It is our second trip to Budapest and it was great to see things at a different time of the year, Budapest is a lovely city at nights with the bridges and castle on the hill!
Our first day was exploring Castle Hill, we enjoyed looking at the statues around the castle grounds and visited the Museum. The museum was relatively simple, we enjoyed the underground part the best. After the museum we made our way to Matthias Church and the Fisherman's Bastion. Fisherman's Bastion is such a fantastic place, it really feels like something out of a fairytale. We spent the afternoon at a Spa Resort, we were aiming for something a little more authentic to Hungry but this place was great for the kids, although Liam was a bit short for some of the rides he wanted to go on.
Day two we did a walking tour, we learnt about Hungarian history and the city of Budapest. We finished the tour at the Chain Bridge before making our way to a large inside market "Great Market Hall". After this Lisa found a place for a Thai massage because of her sore shoulder, while she did this we watched some street performers and visited the Christmas markets.
On a slightly different note we visited a not so common attraction 'Memento Park' the next day. Rather than destroying statues left from the Russian communist regime like many countries the Hungarians moved the statues to a park on the outskirts of Budapest. The statues are generally very large and imposing, they are mostly of strong powerful looking men or communist leaders such as Lenin, Marx and Engels. After the park we drove up the the Liberty Statue, she is also from the communist era however the people of Budapest thought she was so beautiful that they wanted her to remain. They covered the Liberty Statue with cloth and had a cleansing ceremony and now she is a significant statue about the freedom and liberty of Budapest.
You can't visit Budapest without a stop at City Park which is home the the Vajdahunyad Castle. The grounds are quiet different in the winter compared with the summer, but it was still a nice walk through the park, playing at the play park and taking photo's with statues. The afternoon was a quick whip around St Stephen's Basilica to see his 'hand'.
Once again we stayed in Budapest by home exchanging. We had trouble finding our home but made it in the end. This time our home wasn't fancy but we all fitted in with a place to sleep and there was wifi for Taylor and plenty of toys to keep the kids entertained. Our first home exchange that we forgot to take a photo!
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