Pest!

I grabbed a few other Hostel goers and headed out to see the Pest side of Budapest. We walked down the central street toward the chain bridge and stopped off at the beautiful and ornate opera house complete with drama faces and sphinx. from the opera house we turned and visited St. Stephens:

and wandered inside to view the splendor of the edifice: From its gate

To the central altar:

and even its courtyard:

I saw St. Stephens Mummified hand, encrusted in rubies, diamonds and precious metals, and then we headed on from the Church to find the Chain bridge and make our way to the Palace atop Castle hill in Pest.

From the Chain Bridge:

With its growling and gruesom protectors

We made our way across and up next to the funicular towards the palace which sits overlooking Buda. The castle which held the last german resistance to soviet invasion in world war two and houses budapests underground nuclear bunkers and hospitals.

the view of parliament from Pest Castle:

The Palace grounds which now house galleries and museums as well as the state library are decorated with beautiful fountains the like of which I have not seen before. Each fountain shows a different scene from life.

Fishing:

Hunting:

and then there were the fishing monuments and castle walls:

From the walls we headed down into Pest and found the Underground entrance to the underground hospital and once top secret nuclean bunkers built into the natural caves under Pest palace and castle.

The tour was eerie climbing through wax museum dummies of doctors, suffering world war II patients and the 60’s era hungarian defense propaganda. we finished after an hour and made our way back to the Hostel. The next morning I headed out to the bus station and caught a bus to Krakow Poland.