Budapest – Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

I mentioned earlier that Budapest was much, much larger than I expected. This is reflected in the amount of photographs I took over the span of a few days in the city. On one of our mornings in the city, we went to the Central Market Hall, the largest and oldest covered market of the city.

There’s something very much like this in Frankfurt, Germany- lots of places to buy fresh meat, cheese, vegetables. In short, a regular market hall.

Fresh produce was everywhere.

There were some fascinating vendors of Tokaji, or Hungarian wine. The blown-glass dragon decanter was particularly amazing.

I also thought the trident-toting devil decanter was quite fetching.

I get why you might want a Russian doll painted with Barack Obama, Gene Simmons, Freddie Mercury, or even Angela Merkel, but who on Earth would want a Bin Laden doll? Unless you were fresh out of paper targets for the gun range, I mean.

The Market Hall is a daytime visit. In the evening, we tried to check out one of Budapest’s famous Ruin Pubs. These are formerly abandoned buildings that have been converted into giant bar complexes. We went to Szimpla, one of the most well known.

The decor was interesting, part junkyard and part Maker Faire.

There were multiple bars inside the building, set on two levels. There were lots of places to sit and enjoy your drink.

Movies were projected on some of the walls, and music was played in other areas.

Some of the chairs were made from former cars. The place has an incredibly interesting atmosphere.

I know a bunch of people who would have loved Szimpla if only for the random bikes hanging everywhere.

This giant plastic kangaroo near the front entrance was a big hit. Lots of people stopped to take a quick ride.

I mentioned in the previous post that Budapest has many fun statues. Here’s Janene and Chris with the Fat Policeman. Locals say that if you rub his belly, you’ll eat well. We didn’t need the help though, because the food in Budapest was amazing.

The Kiskiralylany Szobor (Little Princess Statue) is apparently very popular. I think it’s her crown that draws people in.

This girl with her playful dog are a recent addition, placed on the promenade by artist David Raffai in 2007.

I’ve saved my favorite for last: Peter Falk and a beagle. This Columbo statue was placed to honor Falk because of his Hungarian ancestry. There is conjecture that his great grandfather was Miksa Falk, a Hungarian writer and politician.

This led to some great puns as we walked the length of the city to find this Falking statue. It was right by Cafe Picard, where we stopped for a Falking delicious lunch. Make it so!

Have you ever been to a Ruin Pub? How did you like it?

Chris and Janene, good friends from back in Florida, told me that they were going to be in Budapest, so I timed one of my own trips to spend a few days hanging with them. They flew in from Florida, and I took the train into Keleti station on the same day.

One of the first things I learned as I arrived in Budapest was that the city is much, much, much larger than I thought it would be. The next thing I learned is that Budapest is actually made up of two cities- Buda and Pest. The cities are separated by the Danube river, and were united into one larger city in 1873.

I spent much more time in Pest than I did in Buda. Keleti Station, seen below, is on the Pest side. So was my hotel, and many of the other things seen in this post.

There are a large number of photographs in this post, in no particular order, Starting with the Budapest Opera.

This is one of the stations in the Millennium Underground Railway, or M1. Built between 1894 and 1896, this is the oldest line in the Budapest Metro, and the second oldest underground metro in the world. The oldest metro is in the London Underground.

This is Heroes Square. If you take a good tour, you’ll get a lot of very interesting explanations for each of the statues.

We kept seeing Budapest information staffers- they were always around to help tourists find their way. Stylish wheels, too!

This sign was very amusing. We expect signs to point us to attractions and restrooms, but free Wi-Fi? Amazing.

Thermal baths are located in various places around the city. This is the front entrance to Széchenyi Baths.

This is the view inside Széchenyi Baths. Széchenyi is reportedly the largest spa in Europe, with multiple pools and saunas.

This… was some delicious freshly made strudel from the First Strudel House of Pest, just down the street from St. Stephen’s Basilica. One of them is apple, the other rhubarb. So, so delicious.

The streets around the Basilica are lined with places to eat.

Here’s a far view of the Buda Castle Funicular, taken from the Chain Bridge.

This is the Chain Bridge, locally named Széchenyi lánchíd. The large building to the left is the Buda Castle, which has been converted to a museum.

Here’s a close-up of the Funicular I showed earlier.

This is the view from the top of the Funicular, looking back over the Chain Bridge into Pest.

This is another area on the Buda side of the river, Fisherman’s Bastion and lookout terrace.

The Fisherman’s Bastion provides amazing views of the Pest side of the river, including the Hungarian Parliament.

This church at Fisherman’s Bastion is called the Matthias Church. Several coronations occurred here. It’s under reconstruction at the moment.

Many religions are represented in Budapest. On the Pest side of the river is the Dohány Street Synagogue, a Jewish synagogue built in the 1850s with 2,964 seats (1,492 for men and 1,472 for women.)

The most well known of the churches in Budapest is St. Stephen’s Basilica, known locally as Szent István-bazilika.

Yes, you can climb it.

From the top, there’s a pretty fantastic view back toward Buda.

I never did figure out which building this is, but it’s nifty looking. I thought perhaps it was the Museum of Applied Arts, but they’re not quite the same patterns.

This is the inside of St. Stephen’s Basilica. We went there for an organ concert.

Here’s the organist, Miklós Teleki. He was pretty good.

When we left the concert, this is how the Basilica was lit up. I did absolutely no color processing to this photo- I simply cropped and resized it. This is how it looked without the camera.

There were lots of interesting statues around Budapest. The man standing on the bridge is Imre Nagy. Nagy was chosen by the people to become the new Prime Minister during an uprising in 1956. When the Soviet troops invaded he was arrested and executed along with thousands of others.

When we walked past the Hungarian Parliament, we caught a changing of the guard ceremony. It was very ceremonial, with lots of spinning rifles and whatnot.

When we were at the top of the Funicular, we caught a similar changing of the guard ceremony, but this was a different set of guards. The dark uniforms above are at the Parliament, while the light brown uniforms seen here are at Buda Castle.

This giant bird is a Turul. The Turul is considered a divine messenger, and it’s heavily woven into the origin mythology of the Magyar people. I was looking for this Turul statue because on the train into Budapest, I saw an enormous Turul statue on a mountain near Tatabánya. It was so large that it was easy to find information about it- it was the last of three giant Turul statues. It’s the largest bird statue in the world, and the largest bronze statue in Central Europe.

This Turul, sitting in front of Buda Castle, is not nearly so large as the one on the mountain. It was still pretty big though.

In one of the earlier photos showing the city, you might have noticed a ferris wheel. This is how it looks at night.

This is how St. Stephen’s Basilica looks from that same ferris wheel during the daytime.

The love locks phenomenon is everywhere. The “Big Nose Hearts Big Face” one made me laugh. And the big silver one next to it says “Michu Pich & Laddi Waddie,” which is kind of great.

I have a difficult time believing they can really transport a patient with this ambulance.

While we were walking toward our evening entertainment, we briefly followed this pair of children. I couldn’t resist snapping a photograph on the sly, because these two look like the flashback sequence of every buddy comedy movie I’ve ever seen. In a movie, this night would surely be followed immediately by a “fifteen years later” caption.