned Budapest is very clean, with many interesting buildings, built during the late 1800's and early 1900's. The iron entrances to many of the buildings are exceptional.

We went to our parliament tour, and I have to say it is disappointing, considering the ticket cost. 

There are some beautiful parts, but not worth the money.

It started to drizzle again, so we headed home, and had an excellent salad for dinner. The bread, and especially the butter is better than anything at home.

A couple of other little observations.

I went to an ATM, took out 300 dollars, and received 3 one hundred dollar bills. This is not good when you buy 6 dollars worth of groceries, and pay with a 100 dollar bill.

The other is a reminder that in Europe the ground floor is the "0" floor, so if your apartment is on the second floor, it is actually on what we would call the 3rd floor. 58 steps, no elevator. At least it beats the room I had in Munich, on the 6th floor, no elevator. The amazing thing was that my landlady had a small child. I am sure this is one reason Europeans are more fit than North Americans.

Photo 1 the market building

Photo 2 one of the beautiful iron doorways in Bucharest

Photo 3 part of the "golden" staircase in the Parliament Building 

Photo 4 the Commons Chamber