Day Nine - Jun 6, 2017
Budapest, Hungary
Daily Didactic
We had planned on doing a Parliament tour today. After a slow rise and a little breakfast, we walked the 20 minutes to the Hungarian Parliament Building. Fun fact, it is the largest parliament building in Europe (purposely built a meter longer on each side than the parliament building in London). The building is spectacular outside, and reportedly more so inside. On the other hand tickets were $21 apiece and tours weren't available until 5:00pm. We have been enjoying just seeing Budapest from the streets, so we skipped the inside of the building for this trip and headed down to the riverside to see "Shoes on the Danube", an art installation paying tribute to those who were killed by fascist militiamen in Budapest during World War II. Also on the agenda was picking up our train tickets to Zagreb for tomorrow. We stopped by a train ticket office near our home and (after a remarkably unhelpful "Help Desk") we left with the understanding that we needed to get our tickets at the actual train station. We had no idea where or how to get there because the train information office only had one tourist street map, and none for tourists. Fortunately a tourist information stop up the street had plenty of maps and a super helpful lady. In short order we hopped the metro to Keleti Station. An hour later (with the requisite level of confusion) we were back where we started with our tickets and a clear idea of how to get to the train station tomorrow. We discovered an incredible Syrian restaurant a block from our home for a little lunch and then headed back to the Market Square that had been closed yesterday. The market was huge and indoors. Originally intending to pick up something to make for dinner, the overwhelming amount of produce, meat, and fish left us actually overwhelmed and we left empty handed, save for a bottle of Portuguese wine. We took a beverage break on the way back up the tourist street that sits between us and the market, which prompted an executive decision to take the rest of the day off. More or less. We did venture out for some grocery store dinner late in the evening.
Today's Photos
