Sept 2nd Budapest

Written by Jack van Ommen on September 2nd, 2010

It has stopped raining and the sun came out this morning but there still is a strong cold wind blowing from the North. I will be on my way later this morning. I wished the weather would have been nicer. I took a few more pictures with the brighter lighting, this morning. But now I am at an internet connection where the computer will not read my pictures.

I just have nothing but problems with the laptops and electronic gear. Yesterday I hooked my external drive to a Mac laptop apparently it asked me in Hungarian if I wanted to reformat the files to Mac and not understanding the language I hit the button. I have not been able to access it on a PC, it tells me that the files are empty. So, I might have a repeat of the Indochina lost pictures. All the pictures I have taken till a few days ago were removed from the camera to my external drive……. And I have no e-mail addresses any longer. I hope that there is a way to recover the data.

After Tuesday’s posting I climbed up to the Burg on the Buda side. There is a beautiful view across to Í Pest from the Matthias Church. This church has the colorful roof tiles in the picture on the previous blog. It was originally built in the 13th century but, except for the Gothic spires, the main building was redone at the end of the 19th century. The interior is a mixture of baroque and the middle eastern influence of the Ottoman time. It is one of the least attractive churches I have ever seen. The whole interior is plastered with frescoes. Very distracting. On the way back to the marina I got totally soaked. Wednesday I spent all morning on my laundry. Because the machine had to be restarted continuously and it is a bit of a walk from my berth. The mechanic retorqued my engine bolts and also had to readjust the clearances on the rocker arms and it appears that it might have fixed the black smoke problem. It also seems to run a little quieter. I’ll find out more today. One other good news is that my right eye seems to be on the way to recovery.  Yesterday afternoon I went back to the Pest side and climbed the tall towers of the Stephans Basilica and visited the church. This hold the relic of the hand of Saint Stephan, who also was the first Hungarian king. The largest European synagogue is in the same general part of Pest and is an unusual building and worthwhile to see the interior and the adjoining holocaust museum. But there was just a concert given when I tried to see the interior.

Last night the weather was dryer but cold and there were more people in the streets. One could spend weeks here and never run out of sights to take in. This city ranks very high on my favorite places ever visited. It was long time dream that became a(nother) reality.

 

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