16 June

16 June

Pest and Buda today.  We're staying on the Pest side of the Danube and took a walking tour through both Pest and Buda.  Pest is more "modern" than old Buda.  Pest has the new government buildings built in the 1850s, whereas Buda has older structures that date back to the founding of the city including over 10 km of city wall.  There are new buildings in Buda, which includes the buildings in Trinity square, and the view from higher up Buda to lowland Pest was good this morning.  The Danube is lower now, but it is still high after the floodings, which is seen as old news since it happened almost two weeks ago.    Finally, we have a very nice view outside our hotel room window.  There's a traveling Ferris wheel "eye" (like in London) which is in the park outside out hotel.  The wheel will be in Pest for 6 weeks, and then it will go to another European capital city.  Our walking guide told us the tickets were expensive, and since we've been on the London Eye, we'll skip it, especially since the lines are really long.

Apparently it is going to be "hot" today in the cities, predicted to get up to 85.  It was warm walking, and it's funny to us to hear the Brits say "it's bloody hot!"  We just enjoyed the walk, since we've been doing a lot of drive-by bus touring.  Our guide was very good, and we all had radio receivers so hearing her wasn't a problem.  Sonja speaks Hungarian, English, Russian, and German.  This helped her get her job as a tourist guide.  She initially learned Russian in school as a mandatory language and after 1989 she switched to English and found out she was good in languages so she added German to her skill set.  Puts us from the USA to shame, in that the average citizen only speaks one language.  Of course our country is a continent and wasn't occupied by the Russians.

This afternoon we went out to Godolloi, which was the Palace of King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth in the 1800s, although construction started in 1725.  Queen Elizabeth, "Sissy" was extremely popular as queen.  Unfortunately her husband Frederick was a philanderer and gave her VD.  Sissy also had anorexia, and was a typical reflection of Eastern European royalty, who was married off to her first cousin.  Sissy ended up spending a lot of time at Godolloi without her husband.  She was eventually assassinated by a Russian anarchist.  Godolloi Palace was plundered by the conquering military, depending upon which period in Hungarian history.  It was renovated with EU assistance.  Roger and I have learned a new term with regards to the contents of a historical site "genuine authentic copy."  Our tour guide used this term quite often throughout the no photos allowed tour.  There were several items that were exact authentic copies of portraits, photos and furniture.  The gardens of the palace are about 1/3 of what they used to be, as the Russians confiscated the land and re-purposed it for the good of all Hungarian people.

Tonight we'll be repacking for travel tomorrow.  Off to Dusseldorf and then on Tuesday we'll be headed back to the USA.