Sunday, June 24, 2007

Budapest!!

OK, so last month Lea and I went to Budapest. However, I have been extremely slow in putting up now pictures. I'm sorry.




Budapest used to be two cities, Buda and Pest. People still refer to them by those names. Here I am looking across the Danube. I'm standing in Buda and looking at Pest (that's surprisingly fun to say).



In the picture above you can see one the most famous of Budapest's Danube Bridges, the so-called Chain Bridge. It's very pretty, and at night it lights up.



Umm, we really didn't take very many pictures. But Budapest is a beautiful city, and there's lots of Turkish influence. The language is actually related to Turkish. Also, there's lots of Turkish architecture and Turkish baths around. The Turkish baths are fun, and very relaxing.



This here is a picture of the Magyar palace. They were part of the Hungarian ruling elite for centuries, and the Hapsburg Empire became the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the mid 1800s, granting the Magyars a high level of autonomy (although there was little in the way of Democracy in Hungary at that time).