Architecture

While being driven through the late night lit up streets of the city the above thoughts went through my mind, the buildings solid and heavy, the serious looking people, the streets wide and straight, it all gave the impression of things being grounded. Solid.
I loved it straight away and my extended walk around the old town of Pest did not disappoint the next day. I immediately noticed that even though the buildings appeared ‘heavy’ they were far from it. A variety of architectural styles; neo-classical, neo-renaissance, neo-baroque, and art nouveau. Many beautiful buildings to be seen. I visited the St. Stefan Basilica first, all around it there were Christmas market stalls, the ambience was very pleasant. The basilica was impressive, the lightning gave just the right feel for the beautiful arches, capitals, the cupola, and other features, I took quite a few photos. When leaving, as I walked down the steps the bells rang out over the town, a sound that I truly love and enjoyed.
I wandered around part of the old town, looking up more than down and was amazed and delighted to see the ornate windows everywhere, again I tried to document some of these features as I’m quite fascinated by them.
This was only a three day visit to Budapest, we did not get to see the other part of the city which is called Buda and is across the river Danube. But we will return in May next year, looking forward to see and find out more.

As for the people, lovely and very polite, but more about that in another blog. And plenty more photos too. I’ve sure come away with nice memories.

Been away for a couple of days doing some business in Dublin. We went up there by train, hence a couple of photos of a most beautiful train station below. I’ve always admired the architecture of this building. It’s reported to be designed in 1846 by Sancton Wood, a British architect from Hackney in London. Heuston station is based on the design of an Italian palazzo (that’s probably why I like it so much). It’s Corinthian columns are very intricate and decorative, (I photograph columns wherever I find them on my travels, they are the most beautiful things).
Anyway, amongst the city’s buildings and people I found some bright and cheerful Crocuses and also a little snail which I found sitting on Ian’s coat, probably dropped there by a bird, it clung on to my finger like mad and so I found it a plant to sit on. Life is funny, at home you will try and drown snails so that they stop eating your young vegetables, but in this city scene I would have thought it bad practice to kill the little snail. The Liffey is the river running through the city. Dublin has some very interesting places to visit, one of them I would have liked to go and see an exhibition in, but as it turned out we did not get to it, the Chester Beatty museum that is, a wonderful place indeed, full of ancient and Eastern illustrated manuscripts.