Budapest Day 3

Decided to wake up early and get to the train booking place early. It was pretty painless and I got my ticket for the train from Budapest to Ljubljana tomorrow (Wednesday).

I then found my way down to the Museum of Applied Arts which has an excellent collection of art nouveau objects and is itself housed in a specially designed period building. However it was closed because of the holiday yesterday. I was gutted! I was so looking forward to seeing it that I must confess I stamped my foot in frustration! Oh well. Took some photos of the exterior.

So I found my way down to the brand new Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art (I was getting to be quite an expert at the transportation system by this time) which is in a new area for museums and theatres, none of them very attractive from the outside, but quite interesting inside. There was an interactive centre where one could do their own interpretations of art by Hungarian artists. There was even one where the web cam took your photo and then presented it hung on various Budapest buildings.

Stopped in at the Central Market for a look around - it's a huge building with fresh produce and meat on the ground floor and souvenirs (chiefly lace and ceramics - very nice but really not my style!) on the upper levels. The produce all looked like great qualitz and there were loads of different varieties of salami for sales - it's just shame that I'm not going straight back to London today!

Went for a tour of the Hungarian parliament building next. As an EU citizen I got in free - result! Parliament buildings were very ornate with lots of painted interiors. Parliament was actually in session but we weren't allowed to go in.

Back at the hotel I decided to have a massage at the baths which was a very interesting experience! There were about eight women all getting massaged in the same room with the therapists (who were all about 60) chatting away over us. Certainly not the serene experience I'm used to! Was great therapy for my legs which were aching after walking around so much!

Met Heike for dinner again. After a detour to Cafe Gerbeau to buy some chocolates we had dinner at Fatal Restaurant which was a lot cheaper than last night. Huge portions though! It was great to meet Heike, who's a teacher who lives in Berlin.