May 29, 2011: Church in Gellert Hill, Hero's Square, Castle, Zoo, Gundel's Restaurant

May 29, 2011: After meeting the Hunters, we proceeded to Gellert Hill where we first took a look inside the baths at Gellert Hotel. 

Baths at Gellert Hotel

After leaving Gellert Baths, we went to see the Church in Gellert Hill. Here is a picture of a statue in front of the church looking out over the Danube River and Freedom Bridge.

Unfortunately, my pictures inside the church were all blurry, but I was able to get a clear one of a fancily carved cupboard in one of the rooms.

Carved Cupboard in Church in Gellert Hill

From the church, we walked to the top of Gellert Hill to see Lady Liberty (see previous blog entry for pictures of this) and get beautiful views of the city and the Danube below us. Then we returned to the bottom of the hill and went to Hero's Square. When we arrived, there was a changing of the guards around some wreaths that were placed at the base of the central monument.

After visiting the monument, we approached the castle in the park and to my surprise, after having worked on it for over five years (at least I recall having seen this site under construction when I first came to Budapest in 2006, so it may be well over five years that reconstruction has taken place), I found that the refurbishment of the lake south of the castle had been completed and was now filled with water. There were people rowing boats and the lake had some unusual sites in it: some cars floating on the surface, a house that "accidentally" fell into the lake...

When we approached the castle, we found a huge festival going on. There were people and especially children all over the grounds and in the park behind the castle. Apparently, this was a children's festival and there were all sorts of booths for children and I hear that there were many international booths, too.

After exploring a few of the sites, we decided to have lunch at Robinson's, the restaurant just next to the lake in front of the zoo.

Robinson's Restaurant

One of the main purposes of coming to Hero's Square area was to go to the baths before dinner, and since we had much time to "kill" before dinner, I suggested a number of things we could do for a couple of hours and my guests selected going to the zoo. Although the animals were out, many of them were sound asleep so there was not too much activity going on as opposed to previous visits where the animals were out and playing. We had a good time anyway. Here are some pictures of animals I didn't include in my pictures of the zoo from previous visits. Note the sloths were close enough to touch (but I didn't).

After the zoo, we went to the Szechenyi Baths for a two hour soak. Here's a picture of a fountain in front of the baths (see previous blog entry for stunning pictures of the baths themselves).

Statue in front of Szechenyi Baths

Our time in the baths completely mellowed all of us just in time for dinner at the nearby Gundel's Restaurant. Our meal was quite professionally presented and the sauvignon blanc wine was the most outstanding sauvignon blanc I've ever tasted (It came from Buda -- can't remember the label name). 

Dinner at Gundel's Restaurant

While we ate, there was a full gypsy orchestra playing not only Hungarian melodies, but also light contemporary music. After our fine meal, we returned to our places for a well deserved rest. What a day!