Monday 2 March 2009

European adventures: Budapest

Fantasy books and writing is just one of my passions - traveling and exploring new places and cultures is another. I just got back from a fun weekend in Budapest last night, and thought I'd just post a few pics that I took while I was there.

Budapest is an interesting city, with plenty of exquisite sights and architecture. While I did feel that in some respects it's clinging to former glories and is a little frayed around the edges, there's nonetheless a definitive charm about the place. I particularly liked the parliament building and the wonderful fairytale-esque Fisherman's Bastion. The best thing though was the Rudas bath house - a fantastic Turkish bathhouse dating from the time of the Ottoman occupation (so around 16th century). Such an atmospheric place, with awesome architecture...and the spa baths weren't bad either! Most enjoyable...

Anyway, I hope you like the pics below (apologies if the formatting is a bit screwed - trying to move pics around on blogger using a Macbook is not very easy, and a royal pain in the rear to boot). 

Normal blogging service should hopefully resume this week, once I get back into the swing of things...











7 comments:

Aidan Moher said...

Budapest is a bit of an enigma to me. When I was there, I couldn't wait to move on – the city just ate every ounce of my energy and spit me out as a lifeless husk by the end of the day – but looking back, I wouldn't trade my experience with the city for anything.

Absolutely one of my favourite cities. If only the metro system was a bit more efficient. Luckily they have those bathhouses to make up for all the sore muscles from walking!

Glad you had a good trip, James.

~Aidan
A Dribble of Ink

James said...

Cheers Aidan. Although I liked Prague more, Budapest certainly has its own character. Some really cool stuff there, and the bath house we went to was awesome.

Now, need to plan where we're going in May... ;)

ediFanoB said...

Seems you have had a good time. I've never been there.

Look forward to October 2009 when I visit again my favorite town: LONDON

Anonymous said...

You'd really relate to The Ninth Circle by Alex Bell.

Lovely pics BTW.

And nice to see another MacBook user ;)

litlflame said...

I visited Budapest last october, and I visited all the places in your photagraphs. Took me back, and I could easily visit again some day. I loved the older midevil parts of the town the most. The newer city made me laugh as every surface was plastered with posters of..Dr. Alban...come on...that was almost 20 years ago. Obviously a big hit in Hungary...
Anyway...please check out my blogspot to find out more about me. http://www.skamsar.blogspot.com/ (I'm fairly new to blogging...)

Francisco Norega said...

Looks an amazing place *.*
I really really really liked the picture of the statues of the three kings, or warriors, or... whatever xD

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous pics ...

And, WOW, Cocoa Hobbits! LOL