Day 81, Thursday, November 14, 2019

We take a river taxi this morning and finally get onto the Danube River.  There are all sorts of boats on the river…
including very long barges… river cruise ships,  and whatever this ship is.
Our taxi is quite nice, with tables and chairs on the top deck and a dining room on the main deck with white table cloths.  Not what we expected for a river taxi.  The ride is only four stops in the winter months so we also ride it back to where we started, just to spend a little more time on the river sight-seeing. There is a great view of the Buda Castle…  and an interesting row of houses on the Buda side of the river. We pass right under the Chain Bridge heading back towards the Parliament Building. The workers washing the sides of this river cruise ship waved to me when they saw I was taking pictures. The river was very calm and the sun was still low in the morning sky.  We could just make out the Liberty Statue we visited yesterday on top of the hill in the distance. We return to our stop near the Parliament Buildings and I get a great shot of this enormous building. The Budapest Parliament building is the third largest Parliament building in the world. It has 691 rooms, 20 kilometres of stairs and at 96 meters.  It is the same height as the St. Stephen’s Basilica.  We decided against visiting the interior in favour of spending our time outside.   This is our water taxi.  We saw several others but none of them looked as nice as this one.  I think we were just lucky and happened to catch the best one! The guards in front of the Parliament stand on opposite sides of this big flag pole and then every once in a while they march together round and round the flag pole.  We both think it must be quite tedious. We catch a bus back towards the Indoor Market.  I forgot to get a photo yesterday. We were looking for the ‘For Sale’ Pub, but when we walked in the waitress told us they weren’t open and refused to let me take a photo.  So here is one off of Trip Advisor.  If you have something for sale you write it on a piece of paper and stick it wherever you can.  This started before there was internet and now people pin whatever they want to the walls. There is straw and peanut shells all over the floor and candles on the tables.  Seems like an accident waiting to happen to me!

We walk from the market area back towards our apartment passing a variety of interesting buildings. Some of them were in need of restoration…
and others were well cared for. We stopped to see the University Library.  It is in an old palace, and we wandered about checking out the rooms.  This was the most interesting one, with its balcony, but I didn’t climb up to it.  The stairs were behind the librarian’s desk and I didn’t want to disturb all the people studying. Take a look at this corner…there are big bean bags for reading, or napping! We see flower boxes still in bloom in the middle of November, lots of these grey and black birds (they are Hooded Crows), interesting art work in shop windows, and this sign which translates to One Psalm.  No idea what that means.There are so many gorgeous buildings in this city…
it is easy to take too many building photos! After lunch and a rest we are back on the streets, looking for a puppet theatre.  We pass several buildings with wooden scaffolding, made with big timbers.  There are a lot of buildings that need work, and we see quite a few that are boarded up along one of Budapest’s main streets.
The puppet show is in Hungarian but we know the story and thought it would be a fun things to see.  The theatre was full of school kids who really enjoyed the show.  We did too.  Here are some fo the cast taking a bow at the end of the play… and some of the displays in the lobby. I did some drawing during the play.  These drawings were done in the dark so I couldn’t see what I had drawn until the lights came on.  Can you figure out what the play was?  There is a pretty big clue in my drawings.

I peek into this book store as we walk home after the play. I love book stores that look like this!These photographs were on the wall outside the House of Terror Museum. According ot Wikipedia “It contains exhibits related to the fascist and communist regimes in 20th-century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building.”   We pass this rather odd couple on our walk home, not far from the House of Terror.