History catch up

We started our day at the Halocaust Memorial - all too dark to take photos.  It was mostly a lot of photos, old film clips and very dour background music.  We came out feeling we had a huge burden on our shoulders.  The weight of history must still weigh heavily on the shoulders of Hungarians.  It took us a long while to recover from confronting such recent history.

We brightened ourselves with a pleasant lunch in a very English pub just around the corner from the National Museum, which was next on our agenda.

Again we couldn’t take photos, but it was such a grand entry I snuck a quick one in!

We learnt a great deal about the history of this downtrodden nation.  It certainly helps to understand the diaspora of its peoples and their demeanour.

Just as an aside, in case I forget - for dinner tonight Alan had roast duck liver with roasted apples.  It melted in the mouth.  Even I liked it!

Tonight was an amazing contrast to the early events of the day: we went to an organ concert at St Stephens Basilica!  Oh my.  The sound of the Great Organ reverberated around this small cathedral, with the lower notes seemingly vibrating our seats!  There were also trumpet solos, and several Ave Maria’s sung by soprano.  It was all the well known stuff, Handel’s Water music, Purcell Trumpet voluntary, Bach’s Toccata, Air and Fugue in D minor, and Widor’s Toccata from his Organ Symphony as the grand finale!  It was as if the music was meant to be played here: all the statues, fresco’s, angels and glittering gold leaf were all came to life with the music.  

What an astounding finish to our Budapest visit.  (I wish there was a way of capturing the atmosphere and sound of the experience) But this picture will have to suffice.