A long hot day exploring the Pest side of Budapest today. Started off with a guided walk through the main part of town which is filled with fabulous old buildings but importantly lots of street trees providing shade.

Started with the Inner City Parish Church which the survived the war but almost didn’t survive the elevated road proposed to run through it. In the end the road is just 50mm from the church.

Shakespeare got a statue because Hungarian was apparently the first language it was translated into.

The imposing St Stephen’s Basilica is exactly the same height as the Parliament building to signify the equality of church and state.

Also got to hear the bells.

The Parliament Building is very impressive and situated right on the bank of the Danube River.

We got to play in the magical fountain.

On the banks of the Danube there is a memorial to those killed in the Holocaust with lots of bronze shoes left behind.

We saw a few interesting buildings and visited several museums including the National Museum (very interesting section on history of Hungary), Design Museum (good architecture section), Fine Art Museum (not that much of interest to us but the building was impressive) and two photography museums (one was great, one not so).

The underground railway in Budapest is the second oldest in the world (after London) and it is literally just underground. The photo below is taken from platform level – about 3m below ground.

After all that walking it was time for dip of the feet in water – for a rest and cool off.

This day in sporting history (16 July)

1960 205,000 (record sports attend) see Brazil-Uruguay World Cup soccer