Day 6: Photos and Budapest

Okay, I've been promising pictures for two days now. Here they are.

Catholic Church near Prague Main Square

Prague's Clock Tower

Close-up of the Clock (lower clock)

Close-up of clock (upper clock)

Statue in Prague's Main Square

Russian Orthodox Church at Prague's Main Square

View across the Vitava River (I think)

On the Charles Bridge

Extravagent Prague Castle - Seat of the President of the Czech Republic

Prague Castle - the largest castle in the world

St Vitus Cathedral - sorry about sideways

Inside of St Vitus Cathedral

A building (can't remember which one) in foggy Bratislavia

The Statue at Heroes' Square

More of the Statue

And a little more.

Day 6 found us in Buda and Pest, making it the wonderous city of Budapest. The original plan for today was to visit the museum of terror, however, through a cruel act of fate, the museum was closed for maintainence for our time in Budapest. Very quickly our plans were changed to spend some more time exploring the city on our own. We broke off into groups to go shopping and explore Budapest. I found a gorgeous scarf that was very cheap and could not help myself. Since when have I been an impluse buyer?

We regrouped to enjoy a tour of the Hungarian Parliament. It was finished in 1902, so you might expect it is similar to the Australian Parliament House. You would be wrong. The place is absolutely massive and nothing was too expensive. 40 kilograms of gold leaf are used throughout the entire building, although you would not expect that the weight would be so small. The entire place seems to be covered in gold! It really is beautiful. I have photos of this place but they are still on my camera. They will come when the next batch of photos comes through.

Dinner tonight was obscenely large and I ended up feeling a little sick afterwards. Although that wasn't from overeating but from too many deep fried onion pieces. Not to worry though, the steak was good. We also celebrated our second delegation birthday in two days, with Sophie turning 16 today (Ananya was 17 yesterday.) Happy Birthday to both girls.

Tomorrow we leave for Vienna. It will be nice to be back in German-speaking territory. These last couple of days have been hard because the languages all derive from Slavic rather than Latin, making guesses at pronounciation and translation impossible. We are also going to see an 8 piece orchestra tomorrow. Very exciting.

Until next time

~ Elyse

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