Well… our little strategy for keeping it mellow yesterday in order to hit the tourist track hard today worked out great. The morning began with a short metro ride to the Pest side of town where we switched lines and road continental Europe’s oldest underground metro (constructed in the 19th century). Once we surfaced from the metro, Sam guided Jennifer and Teah to a popular café he had read about that was the old haunt of the dreaded secret police. We devoured our chocolate croissant and French toast quickly and washed the treats down with some tasty cappuccinos.
All full and wired for the day, we walked down the tree-lined Andrassy ut admiring the beautiful buildings that lined the street. The elaborate structures come to an end at the wide, tiled Hosok tere (Heroes’ Square) public space that holds a sprawling monument constructed to honor a historical Hungarian conquest.
After finding our way through the maze of tourists at Hosok tere, we crossed over a small bridge that led us to the City Park. While in the park we visited Vajdahunyad Castle, the parks schizophrenic attraction that was built in varied historical styles of Hungary, including Baroque, Romanesque, Gothic and Tudor. This castle was much smaller than the four previous castles we visited, but a fun site to see as you could stand in the middle of the castle spin around and get a good feel for the many different styles of architecture that have developed through the years. 
We continued our stroll through the park and came across the Szechenyi Baths. With a dozen thermal pools and five swimming pools, it was enticing to go in for a dip, but we knew that Teah would prefer to admire the structure from the outside and hop back aboard the metro to the busier part of town.
Sam’s most anticipated attraction of the day was a visit to Saint Stephen’s Basilica where he could get a glimpse of the mummified hand of King Stephen who died on August 15, 1038 and was later canonized a Saint in 1083. The Holy Right, as his hand is referred, holds a special place to the Hungarians as St. Stephen was the original King of Hungary and is responsibly for establishing Christianity in the region. Apart from the hand, only bone fragments remain of St. Stephen that are kept in churches throughout Hungary. 
Even though viewing the nearly 1,000 year-old hand was the main reason for visiting the basilica, you can see from the pictures that the structure itself is worth seeing. The scale of the structure is quite impressive as it towers above the tall buildings that flank the beautiful stone paved plaza that welcomes visitors to the church. Once inside, the ceiling and walls are adorned with beautiful paintings, stained glass windows and exquisite molding detail covered in gold.
Our next stop was to feed Teah on a park bench just outside the basilica’s plaza before grabbing a bite to eat at Elso Pesti Reteshaz, the first strudel house of Pest. We ordered a salad, chicken filled strudel and of course had to top the meal off with an apple filled strudel for desert.
All fueled up for the second half of our Budapest tour, we headed over to the 1884 neo-Renaissance Hungarian State Opera House. A beautiful $130,000+ Audi R8 was kind enough to stop traffic for us as we j-walked across the street to get a closer look at the building. The building was nice but when you are in a town scattered with impressive structures, Sam found the bright orange sports car a little more appealing.
Still feeling energized and ready to further explore the city, we made our way through the beautiful streets of Pest to the huge riverfront Parliament that visually dominates the waterfront on this side of town. We walked around the Parliament, admiring the elaborate building and beautiful park before hopping back aboard the metro for our hotel.
We both managed to get runs in before enjoying a delicious and filling dinner of pizza and risotto at our hotel. Even though we had such a great day seeing the sites of Budapest, we were definitely ready to hit the hay once we got back to our room.
Tomorrow we will jump on a train heading to Vienna and are looking forward to exploring all that this next city has to offer!
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