Day 56 – June 10 Friday

A more casual start today – reluctantly it’s our last day in Europe – so a tidy up & repack of our luggage before another fabulous breakfast.  It was drizzling with light rain, so on with our coats & off we go.  We went on our own into the centre of Pest today, a short walk to catch Bus 105 & we got off at Heroes Square.  This is a huge remembrance statue series of all Hungary’s kings & looks very impressive.  The extra large bronzes have great detail & below each statue is a bronze memorial featuring some action that king was remembered for.  The rain had stopped by the time we finished at the square & we managed to get some good photos amongst all the different bus tour groups coming & going.

Back to Bus 105 & next stop was near Saint Stephen’s Basilica.  This is a huge cathedral & inside the opulence of the Catholic Church surfaces again.  The beautiful marble, the elaborate gilded carvings, the magnificent painted ceilings, with life-like cherubs – all stunning.  This is one of the nicer cathedrals, it is clean & tidy with very neat lines.  Each of the chapels is elegant without being over the top & the stained glass windows are simply beautiful with the light behind them.  The high domed centrepiece is again another magnificent work of art, photos do not do it justice.  One of the highlights is St Stephen’s Chapel at the back of the church.  In this chapel is the preserved hand of Saint Stephen, enclosed in an elaborate silver wireframe church, with a special light (pay for it) to light the enclosure up.  Another very significant religious Icon that we have visited.  We could call this trip the “Euro – religious – Trek” with the number of churches of different religions we have been in & the number of very significant religious icons we have seen.

We wandered out into the square & followed our noses looking at one magnificent streetscape after another – Budapest is a really beautiful city, the old buildings with elaborate carvings & statues are being well restored & preserved (not all) & the park settings & pedestrian areas are well done.  We took photo after photo before visiting the Church of St Ann.  This church is undergoing significant restoration & a previously unknown fresco has been uncovered during the restoration.  This church is beautiful inside as well, but pales behind the St Stephens Basilica.  We wandered around a little more, stopped for a hot chocolate & coffee in a famous coffee shop called Auguszt that has been in the same family for five generations.  Back to Bus 105 & back to Bela’s house without any drama at all.  We were relieved it was this easy (Bela & Gyorgyi gave us very good directions).  Gyorgyi had again prepared a wonderful meal for us, she is such a good cook & enjoys it as well.

We left for the airport around 3.30pm for the 30km drive & had no hassles with check in.  The British Airways flight took a shade over 2 hours to get to London, then by the time we got the transit bus to the Qantas terminal & walked to the gate it was time to board.  The take off was delayed by around an hour due to a severe storm that hit the airport a shade after we landed & by the time we took off, there were around 16 planes lined up behind us waiting to depart.

It was great to see & spend time with Bela & Gyorgyi they gave us 5 star treatment, looking after us all so well.  Thanks to Bela we managed to see the most important sights to see in both Buda & Pest in such a short time.