Eight of the ten students in our group decided to go to Budapest the first afternoon (Feb. 22) we were in Győr since we had the rest of the day free and Budapest was a little over an hour away by train. After our professor and an LCMS missionary, neither of whom spoke Hungarian, helped us figure out how to buy tickets at the Győr train station, we took off on the train and arrived in the capital city of Hungary in the early afternoon.
All we did in Budapest was walk to the city center, walk around the city center in a circle, and head back to the train station around 7 p.m. But in those few hours, I was astounded by the beauty of the city. Even as we walked toward the river at the center of the city, the buildings surrounding me caught my eye.
We walked 1.7 miles from Keleti train station to the river and crossed the river on the Erzsébet (Elisabeth) Bridge, looking at the view of the two parts of the city and marveling at the palace on the hill on the west side.
The view from the Elisabeth Bridge: the Danube River separating the Buda side on the west from the east Pest side.
We walked along the west side of the river and looked up at the palace as one looks up at a movie screen from the front row of the movie theater.
From the street level, the palace all but disappears behind its walls.
We crossed back over to the Pest side over the Széchenyi Chain Bridge.
The bridge opened in 1849 and was rebuilt in 1949 after the Germans blew it up in World War II.
I was fascinated with a particular white building with a red dome and spiral that we could see from the bridge on the east side of the river.
We thought this was a church (can you blame us?) until we found it labeled as the Hungarian Parliament Building on a postcard in a shop.
My fellow students liked the Parliament Building so much they wanted their photo with it.
We walked back to the road that led back to the train station. I enjoyed walking through the streets and seeing beautiful and strange things.
The beautiful: St. Stephen’s in the sunset.
The strange (but just as beautiful): a tree covered in images of Michael Jackson…?
We ducked in a coffee shop to get off our feet for a minutes, and when we reemerged, the sun had set and we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the lights tacked onto the dark hills and buildings.
The Buda castle gives Budapest a romantic skyline with its soft lights against the dark sky.
The Elisabeth Bridge is positively stunning at night.
This random building reminds me of Magic Kingdom at night; unfortunately, there were no fireworks above it.
Then we walked back to the train station and returned home.
Across the Meridian with a Cedar Rapidian 