Pest_2

Pest cont'




Feeling dissapointed that I don't get to see the inside of the parliament, my journey continued to St.Stephen's Basilica. As if to compensate my dissapointment, the weather turns good and the cathedral looks stunning with blue sky background. Unfortunately when I reached St. Stephen's cathedral, I missed the guided tour hour (only 2 session on Saturday) and I was really not in a mood to wander around in the cathedral knowing nothing about it. So I made a decision to go for coffee instead, lol...

Pic: St. Stephen's Basilica

Budapest's street buildings are so ancient. Not exactly well maintained but I think it really doesn't change much since the last century (from the old pictures I saw at the metro station). 4-5 storey building separated only by small alley, gothic / romanic style buildings are everywhere. They even still preserve the trolley bus which I have never seen before, really eye-opening.

Pic (top): Budapest (Pest side) street views; Pic (bot): trolley bus

Statue Park which displays mementoes of the communist erawas highly recommended by an American aquintance and it looks very attractive in the tourist guides / websites http://www.mementopark.hu/. Personally I'm not a communism fan and the park is really rather far off but I decided to give it a try.

Unfortunately some of Budapest's public transport lines are under construction and notices are only in Hungarian, which makes going to the park so much more difficult (despite help from warm-hearted Hungarian people). The worse part is: reality & image has a big discrepency. To me, the park turns out to be more like it's been built up to utilize a deserted place :( However, since I have to overcome so much trouble to get to the park, I really took a lot of pictures to make the trip worth while :p

Pic: Shots taken at Statue Park (or Memento Park)

Leaving Statue Park, I rushed to the Danube river side to catch night river cruise (with dinner & dance). Budapest is beautiful by day but trust e, it is 10times more beautiful at night when the city lights up, especially on Buda side where the Buda Castle is. Absolutely gorgeous. It was pretty windy on the cruise & I didn't bring tri-pod (my hand nearly froze due to picture taking), so the night scene pictures quality is not really good...but it doesn't affect the beauty of Budapest by night, I hope.

Day2 trip, Buda side, to be continue...