Budapest, Hungary

From Garmisch, we drove seven hours to Budapest.  The very first thing we experienced was the lemonade.  Brian dropped us off at the apartment to get settled and he ran out to get lemonade for us.  Apparently, lemonade is a big thing in Budapest.  We went out and walked down the main shopping street.  We had ice cream before dinner because, you know, vacation and all that.

We had dinner at a Jewish restaurant called Fulemule.  We were double checking the menu outside and a woman walked passed us and told us it is a great restaurant.  Judah was happy that he got to order a giant bowl of hummus with pita bread, his favorite food ever.  At first he said it was different and he didn't like it, but he quickly changed his mind and finished the whole thing.

The next day was to be our only real full day in Budapest.  We started with putting a smile on everyone's face when we ordered pancakes and flavored lemonades for everyone.  Brian and I had fancy Viennese coffees instead of lemonades.

We had a list of things to see, but mainly we wanted to get a feel for the town and enjoy some of the cuisine since it was such a short trip.  We started with St. Stephan's Basilica, the largest church in Budapest.  The impressive door has the twelve apostles on it.

We stopped in first for adoration before exploring the attractive church.

Love this one!

 We began the ascent up the steep road to the castle.  It was a sunny, warm day (read: hot, to my children).  We stopped to look at all kinds of architecture and statues as we walked through this beautiful city.  It has a similar feel to Prague.

Unfortunately, our timing was off because just as we got to St. Matthias Church, they were closing it for a wedding.  We ended up sharing a couple pizza's to tide us over at the top of the hill before going across to St. Margaret's Island where we ate ice cream and watched the fountain show.  It is choreographed to music and the particular show we caught was the children's hour.  They played some familiar songs and the water danced for us.  

We crossed the bridge again and went to a Hungarian restaurant to have goulash.  After that we walked by Parliament and saw the ending of the flag ceremony.  That really made me appreciate the USA and our reverence for our flag.

In front of Parliament, the kids played in an infinity pool, or rather played behind it while I took pictures.

We ended the day seeing the Holocaust Shoe Memorial by the Danube.  It is a row of metal shoes quietly reminding passers by of when the Jews had to take off they're shoes before they were executed.