Budapest sightseeing, round three. (My feet cry Uncle!)

(A quick blog again today, as all this writing is interrupting my Olympic game viewing and my time in Slovenia!)

Budapest is huge, with sooo many things to see. We have accepted the fact that we can't see everything we want to see here (had to skip Memento Park, for example. This is where the communist statues came to live after being pulled down from around the city). Today, our last day, we did have another good day of covering the city on foot and saw most of the remaining things from our "list."

1) Walked from the hotel to the Great Synogogue. It was restored with donations from around the world after being desecrated by fascists. There is a museum and memorial as well as the synogogue, which costs about $15 to visit (not covered with our Budapest Card). We just looked at the building itself, which is the largest synogogue in Europe. Good.

2) Took the subway to the extry-fancy gothic Parliament building. Peaks, points, spikes...very cool.

3) Went to the Museum of Ethnography. (You may think I am some kind of museum freak, we have visited so many here in Budapest. Not the case at all. It's because our Budapest Cards cover the admission :^) This one was really interesting! Showed the lives and development of the people here, including how Christmas is celebrated, how farm houses were arranged, how weddings were performed, etc etc etc... this museum was really well done and interesting.

4) Walked south, along the Danube. It was super hot out and it wasn't a very nice walk at all, until we got to the famous Chain Bridge, where the cafe-lined promenade (Korzo) started. We had lunch at the first place that looked good, and was it ever fantastic! We had a wonderful pizza and fresh salads. The Budapest food scene has turned a corner for us at last.

5) Hopped on the tram to get down to Vasarcsarnak (Central Market), which is a collection of food stalls and various vendors under one (very large) roof. The building is 19th century, completely renovated, reopened in 1994. We strolled the halls but did not buy anything...I am just not interested in the lacework and embroidery that is so prevalent here. The produce looked fantastic though, and the locals were out buying their groceries here.

6) Made the loong walk back to the hotel from there, stopping for a delicious gelato on the way home.

Spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the room (my feet are under protest: no more walking!) and had McDonald's take out from around the corner. That's embarrassing. to say..but it was an easy option and their salads were surprisingly fresh and good.

Back to the Olympics...I am addicted.