Favorite Bridge in Budapest

Everyone has a favorite bridge in Budapest, and for most people it is the Széchenyi Lánchíd (Chain Bridge.) I of course have to be different. My favorite is the Szabadság híd (Liberty Bridge.) It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I walked, and rode the tram across this one almost everyday. I got here this summer and was so confused. I didn't recognize it. They are putting an underground metro line where my tramline was. It was just one big construction site as you can see from some of the pictures. The bridge has no concrete on the roadway right now, so I walked across it to check it out. Here is my trek from Pest to Buda across my bridge.

Opera

A visit to a grand European city is not complete without a look at their Opera House. (I say "European city" because The Lincoln Center in New York is not quite so grand.) This opera house has a special place in my heart because it is where I saw my first two operas 10 years ago: The Marriage of Figaro, and La Boheme.


This is the famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, and on the other side is a seated sculpture of Ferenc Erkel who wrote the Hungarian National Anthem.




Even the light posts are interesting!

The Palace of Art

The Museum of Fine Art and the Palace of Art flank Hősök tere (Hero's Square) this is the Palace of Art which mainly has traveling exhibitions. It's Eclectic Neo-Classical, which means there are columns of the Corinthian variety, but there are other styles mixed in as well.

Andrássy út Decoration

A decorative building at the "fancy" end of Andrássy út.

Hősök tere

Hősök tere=Hero's Square at the end of Andrássy út. Andrássy út is a remarkably beautiful road that was deliberately planned to get wider and wider when approaching Hero's Square.




I found it interesting that originally this was supposed to be a full circle of sculptures, but for some reason it wasn't finished. Our tour guide joked and said that there needed to be 500 more years of history for people to do great things in order to make sculptures memorializing them.

Sign Says...

you've gotta have a membership card to get inside.

Not really, it's an exit sign, but it could visually say that you need a membership card to get inside. Anyway, I like it.

Is It Pooh?

I guess it doesn't look very much like Pooh, but who has ever seen a bear with a beehive as an architectural detail before? It just made me think of Pooh with his honey jar. I love it! It doesn't really look like the person who designed it had ever seen a bear, but maybe just an illustration in a book. It looks a bit like a drawn bear in 3-D.

Graffiti on the Palace Gate

This is a continuation from yesterday's post. It is the same palace entrance with some nice graffiti. (I do not condone defacing public property, but if you're going to do it do it well.) I don't ususally like skulls either, but this has an illustrative charm!

Brokedown Palace

These are pictures of details of the palace gate at the bottom of Castle Hill (Buda side) that was designed as a grand entrance to the Palace. It has definitely seen better days. There is graffiti all over it, it is boarded up, and parts are crumbling down. It tells of a country with grand monarchal beginnings which had been overthrown by a regime that did not want people to remember the country and city's glorious past. And so it decays.




(P.S. I love that movie by they way even though it has nothing to do with this post.)

Random Building Elements in Buda

These elements are from buildings right along the river on the Buda side of Budapest between the Szénchenyi Lánchíd and Erzsébet Híd.
I love the leaves around the lion's head, and I like how the lion's teeth are so pointy yet it is holding the fruits of plenty so gently.


The faces from the second building are just emerging from the flowers, which makes them look like they have turtlenecks on. They look so stiff yet they have such serene looks on their faces.

Váci utca at Night

This is the main walking/shopping street in the Pest section of Budapest. During the holiday season it is fun to walk to the end of Váci utca to Vörösmarty tér for the Christmas Market. And near the second and last picture is Fővám tér where Market Hall is, which is a beautiful indoor market where you can get all your salami, and paprika needs taken care of.






(tér=square)

The Parliament Building

This is the Parliament building in the Pest section of Budapest right on the river (as you can see.) Our tour guide said that there is always scaffolding on a section of the building because it was made with Sandstone from Hungary (some of the least element-resistant stone,) and now they are replacing it section by section. The Hungarians are very excited about using domestic materials for their civic projects. Why can't we be like that?...

This building is just a lot of spiky fun!

Erzsébet Híd

This bridge is not as interesting or lovely as the other bridges in Budapest. It is much more simple and modern looking, but that's a great view from my hotel window eh?

In the distance is Gellért Hill with a statue of Szent Gellért raising a cross over the city. Gellért was a missionary/Bishop from Italy who became a martyr when the Magyars nailed him into a barrel and rolled him down the hill into the river. This is how my guide book puts it, "Crucifix held high, the bishop glares down on the sinful metropolis. According to tradition, Bishop Gerhardus of Venice, know to the Hungarians as Gellért, paid for his missionary zeal with his life on this very spot" (Kluge-Fabényi & Markus 82).




This last picture shows the span and the tram you can take to see great views of Buda and the Duna.

Kluge-Fabényi, Julia, and Hella Markus. Prestel Guide Budapest. Trans. John Gabriel and Nancy Norwood. Munich: Prestel, 1994.

The Left Bank of the Duna

I really do not know what this building is, or rather used to be. It has office space in it now that was being advertised. It's near the Mariott Hotel where the "famous" all you can eat dessert buffet is (it may not be famous to everyone, but was to us when we were in Hungary 10 years ago to get egy kávét kérek, and dobos tortát kérek.) It is on the river walk by all the cafes between the Szénchenyi Lánchíd and Erzsébet Híd on the Pest side, or the left bank of the Duna.
(Duna=Danube River) (Híd=Bridge)





I love that there are faces coming out of the designs, and I think the lines of the designs are so elegant.

Széchenyi Lánchíd

Széchenyi Lánchíd=Széchenyi Chain Bridge, and is the most famous and oldest bridge in Budapest. It is a suspension bridge that was designed in 1839 to replace temporary floating bridges across the river and it was finished being built in 1849. Széchenyi István was one of the main supporters of building a permanent bridge, so it was named after him. This bridge was bombed in World War II, as were each of the seven bridges in Budapest in order to separate Buda and Pest.

Normally it is a bridge that cars drive over, but last weekend they were having a summer festival. People were selling food, drinks, and wares, and all automobile traffic was blocked off.







By the way the lions do have tongues. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about Google it!) Also, young children believe that the bridge gets pulled into the tunnel by Clark Ádám tér on the Buda side every night.