Monday morning we hopped on a bus with a number of other passengers for a tour included in the Viking Cruise package: a visit to the Castle District in Buda to explore some of the buildings and monuments there. The bus parked several blocks from our primary goal, Holy Trinity Square, where we would find the beautiful Matthias Church, Fisherman's Bastion, and the Holy Trinity Statue. On our walk to the square we passed some of the older buildlings in Buda as well as a monument to Hungary's 19th-century war of independence against Austria. We stopped at an ATM on our way, and I fumbled through the process of acquiring some Euros. We also stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall shop and bought Tom a nice Budapest ballcap. You can never have too many ballcaps.
We passed by the Monument to Szabad Hazaert, translated as "free motherland," which commemorates the freedom fighters who fought for Hungarian independence against Austria in 1848. The wreath at the base of the statue is engraved "Freedom or Death."
Matthias Church, officially known as the Church of our Lady, but locally known as Matthias Church for a Renaissance king who was twice married there, is simply awesome. We would see a lot of awesome churches while touring the other cities on our cruise.
Work on the construction of the Holy Trinity Statue was started in 1700. Its purpose was to ward off the Black Plague then sweeping Europe (it didn't work).
Fisherman's Bastion was built around the turn of the 20th-century to celebrate the millenial birthday of the Hungarian state. Although it was built where fortified castle walls had once stood, its purpose was as a vantage point from which to view the city and the river below rather than as a defensive redoubt. Its seven towers and elaborate stairways stand at the edge of Holy Trinity Square, just beyond the Matthias Church.
In front of the Bastion is a statue of Stephanus Rex, first king of Hungary. Stephanus also gave his name to the Istvan (Stephanus) Basilica we saw on our Sunday walking tour.
Here's a sweeping panaroma of the Danube and Pest shot from the Fisherman's Bastion. At the end of the video, our ship is the one farthest to the right next to the Chain Bridge.
Back on the ship for a late lunch (always tasty entree options, and always -- thank you -- wine), we set sail up the Danube towards Vienna, the next stop on the cruise. We would have an interesting, if rainy, outing there the next morning, as well as enjoy a concert of Strauss and Mozart music the next evening.
Here are some photos I took as we left Budapest and sailed up around the lovely Danube River Bend, a 40-mile stretch of river that winds through northern Hungary
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