Last Day in Budapest

On our last day in Budapest, we walked across the river to the “Buda” side of the city to walk around the Budavar castle and Fisherman’s Bastillion. The other side of the city, across the river where we were staying, is the “Pest” side.It was a long walk up, but the view is definitely worth it. The building across the river is the Hungarian National Parliment building. Walking up around the castle walls was a slow process because Elora wanted to stop and look at everything. And unlike us, Nana actually indulged her, which is good because we’re usually tugging her along.Ollie can never get enough flying around in circles. It’s the one “cure all” that always makes him happy.The last time we were in Budapest, Ollie was just barely able to walk if you held his hands. Now he can walk up the castle walls all by himself!Elora was very excited to explore around the castle with her Nana. She hardly ever left her Nana’s side during the whole trip.Yooooo Kaaaaarrreeeen!Another obligatory photo overlooking the city.Ollie’s riding on the baby rocking horse we found outside of a cafe, and notice Elora and Nana in the background. They had few different saddles for kids to climb and sit on. Neat idea.Here we are at the Fisherman’s Bastillion. The last time we were here there were not so many crowds, this time there were so many people we didn’t stick around for long.We had a brief picnic in the gardens near the Matthias church. Oliver and Elora were excited to feed the pigeons their breadcrumbs. Here is Ollie dancing and clapping on top of a bench for his mommy. He absolutely loves music. Anytime he hears even the slightest jinggle he starts wiggling, clapping, and turning in circles as he stamps his feet.We had to pay to go inside the Matthias church. The church was nice, but quite dark inside. It’s not worth paying for unless you don’t get to see a lot of cathedrals very often. We’re probably too spoiled at this point (probably?). A neat story about the history of the church and surrounding castle. When the Muslims took over Budapest during the crusades, they boarded up many of the Christian statues, including the virgin Mary statue. One day, the crusaders were trying to take back the city, while the Muslims were facing east and praying and a keg of gunpowder exploded. The concussion toppled the brick wall that covered up the virgin Mary statue, and suddenly the praying Turks saw the statue of Mary appear to them. Apparently they took it for a sign and started running away, which helped the crusaders take back the Budapest.It was easy for Mom and Elora to walk down the main stairs to the bottom of the castle, but it took a lot more work for us to pack the stroller down the stairs. Ollie always thinks it hillarious to be carried while in the stroller. We realized we spend so much time walking up and down stairs lugging the stroller with us that we should attempt to document it. Naturally, it’s a bit difficult to carry a stroller down the stairs and take a self portrait at the same time…After all that walking, we decided to walk some more! This time a few kilometer walk across the river to the opposite end of town where there was a shopping mall. We were excited to find a KFC, so we ordered a “5 piece with 2 biscuits and 2 sides”. They spoke English very well, but seemed to be confused by the biscuit request, so we said, “You know, the bread rolls.” They said, “Oh yes, biscuits, sure.” When we sat down at our table we were very surprised to see two hamburger buns for our biscuits. No buttermilk biscuits in Budapest! (well we were on the “Pest” side of the city, so maybe they just don’t have them in Pest) Also, they apparently only have drumsticks. Our 5 piece consisted of 5 drumsticks. With our last meal in Pest out of the way, we walked back to the rental apartment and took the train back home to Vienna early the next morning.