Thursday was our second (and last) day in Vienna: the problem with whirlwind trips is that sometimes you don't have enough time for everything!
In the morning, we took one of the suggested walks in Rick Steve's Guide to Vienna, which took us past the corner of the Albertina wing of the Hapsburg palace, down a series of quaint streets, past St. Stephen's church (for which we didn't manage any good pictures--the building is so big!)
After our walk, we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum--only a dream museum for art history nuts, like me. We couldn't take pictures inside (or maybe we could, but we had to pay an arm for them), so all you get it the outside. The building was built in the 1890s to match the National History Museum, and the museum itself is a piece of art: marble stairs, delicate engravings. And so much wealth inside that it kind of hurts your head.
We had lunch across the street at the Palmenhaus Museum. The food was good (a little pricey) and the view of the gardens behind the New Palace was splendid, but the service left a little to be desired. I'm not sure if it's because my German was execrable or because we didn't look as wealthy as some tourists, but it took forever to get our server to bring us a bill once we'd finished eating (this despite the fact that every available table on the outdoor terrace was full).
After lunch, we walked down toward the Belvedere palace to while away our last few hours before our train at 4. The palace belonged to a wealthy man who died without heirs and gave it to the Hapsburgs to use as an art museum. Today, it's best known for a fabulous collection of Art Nouveau, including Gustav Klimt's famous The Kiss. This is the interior of the ballroom; below is the view from the gardens, to the "Upper Belvedere" (the other half of this urban estate).
Our train to Budapest was pretty smooth (and we were more than happy to sit down after having been on our feet all day!): we made our way to the apartment we'd rented from airbnb (a fabulous place in the middle of downtown: kitchen, living area, two bedrooms, bathroom, for only about $50 a night). I had a moment of panic when our host wasn't there and I wasn't sure if I could figure out the international dialing code--but it turns out he was waiting inside the apartment, inside the gates (most Hungarian apartment buildings in downtown are converted mansions from the city's heyday and have big gates leading into a courtyard).
Friday we went on a tour of downtown Pest: we started with the Parliament building, a gorgeous building finished in 1895 for the millennial celebration. There are ninety five steps in the entrance; the top dome is 95 meters high, etc. But the building was finished at the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire: today, they use less than half of the space (the two wings are identical to each other: one was built for the house of lords, one for commons, and today they no longer have a bicameral parliament). I have to admit I felt a little smug when the tour guide described the history of Hungary: I already knew most of it (and could identify the key statues before she identified them). Sometimes it pays to have done your research!
Inside the house of commons.
A famous (and charming) statue just outside parliament called the Little Princess. (You can see Buda castle in the background).
Our next stop was the ethnography museum, which was primarily interesting to me as a look into 19th century lifestyles (particularly in villages). I made Dan take lots of pictures which I won't inflict on our readers (since most of them are close-ups of the descriptions of various exhibits).
The 19th century Anker palace, now considerably worn down (and used, I think, for some kind of financial work). Sort of emblematic of much of Pest, though recently they've been trying to restore a lot of it. The city exploded in 19th century, increasing its population by at least 10x over the century. It was part of a wealthy empire and built buildings to act the part--and then a succession of losses in two world wars meant they couldn't keep everything up.
For anyone who's read my book (or who will read it): the restaurant sign is for the City Restaurant Pilvax--this is the site of Cafe Pilvax, where the young men of March planned their revolution (though the current incarnation looks nothing like the pictures I've seen). It was just around the corner from our apartment.
St. Stephen's Basilica--also built in 1895 for the millennium. So, not relevant to my story, but a spectacular building nonetheless--and possibly the most crowded with tourists of any of the places we visited.
A mummified hand, rumored to be that of St. Stephen himself (who was canonized for converting his kingdom to Christianity around 1000 AD), is kept in a room off the main nave. The lighting was terrible, though, so no pictures of a mummy hand.
Some details of the gorgeous architecture:
Karolyi palace--home of Mihaly Karolyi and his wife, Karolina Karolyi, an ardent patriot (and a cameo figure in my story).
We finished a long morning at a huge indoor market. The picture's a little blurry, but it gives some sense of the size of the place. And we found an Aldi's (Matt and Lauri's favorite grocery store) in the basement, which furnished us with our Sunday dinner.
Friday afternoon we ventured to Kecskemet, which feels like the heart of my mission (it was my third city, and I spent 4-5 months there at a time when I could actually speak the language). It is (sadly) the only place where I've kept in touch with more than one or two people. The bishop was nice enough to let us use the ward building for a little get together that afternoon (funnily enough, he married a girl who was a young woman in my last area, so I knew her family). My dear friend Szilvi showed us around town that afternoon and then came with us for dinner after the get together.
We went back to Budapest that night (and narrowly caught our train! We sped walked/ran a little the entire way back from the restaurant).
The next morning was all about Buda castle. Turns out, there was some kind of local festival just outside the castle, so we had a chance to try langos, a popular Hungarian fair food (a little like fry bread served with cheese and sour cream).
(Note: I'm 80% sure this was Friday's lunch, not Saturday's, but I can't remember now. We ate at this little cafe, the Gerloczy cafe, not far from our apartment that came recommended in the guidebook. It was really good. Dan had mussels and fries and I had some kind of pork dish.)
The beautiful gray and red church you see in the upper left corner of this picture is the Matyas church, part of the Buda castle complex, another of our Saturday stops (though this picture was taken near the Parliament building).
It was pretty lavishly reconstructed during the nineteenth century and wouldn't have been finished at the time of my story, but it's lovely anyway.
Probably my favorite discovery of the day, though, was this little street not far from the castle. There are some lovely baroque palaces there: this is one of them, though in the 19th century it was used as a prison to house political prisoners, and I use it in my story as the prison that my heroine has to fight her way to get to. So imagine, if you will, this seemingly pedestrian street filled with soldiers (and maybe a dragon or griffin or two).
This lovely building is the Vigado, some kind of music hall. But it was significant to me because it was one of those aha! research moments. I'd been trying to find out where the Redoute was, a public ballroom used frequently in 19th century Budapest. In a local guidebook our host left in the apartment, I discovered why I couldn't find the ballroom. The original building had been destroyed by canon fire during the 1849 siege of Budapest: this was built on the site.
After a brief rest at the apartment and a skype session with our kids, we walked down Andrassy street to Heroes square (another 1895 monument). The street itself is lovely and classy, taking us past the opera house and some up-scale stores.
We finished our walk with a ramble in the park behind the square, which was lovely and felt non-touristy (or, rather, felt like it was full of locals enjoying a beautiful Saturday evening). We rode the metro back downtown, had crepes for dinner, and crashed.
(If you can't tell, I dragged Dan on some pretty marathon sight-seeing sessions . . . Our kids would never have survived it).
