Pictures from the Royal Castle at Buda

May and Me on the hill overlooking Pesc

After Saint Stephen's church, we parked in downtown Budapest and walked across the bridge to the Buda (hill) side of Budapest. Budapest was named after the 2towns Buda (on the hill) and Pesc and thus the name Budapest was formed.The first king, Stephen obviously occupied the castle overlooking the Pesc side and with the river as a natural deterrent, probably had a drawbridge or nothing at all, (they may have had to use boats to transport materials etc.) and this kept him away from the peasants. This has always been the hallmark of the rich, who create bastions like castles high above the town so that they can observe all that goes around the town and not be bothered by the commoners.


Szechenyi Chain Bridge linking Buda Castle with Parliament House

With a population of just 10 milion, Hungary has several well known figures worldwide, most famous in recent times is George Soros, head of the Quantum Fund which made billions of dollars during the 80s - late 90s in hedge funds.His partner, Jim Rogers, an American is a permanent resident in Singapore together with his family, and amazingly, Rogers has insisted on his 2 daughters on learning Mandarin, stating that Chinese language will be THE dominant language of the 21st century.

Several other famous names are Rubik, of Rubik's cube fame as well as the Hungarian Water Polo team which has won Gold in every Olympics since 1956, an amazing feat when you consider that Hungary has no border to any sea, and everyone learns to swim in the pool or public bath. Hungary is also famous for their Paprika, a chilli like vegetable, similar to the capsicum but far hotter !


Famous Hungarian Porcelain

On day 2, we drove to the famous Hungarian porcelain factory near Balaton and witnessed some of the most beautiful and expensive porcelain pieces. Costing anything from EUR 100 to hundreds of thousands of EURO, Hungarian porcelain has been renowned throuout Europe for its intricacy and colourfulness.There were entire tea sets made for the Royal Families of England, Holland and Belgium to name a few.



The porcelain process is similar to clay whereby the cups,saucers or teasets are first moulded by hand and then placed into an oven to set, after setting, the painting and the lacquering are ovelaid before the final product is ready.