Friday, February 25, 2011

Budapest Sightseeing- Parliament and the Szechenyi Baths

It was Nate and Liz's last day and we wanted to see a lot more. Kent, Nate, Nate and Liz went to the Terror Museum while Jack and I got tickets for Parliament.  Then we went for a tour of the Parliament, went for lunch, headed to the baths for the evening, out to dinner, picked up Luis's clothes for a sleep over, and finally home around 11:30PM. The boys wanted to stay up all night, and very nearly made it. Nate and Liz had to be up at 4 AM, and we drove to the airport for their 6:30 AM flight. Whew! I'm tired just reading it....








The crown jewels were stored in the US from WWII until 1978, when they were returned to Hungary.

 The windows were all painted by hand and were removed and stored during WWII so they wouldn't get destroyed.

 This was a Herend porcelain vase made for the 1000th anniversary of Hungary in 1896.  In the main body of the vase are quotes from famous Hungarian poets and flowers and birds.






































Around the edges of this same room are statues of the various trades from the time of the building of the Parliament. This is a statue of the architect who designed the building, with a copy of the plans in his hand.



This is where the Parliament meets.










The Szechenyi Baths and a mosaic building on the ceiling in the main entrance. 
More mosaics in the main entrance.

 The statue in the main entrance; a weird image- centaur, mermaid and this little baby creature with webbed feet.


It was very cold out, but the water was warm. 








There's always a chess game going on.









The lap pool; it wasn't warm enough for us.


This is a fun pool; the current races around and in the middle circle there are bubbles and jets.



Terror Haz- Day of Remembrance

There is a museum called the Terror Haz (House) right downtown in Budapest on the fancy shopping street, Andrassy Ut. It was used by the Nazis and by the Soviets to detain and torture people, to get them to inform on others. We were walking by last week and there was a gathering with many older people there. It was very somber; people were lighting candles and setting them along the walls of the museum, where pictures of people killed by the Soviets line the walls.