Budapest’s Parliament Building

We have seen the building up close and from afar, during the day and in the evening.  It stands magnificently on the Pest side of the city and the view from the Buda side is very grand.  It is supposed to be one of the must-visits in Budapest and visit we did but we weren’t prepared well enough and we ended up not seeing the inside… 😦

Where we lined up to get tix for the guided tour.

Inside this door X tix for guided tours are sold...

What we didn’t know until we got there in time for the scheduled English guided tour one day was that even if you lined up at that time, you couldn’t get in immediately.  In fact we were told to come back the next morning and line up again to purchase tickets for an English guided tour for later that day.

Apparently they only allow a small number of people in at a time at this working parliament and the English tours sell out very fast (tours are available in different languages at different hours) and since tickets are only good on the day of purchase, you would have to line up early in the morning for the day’s allowance of tickets on any given day.  We didn’t have enough time for that unfortunately.

Anyway…

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The Hungarian Parliament

Budapest’s Most Beautiful Run-Down Building

I don’t know why it’s been abandoned like this but that seems to be the case with Párisi Udvar – the Paris Courtyard or the Arcade in Budapest.  I didn’t care for the very Gothic exterior so much but the interior with the beautiful domed ceiling was worth seeing.  Hopefully someone would invest and save it from further deterioration!

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Since my interior photos didn’t quite turn out right and it’s difficult to tell how the arcade is set up and where the beautiful features are from my photos, here is a video someone shot of the building.

Budapest’s Museum of Applied Arts

I am not much of a museum goer and I prefer seeing architecture to art.  The Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest was just right for me because the building itself was beautiful inside and out and the kind of “art” it presented was things people used in everyday life such as furniture, tableware, stationery, and other lifestyle goods which I find quite fascinating.

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Museum of Applied Arts

Scenes from the Old Town of Budapest I Liked

And that’s apart from the many shop signs that we saw in the Old Town.

Here we go:

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Modern Public Lighting in Budapest

Whenever I travel, I try to look for interesting and inspiring lighting indoors and outdoors.  I thought I had seen a few of these in Prague a couple of years ago and in Vienna earlier this year.  I had other photos taken of indoor lighting in Budapest but many of them didn’t turn out right so I do not have much to show and this one isn’t too great in terms of the quality of the photo but it’s still the one that stood out the most (to me) in Budapest and I like it that it’s in a public place, in one of the subway stations, for everyone to see and experience.