Budapest last week (20 quid return on Ryanair, it pricks my environmental conscience, honest!)
I'll add some captions in the next day or two, can't be bothered tonight!
This fella was in a square behind the Parliament building, quite liked him cos he looked like he was telling some kids up to mischief to bugger off out of it!
A lion on the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, with Buda in the background. The Chain Bridge was designed by Englishman William TIerney Clark and built by the unrelated Scotsman, Adam Clark. The latter has a small square named after him on the other side of the bridge. All of Budapest's bridges were taken out by the Nazis as they fled after the war, so they've all been rebuilt to some extent or other.
The courtyard of the apartment block I was staying at. Very typical from what I saw, I thought it was cool!
The Hungarian State Opera House on Andrassy Utca, very opulent inside, but much smaller than I was expecting - I've got interiors but have yet to retrieve them from my mate's camera - I ran out of battery! Architect was Miklos Ybl, of whom more later!
View south from the Chain Bridge along the Danube. Gellert Hill on the right has the Citadel at the top, an unused fortification from the mid-1800s. The statue of the lady holding out a palm leaf at the top celebrates the city's liberation by the Russians at the end of WWII.
At the other end of the Chain Bridge is Buda Tunnel, also by Adam Clark. The incline railway on the left is the Siklo, which leads to a restored palace at the top on the right, which is now the presidential offices.
The closest I got to HG type activities was a poke around this - an abandoned gateway to the Buda Castle Garden Bazaar, which was closed in the mid 80s due to decrepitude! All that's left now is a series of gateways and ramps and some derelict land around the foot of the Castle. The architect was the ubiquitous (in Budapest, at least!) Miklos Ybl, and it was built around 1880.
A wider view of the derelict Bazaar
An ornate viewing platform called the Fisherman's Bastion, not actually all that old, but very nice place to view Pest, the Danube and bits of Buda. Sadly, quite a hazy day when I was there! The white building with scaffolding and a dome peeking out from behind the Bastion on the other side of the river is the Parliament, based on the House of Commons.
A different angle from the Bastion.
And another.
Just to prove that Glasgow isn't alone in terrible planning decisions, this is the main Hilton hotel in Budapest. Built in 1977, it involved the excavation and consolidation of the ruins of a medieval Dominican Church, which it was then built over and around - I'll leave you to judge how wise an idea this was, and how well executed you consider it!
Closer view of the "integration" of hotel and church ruins!
From memory (can't find my guide book!) this is the National Archives building, also in the Castle District - built in the 1920s, as I recall.
Benches for one down by the Danube
Although lots of the buildings look very grand at a distance, closer inspection reveals lots of them to be semi-derelict or in some disrepair. I liked this, must have been kinda what Glasgow was like in the early 80s as it started to find some new confidence to reinvent itself. The turbulent history of the place was visible all around.
Heroes' Square, with City Park in the background.
One of the squares on Andrassy Utca, a broad leafy and grand street - you might recognise it from the film version of Evita! Much of Munich was shot in Budapest too, it stood in for several cities - the first shooting in the stairwell takes place in Paris in the film, but was shot around the Opera House in Budapest.
A bizarre building in many styles, Vajdahunyad Castle is in City Park, and was built for an exhibition at the close of the 19th century. It now houses the Museum of Agriculture.
Also in City Park, this is the Szechenyi Baths - the city is littered with thermal baths and springs, so take your swimming cossie!
Ice-skating on the drained lake in City Park - I liked this, none of the cramped clutter that we have around the rink in George Square!
The Soviet Army Monument in Szabadsag Square. Under Communist rule, the city was littered with monuments to various Communist heroes, but almost all of these have been rounded up and moved to a park on the outskirts of the city as a kind of statue musem! This is one of the few that remain in situ, and like Lady Liberty up on Gellert Hill, celebrates the Russian army's liberation of the city at the end of WWII. Even so, this remains a contraversial monument, and protests seems to happen around it every now and again. Also in this square is the American Embassy, with the predictable barriers and closed streets around it - even the UK Embassy had barriers at each end of the road it's on, a sad state of affairs...
St Stephen's Basilica, the main city cathedral. Wonderfully gloomy interior, and a chance to see the withered, severed hand of St Stephen inside! Several architects had a hand, our old friend Miklos Ybl amongst them, it only having been around for about 140 years.
Interior shot of the dome, a pic that took considerable effort to obtain on the cheap 80 quid compact camera took!
Night view of the Chain Bridge and Buda Castle complex.
The Museum of Applied Arts, built by Odon Lechner around 1895. Budapest has some quite spectacular art nouveau and Secessionist buildings from this period, although some of the narrow streets and large trees make photographing them quite tricky!
Finally, a long shot of Buda Castle (now housing various museums) and the abandonded Garden Bazaar structures along the Danube.