AN DER SCHÖNEN BLAUEN DONAU

THE DANUBE WAS HIGH IN BUDAPEST - APRIL 2006

There are two places in Budapest I particularly love: the Parliament Building (Országház) and the Fishermen's Bastion (Halászbástya)! Here we have some pictures of either of them, and also photos from a very high Danube! In fact, in April 2006, BBC online was writing that «Hundreds of homes in Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania have been flooded as the Danube, swollen by heavy rain and snow melt, rises to record levels. A state of emergency has been declared in some areas as the authorities try to shore up defences and move out people threatened by the rising water». In Budapest the Danube was also quite high, but the city escaped major floods...

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DANUBE AND THE PARLIAMENT


"THROUGH THE ARCHES - The Parliament building seen from the Fishermen's Bastion. An impressive building constructed for the millennium celebrations of 1896 but completed only in 1902"



"THE PARLIAMENT, with its white neo-gothic turrets, stretches for 250 metres along the Danube. Here they look quite close; actually, it seems that the building is leaning towards the river"


"PEST AND THE GRESHAM PALACE - The white building at the centre was commissioned by the London based Gresham Insurance company in 1904 to Zsigmond Quittner and was completed in 1907 as an Art Nouveau palace. It houses now a beautiful Four Seasons Hotel"


"GOING UNDER - The day I took this pictures the waters had gone down 1.5 metres, and thus the barge was able to go under the Chain Bridge (Lánchid). It was the only one I saw during this stay in Budapest... But the bridge, built between 1842 and 1849 as the first permanent span across the Danube and reconstructed after WWII when the German Army destroyed the central span, was seen (and crossed) very often, as we were in Buda and came to Pest everyday..."

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THE FISHERMEN'S BASTION


"ISTVAN - St. Stephen (c.975 – 1038) was the first King of Hungary. Shortly after his death, healing miracles were said to have occurred and Stephen was canonized by Pope Gregory VII in 1083. The king's right hand, known as "The Holy Right", is kept as a relic. As Stephen was also canonised by the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2000, he became the first saint recognised both by Orthodoxs and Catholics since the Great Schism. The statue was erected in 1906"






"FISHERMEN'S BASTION - According to Wikipedia, «the Halászbástya or Fisherman's Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church. It was designed and built between 1895 and 1902 on the plans of Frigyes Schulek. Its seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled in the Carpathian Basin in 896». I adored this place since my first visit, as the views towards the Danube and Pest are absolutely stunning. No wonder the photos I've taken this time..."


"HILTON HOTEL - The Bela Pinter's building is famous for having incorporated a 13th century Dominican church and a wall from a 17th century Jesuit college; but from my point of view the best achievement is the reflection of Matthias Church as well as of the Fishermen's Bastion"




"MATTHIAS CHURCH - If you stroll on the Bastion you either see the Danube and Pest or the Hilton and the back of Matthias Church"




"FISHERMEN'S BASTION - Some more pictures"