A Night in Budapest

We went to Budapest for the Opera "Carmen"

We needed to get some photos taken so that we can renew our international drivers licences. We walked to the Metro (subway) to the photo booth.  It's not far from the mission home.

If you look just over the trams you can see when we go to get on the subway.  This area is a place where a lot of "pan handlers" are.  There is also  a big mall just across the street to the left. This is one of the major hubs in Budapest for public transit.  

On way back to the mission house there is this little quaint church that I have always wanted to look at, so I prevailed upon Shauna to go there.  Notice the cute little door just to Shauna's right.  I love things like that.

This is just from the other side.  Just to the right of this is a larger church which, I am sure, is the one they use.  But I am always fascinated by "old things".  That is why I spend so much time looking in the mirror!

This is the church next to the old one. We were able to step inside. It is a beautiful church.  

This is our group, minus the guy taking the picture!

  

This is the Opera House.  It is on a very busy street.  This street is the called Andrassy Street, which is in the middle of Budapest.  It took them 9 years to build it, from 1875 to 1884.  It was renovated from 1980 to 1984.  It 'grand reopening"  was exactly 100 years from it's first opening.

It has the third best acoustics in Europe.  

This is a close up of a Egyptian Statue.  I love the statues.

This the base of the lamp in front of the building.  Notice how ornate it is  The lanterns are gold in color. Too bad you only get to see the base! 

This is a statue of Ferenc List, a native born Soproner.  This is the Heaths, who are the new audit couple.

The is the place where you can check your coats.  

The next ones are taken within the opera chamber.  Again, notice how ornate everything is.

I took this from our seat to the left.  

This was taken to the right.  

 

This is looking towards the back of the auditorium.  Notice all the "boxes" all around.  I suspect the box in the middle is saved for "special people."  They are NOT the cheap seats.  Speaking of seats, they certainly weren't the most comfortable seats I have ever sat on.                              

This is the ceiling of the opera house, and the chandelier weighs 3060 kilos.. that is about 6000 pounds.  Everything in this building is just beautiful.

This is the famous Budapest Opera House stage.  We are anticipating the start of the opera "Carmen."  Luckily our land lady had a CD with the story of it so we kind of knew what was going on.  The performance was in Italian, the subtitles in Hungarian and we still have English brains. We were, however, able to recognize a few Hungarian words.