A Saturday in Budapest

We woke up to partly cloudy skies and were able to spend the entire day rain-free, the first time in 5 days!. We walked around the Castle District admiring all the incredible architecture of the churches, royal palace, and other stately buildings. The St. Matthais church is stunning, its roof being made of hand painted ceramic tiles. I overhead a tour guide say that the tiles were made by the same person, which must have almost been a life's work. The area around the church is undergoing renovation, including pipeline replacement. We took a look in some of the diggings and could see the stratigraphy of ancient, brick-lined roads. We also took pictures of on-going excavations along the outskirts of the castle wall. I know I'm not supposed to be "working" but it's hard to pass up a chance to see some archaeology.

The souvenir shops are full of hand-painted ceramics and beautiful hand-embroidered goods. The latter are a bit pricey though, so I decided not to splurge although the piece I was looking at would be beautiful on my parent's buffet. Rachel bought a fur-lined scarf/hat, while Greg some traditional Hungarian sweet paprika. We tried a few different food dishes today. Rachel had goulash soup for lunch, while Greg had venison with a plum sauce for dinner - he said it was excellent.

There's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow, so I'm not sure we'll be outdoors much. There is a labyrinth underneath the Buda castle that we're planning to visit, rain or shine. And then, of course, there is the Italia soccer game in the afternoon. Forza Azzurri !!