European Trip Day 25 Houses of Parliament tour, Budapest

Budapest 19 July 2019

We had a very early start to the day, which was a bit difficult after our lovely night out at the spectacular New York Cafe for dinner last night. David had made a booking for us to go on a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament and you cannot be late for this.

The security at the Houses of Parliament was similar to airport security except here were armed guards looking very serious indeed. Don’t mess with these people! The inside of the building was as ornate and over the top with decoration as the outside. Absolutely magnificent and all an a huge grand style. The only bigger Parliament building is in London.

When they led us into the room that held the royal crown and septre the security stepped up another level. There was a roped off area surrounding the glassed box containing the royal jewels, guarde by two armed soldiers with swords drawn!

Everything was so impressive here. So much gold leaf everywhere. Chandeliers, paintings, statues galore. Outside the actual parliament sitting area, the corridors contained polished brass cigar holders where MPs could smoke and gossip before entering the room.

After this, the bus took us up to see the National Gallery of art. Susan was exhausted after walking all around the Parliament building, so John and I sat with her in the cafe we’d been to a couple of days ago when we visited the Citadel and sampled their fine juice drinks and chocolate sundae icecream.

While Susan had an afternoon nap, John and Barb went for a 4 kilometre walk (round trip from our hotel) to see Heroe’s Square, the Budapest Art Gallery and Fine Art Gallery, the Turkish baths, Dracular’s castle, The museum of Terror and we walked past many small parks with monuments and gardens on the avenue where all the Foreign Embassies are located. It was lovely!

In the evening we caught a taxi to the Daube Palace Theatre to see a concert of Hungarian Folklore music and dancing. We had dinner a a nice nearby restaurant first.

The Theatre itself was small but very ornate. The show was wonderful! There was a ten piece orchestra, mostly violins and a trouple of eight dancers (4 men and 4 girls) who performed some very energetic folk dances. Quite marvellous!

Getting home was another matter. It was only a ten minute walk to the hotel, but Susan and Barb might struggle to walk that far after a tiring day, so we hailed a taxi. The young taxi driver, who spoke very little English almost ran over Susan as she tried to get into the car, taking off to early before she could get in. Luckily she didn’t fall, but was very shaken. Then he took us on a long round the houses journey back to the hotel. We had to stop him going even further in the wrong direction. The fare back was very much more than the fare there.