We arrived in Budapest in the early afternoon. Haze made the sky look like it was much later in the day and gave that ominous gray cast as if it were about to snow.
The first picture is the town of Buda, located high on hills along the north shore of the Danube. Below is a picture of Pest, on the much flatter south shore. We know the combined town as Budapest.
The above pictures were taken from the Citadel, which shows bullet holes and repaired wall sections from World War II. One building was the site where Hungarian women and children held off the Russian army for several days near the end of the war.
We walked through the center courtyard of the palace, which now houses several museums. Each museum was closed when we arrived. Went into the cathedral, which is very large. I wish we could have been there on November 18 for an organ concert.
The group had dinner in a restaurant that Randall and Jerry found on a previous trip. I had Politte, a delicious dish similar to veal cordon bleu. Most others had steak, including two brave souls who tried "steak on a rock", cooked at the table on a hot stone. For most of the meal, we had the small dining room to ourselves, which was good because of our English conversation and laughter.
We arose at 4 a.m. Budapest time to catch our return flight on Nov 10.
© January 12,1999 by John J. Vencill