Budapest

I know it's taken me a while, but I wanted to put up the pics I took in Budapest! It was a great trip, and it might be my new favorite city, mainly because of how much it exceeded my expectations. I was reading about it before I visited, and all the stuff about it being a former Soviet city made me picture it as being pretty ugly. Fortunately, that was not the case! It actually was gorgeous, with buildings and monuments left over from when it was ruled by the Habsburg family (as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and the Turks (Ottoman Empire). Originally it was two cities, Buda and Pest, that got too big and eventually combined into just one, Budapest. 

Monument in Heroes Square.

Guards outside Buda Castle.

So many pretty flowers!

View from the top of castle hill.

Us at the castle!

The only picture I have of myself where my eyes aren't closed. Yay!

We also took a day trip to Eger, a smaller city about two hours away. From there we walked about 15 minutes to the edge of town, to a place called the Valley of the Beautiful Women, where we got wine for the equivalent of 50 cents a glass. Here's some pics of the city.

And this is a pic of the Parliament Building in Budapest that I snapped before I left. The building is massive, and was built by the Habsburgs right before they lost control of the city.