Weekend in Budapest: Buda Castle, Hungarian Parliament, Danube in flood.
Last Saturday, we were invited by my sister-in-law Ili (Ilona) and her boyfriend Mátyás to spend the weekend with them in Budapest.
Budapest is made of two parts: Pest on the left bank of the Danube river and Buda on its right bank.
So, we left the vineyard in Pécs around 7 AM. We went first to Pest. There we left Trudy, my wike Kati's visiting friend in an apartment she is renting for several days.
Then, we crossed the Danube to Mátyás' house in Buda.
Mátyás has lived almost all his life in the same place. First in the house of his parents.
Then, when he was 25 years old, he built a house for himself behind the house of his parents.
He had borrowed money from many people from his family. And he bought his first car 5 years later after reimbursing the people he borrowed from.
Of course, he made many improvements to his house over the years.
There is almost no modern furniture in the house, only strong ones made many years ago. Here is an example.
After we had lunch with Ili and Mátyás, we went to visit the Buda Castle. We parked the car and we walked to the castle. On our way, we met three hussars (light cavalry soldiers, originally from Hungary in the XVth century).
The first one was naked on his horse.
The second one was also on his horse but had his clothes on.
And the third one had no horse.
Finally, we arrived at the castle. It is a massive construction, built in the XVIIIth century, replacing previous ones from the XIIIth to XVIIth centuries.
As you can see from the photo below, there are currently renovations done to the castle.
Our main goal when we entered the castle was to visit "Saint Stephen's Hall", a room that had been built in 1900 under the direction of Alajos Hauszmann (Hungarian: Hauszmann Alajos), a famous Hungarian architect.
The hall had been badly damaged over the years and had only been renovated and opened to the public.
In the center of the hall is this magnificent fireplace, with a bust of Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary Stephen I, later canonized as Saint Stephen.
On each side of the fireplace, there are several paintings of the most famous sovereigns of Hungary, several of them having been canonized too.
In France, only one of our kings is a saint: Louis IX. Most of our kings are known to be sinners, and unfaithful to their wives.
In Hungary, many kings have been canonized and I have never heard about any who have been unfaithful. There must have been some, but Hungarians do not speak about them.
In the castle, we also saw copies of three coronation regalia items: the crown, the orb, and the scepter. The original ones are in the Parliament building, but it is forbidden to photograph them.
From outside the castle, we could see the Parliament near the other bank of the Danube, in Pest. The level of the river is very high, and you will see below how high it is.
Every year, the building that is used as the office of the president of Hungary, the Sándor Palace can be visited by the public for one weekend only. And it was just last weekend, so we went to visit it.
Then we went back to Mátyás' house, had dinner, and went to bed.
On Sunday morning, we got up early, as we needed to be at 08:30 in the Parliament to visit it.
We parked in a street not too far from the building and walked.
The photo below is the back of the building, the front facing the Danube.
Inside the Parliament is this mock-up of the building. The length of the building is 268 metres.
The visit starts on the 4th floor with the grand staircase, which is rarely used, except for solemn occasions.
The ceiling of the grand staircase is richly decorated and includes three paintings.
The visit continues with the circular room under the dome. This is where the royal regalia is kept, so it is not allowed to take pictures.
Then we saw the assembly hall of the upper house. Originally, Hungary was a bicameral state with a lower and an upper house. Then, it became an unicameral democracy. So the assembly hall of the upper house is no longer used to legislate, but only for conferences.
An amusing detail: the members of the upper house were smoking cigars, but it was forbidden to smoke in the assembly hall. So, there were these cigar holders, one per member, just outside of the hall.
In front of the Parliament, we saw how high the Danube was: there is a street that is under a metre of water. On the other side of the river, we can see many buildings, old and new, including several churches.
After the visit, we went to a restaurant for lunch.
We left Ili and Mátyás around 3 PM and returned to Pécs.
This was a good weekend and both of us enjoyed it.
Tomorrow, I will take a shuttle from Pécs to Budapest Airport, and fly to France. I will stay there until September 28th when I will return to British Columbia.
-- Vincent Celier
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