We had several activities booked for today - a tour of parliament, a bike tour, Buda Castle, House of Terror, and an evening boat cruise.
The Hungarian Parliament Building is one of the largest buildings in Hungary and is built in the ornate gothic style. It is the iconic building of Hungary although I had only seen pictures of it at night when it was illuminated in gold. Inside, it has over 200 parliamentary offices!
Our tour we booked started at 8:30am. The first area they took us to was the Gold staircase. This ornate staircase had me feeling like royalty with the red carpeted steps and ceilings made of 48 kilos of 24k gold. There was so much gold everywhere! My eyes were glittering looking at all the gold! The ceilings were covered with hand painted plants and ornamental motifs. The original plans for the building was a competition between 19 different architects for who would get to design the building. The current design was inspired by the House of Parliament in London and both buildings stand on the banks of rivers. At the time it was created, it had to be made soley of Hungarian materials to boost nationalism.
The second area that they took us was to the grand staircase. Similar to the opera yesterday, there were two grand staircases on either side leading to where we were standing. Next to the grand staircase was the royal dome and crown jewel. There were no photos allowed in this room to protect the crown of St. Stephen. The dome was beautiful! It was a second dome that was lower than the exterior one. It was painted a dark green color with lots of gold decorations on top. In the center of the room protected by glass was the crown jewel. The crown is only ever worn once by the king at the coronation. It was inlaid with large jewels and pearls around the room. On top there was a slanted cross which I called #slantycross. The cross was slanted likely due to damage and how many times the crown has been stolen, hidden, and transported. At one point it was shipped to the U.S. for safekeeping during the Soviet reign.
The grandest room of the Parliament building was the upper chamber. This courtroom was heavily decorated and set up similar to a courtroom. There was gold everywhere in this room too. I could have spent hours looking at all the various paintings on the walls and small details. If I worked in Parliament I think I would just zone out staring at all the elaborate decor.
The tour of parliament lasted about 45 minutes after which we headed to the opposite side of the river to the Buda side for our bike tour. Holly had booked a free bike tour by e-magine and initially we thought we were getting electric bikes but they said we get to suffer on normal bikes. It was a small tour with only another German couple and the guide. The guide informed us it was his first time giving a bike tour. This was also my first time doing a bike tour so I didn't really have any expectations. The bike tour took us in a big loop and we did hit some spots that we hadn't walked to, mainly the island of St. Margaret. The island is in the middle of the Danube River and named after a young girl who was promised to the church and worked as a convent in the park. The girl's parents then tried to marry her off to a prince but she refused and stayed in the park to carry out her work in the local hospital. Now the island is a big green park mainly where children come to play. The guide grew up here so he was able to point out his favorite childhood spots. He was constantly surprised how few people were out on the streets but claimed that it was due to the heat. He called the 96 degree weather the hottest day of the year. No complaints from me as I was soaking up all the summer heat.
Between the Danube river is the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The bridge separates the ancient cities of Buda and Pest and now is a symbol of the unification of east and west. I thought we had previously walked across the bridge but apparently we had walked across the Erzsébet Bridge since the chain bridge was closed to pedestrians. There is a third bridge named the Szabadsag and that bridge is where Will Smith famously danced on top of a couple years back.
Our bike tour took us past parliament, liberty square, and St. Stephen's Basilica. Since we had visited all of those places previously I was being a smart ass and filling in the blanks of the guides phrase and answering his questions immediately. I think he appreciated that I came in well researched but he also kept joking that I came on his tour just to annoy him. I personally prefer doing a walking or biking tour at the beginning of my trip to give me a big picture of the city whereas now I know most of the history. I did learn a few things here and there from the guide regardless though.
The bike tour lasted about 3 hours and ended at the foot of Buda Castle. Buda Castle is a huge palace complex that sits on a hill overlooking parliament. It was the home of the Hungarian Kings and built between 1749 and 1769. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is made up of the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest Historical Museum. We were on a time crunch so we did not get to go into any of the museums but admired the castle from the outside before moving into Fisherman's Bastion.
The Fisherman's Bastion is located adjacent to the palace and is now just a monument with lookout points. It looks like a castle if you ask me. Neighboring the bastion is Matthias Church where two of Hungary's Kings were previously crowned.
Holly really wanted to go to the House of Terror which I initially thought would be one of those tourist dungeon attractions where they just scare you. The House of Terror is actually a memorial to all of the victims who suffered during Hungary's two terror regimes. Holly and I learned so much at the museum. I personally felt that I knew bits and pieces of the history but really needed to arrange everything chronologically in my brain and the museum really helped with that. The museum was also incredibly sad as it depicted the conditions from WWII, the Nazi occupation, and then the Soviet Union occupation until Hungary became a free country in the 1990s. Everything in Hungary seemed so recent compared to the other countries I have been to. I remember the guide feeling very strongly that Hungary was still under a dictatorship and the current President has been changing history books to read that Hungary has never lost. There are also many conditions regarding human rights that Hungary has ignored.
The House of Terror was a well laid out museum and taught us so much. I have been to Vienna and Prague and hearing the full history just made so much sense now. I can't call it fun but it was necessary to learn about the brutal history of the country we were in.
Following the museum we stopped by to get my new favorite gelato - Gelarto Rosa! This time I just got the rose flavor and it just so happened to also match my outfit!
Our last activity of the evening was a boat cruise. The cruise was only an hour and I really wished it had been dark enough to see Parliament at night but the later cruises were sold out. However in summer the sun sets at like 9pm so there was no hope for us at 7pm to catch the lights at night. The cruise was pleasant and I got to see Parliament from the water which allowed me to finally be able to capture the whole building. It is so enormous! The cruise was short and really just to see the Parliament and Castle from the water.
I am glad we took the earlier cruise as around 10pm it started pouring rain and we were running through large puddles as we raced to catch our bus back to the hostel.
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