Buda

To really find tourists in Budapest you go up to the Castle District. This is the "Buda" of Budapest, "Pest" being on the opposite side of the Danube. It pretty much has everything for the standard tourist - attractive streets to wander in, impressive church, great views, museums and a castle/palace.

Ok let's start with streets and squares. Attractive? Check.

Was that really how it was? Well yes, apart from the roads being taken up. Everywhere has roadworks.

Now church. Impressive? Check.

Matyas Church is actually a baroque church restored in a Neo-Gothic style in the 19th century. Perhaps its most notable feature is the tiled roof which really gleams in the sun.

So, impressed? Yeah, but was it really like that? Just a bit of selective photography. Actually the interior is being restored - its mostly covered in scaffolding, Japanese tourists and more polythene sheeting than you have seen in your life. Like this.

Views. Great? Check.

Well, when you are on a hill overlooking the Danube, what do you expect? Actually the views are taken from the Fisherman's Bastion, which look like fortifications but of course yet again it is a Victorian fake. But a lovely fake which serves a great purpose, to look across the Danube at one of the finest Parliament buildings in Europe - more pleasing than, I have to say, Westminster. It incorporates an expensive restaurant too.

Museums?

Well there is a museum of military history.

But you wouldn't come up here for that.

 Then there is the Labyrinth Museum, but you certainly shouldn't come up for that. Its rubbish. Indeed it doesn't really have anything you would call an exhibit, just some bits from the Budapest Museum and left in the tunnels and caves that go under Buda. I imagine them begging for some exhibits and an unhelpful museum director sucking his teeth and saying, "Well, there was some rubble left after an archaeological dig somewhere in the basement. You could have that...."

But no, you would come for the Hungarian National Gallery and the Museum of Budapest, both housed in the Castle/Palace. I went only to the Museum, having visited the Gallery on a previous trip. I was a bit short on time (and energy) by this stage, having also had to take shelter from the mother of all thunderstorms. Even in a waterproof you didn't want to be out in that one. Anyway, let's start with a look around before we go in.

Ok enough, now to go in. The glory of the Budapest History Museum isn't so much its historic collection, but the building itself. For it contains the remains of the medieval castle - chapel, vaults, and an internal courtyard. So its worth a visit even if you don't really like looking at cases of old bits and pieces. Which I do.

But one of the nicer spots I found in the district was a tiny public art gallery with a pictueresque courtyard garden.

And finally, just some arty shots - reflections in the (hideous) Hilton hotel, the ruined church of St Magdalene and through stained glass windows in the castle.