Budapest, Hungary

This picture kind of sums up the weather we had in Budapest, Hungary, for the 4 days that we were there:

This was right after we had to walk through a huge, deep puddle on a bridge, completely soaking our shoes.  The other option was to get run over by cars.  I think I was regretting my decision.

The week before we visited, I checked out the weather and it said "abundant sunshine" for the days we were in Budapest.  Lies.  All lies.  Even with the terrible weather, we enjoyed walking around Budapest, seeing its beautiful architecture, visiting some interesting sites, and eating delicious food.

The Parliament building was a highlight for me.  It's an enormous building right on the banks of the Danube.  It boasts being the 3rd largest parliament building in the world.  We took a tour of the inside, which was really interesting!  It is also the home of the Holy Crown and an amazingly intricate dome (both of which we couldn't take pictures of, but were neat to see).

From across the river on a particularly dreary day

Inside, heading up the golden staircase

Just chilling in one of the beautiful rooms adjacent to the dome

Where laws happen

The building was full of beautiful details

Another view of the outside, from the bank of the river

My Budapest jumping pic

Another famous building in Budapest is St. Stephen's Basilica, named for the first king of Hungary.

Brian's Budapest jumping pic

We climbed to the top of the dome for some great views of the city on a really gray day

Inside the church was beautiful

And the dome, exquisite

The most interesting thing in the church was this... supposedly the right hand of King Stephen.  You could put in a coin and the inside lit up so you could get a clearer look.  We did.  It looked gross.

A picture of a picture of "The Holy Right Hand"

St. Stephen's at night

Brian's favorite thing in Budapest was the Pinball Museum, an underground series of rooms featuring 130 pinball machines.  We paid a fixed price and all of the games were set to free play.  They had some as old as 1925!

If they sold beer here, we might have never left

I got the high score on the South Park machine!

One of their oldest pinball machines

We had a really lovely dinner on our last night there at Borkonyha Winekitchen, a Michelin star restaurant just downstairs from the apartment we stayed in.  We ordered so much food!  Two appetizers, two entrees, a dessert, and a bottle of wine... and we made clean plates the whole night.  And because it's not in Western Europe, this fancy pants dinner was really affordable!  Needless to say, we enjoyed it a lot!

Brian's appetizer

My entree

The food was not only delicious, it was also beautiful!

Though our time in Budapest was short and the weather was dreary, we made the most of the time we spent there before heading back to Saudi Arabia.  Here are a few more random pictures from our time in Budapest:

One of our guides showing us things that Hungary is famous for... Erno Rubik was a Hungarian inventor and architect

This tram was awarded the #7 trolley ride in the world by National Geographic.  We didn't ride it, I just snapped this pic real quickly when Brian told me it was famous.

We took a relaxing dip in Széchenyi Baths, a series of both indoor and outdoor thermal pools.  It was especially nice when the cold rain started up again!

A moving memorial to the Jews who died from the Arrow Cross militia (basically the Hungarian Nazis) during WWII.  The victims had to take off their shoes, since shoes were valuable, then they were shot and fell into the Danube.  The Shoes on the Danube memorial features 60 pairs of shoes made from iron.

Our favorite museum in Budapest was the Hospital in the Rock, an underground hospital in the caverns under the Buda Castle.  This was a working hospital during WWII, and it opened up again briefly during the uprising against the Soviet Union.  During the Cold War, it was used as a nuclear bomb shelter.  Unfortunately no pics from inside, but it was a really great tour!