The Hospital and the Castle

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We arrived in Budapest on Tuesday evening and were entertained by the Heaths.

They were talking about the "Hospital in the Rock" that we should visit.  We walked from the mission home up to where we thought the hospital should be.  There were three young people sitting on a bench overlooking a part of Budapest, so we asked them if they knew where it was.  They said to go back the way we came, but there was a gentleman, pictured below and not me, who told us in Hungarian that he would take us there, at least that's is what we think he said.  He was a bit inebriated, but we put ourselves into his hands.  He led us a couple of hundred meters back the way we came and there it was.  This hospital was built under "Castle Hill" where there are a couple of different types of rock making up the composition of the hill.  One of those was a softer stone and they were able to make "caves" throughout the hill.  There was a maze there that they took us through, although we only saw a part of it. It was amazing.  Our guide told us about the way the hospital was used during the Second World War and beyond.  We were not allowed to take pictures, but it was incredible.  One could very easily get lost in that maze.  There were many, MANY rooms serving as operating rooms, recovery rooms, triage rooms etc.  Most of the furnishing were from the earlier wars.  That is my bride standing guard at the gate.

    

That is the next patient standing guard at the gate.

                               These are the stairs we had to go up to get to the hospital. 

Then we headed up to Buda Castle.  T

This is St.Michael's church you can see in the background, and the Heaths and Shauna in the foreground.  

This is a statue of ??? which in the foreground of the church.

I can now hear your "Ooohhhs and Aaahhhhhs" with this picture.  That is the church you can see reflecting in the windows. 

The same thing below.

This crow sitting on top of a spire of the church has a gold ring in it's beak. The story goes that the raven carried away the gold ring of King Matthias. The king followed the raven and killed him and retrieved his ring. He then used the raven with the ring as his signet sign.

Now on to the Buda Castle.  

To me it looks just like a real castle and is so beautiful. It looks like a fairy tale castle. 

 

There is a bar place where one can buy drinks at the top of the stairs. There were a lot of people up there.  There was also a man playing the violin among this group.

Ann and Shauna on the stairs.  Many times I find it hard to believe we are there.

This is easily the most recognizable feature of Budapest, the Parliament Building.  It is as beautiful inside as it is outside. 

WOW.  The best of both worlds. 

Everywhere you go there are statues like this.  This is a beautiful place.  Someone said Budapest is one of the six most beautiful cities in the world.  It's hard to realize that at the end of World War II, most of this city was destroyed.  All of the seven bridges were blown up by the retreating Germans to keep the Russian Soldiers from being able to follow them.  Amazing history here.