My Summer in Europe - Budapest Part 2

If you saw my first post covering our trip in Budapest, you know how much I loved it. It is such an amazing city. There were so many photos I wanted to share that I had to break it up into two posts, so here goes again.

The Hungarian Parliament Building is one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings and the largest building in Hungary.

Aerial views from the top of St. Stephen's Basilica

A view of Castle Hill - you can see the top of Fisherman's Bastion

Along with my 10 week backpacking trip with my fiance Chris, I have also done traveling on my own to France and Italy.  Traveling alone is an enjoyable, albeit different experience than traveling with a friend.  Everything is on your scheduled and your preferences.  I think it's becoming more popular to take single vacations, as more and more places are advertising themselves to the lone traveler.

One of the highlights for me was the stunning, not-to-be-missed Matthias Church.  Unfortunately because of the bright spotlights from the ceiling, and our not-so-great camera, it was hard to capture the beautiful blue of the ceiling.

If you really like these you MUST go to 360 Cities where you can click and drag for a 360 degree, high res. view of the church

Here are some screen grabs from 360 cities.

Here's that list again of all my posts from our travels that I've posted -

Spain
•Introduction to my European backpacking trip and a list of places we visited
• Galicia - Baiona and Isle de Cies
• Galicia - the coast, some charming vineyards, and Pontevedra
• Santiago de Compostela and gorgeous hidden beaches
• Gorgeous mountain lakes of Picos de Europa
• Stunning mountains - Picos de Europa
• Bilbao and San Sebastian
• Beautiful Barcelona
• The amazing Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
• Art Nouveau dream house by Gaudi in Barcelona

Italy
• Not to miss - the gorgeous rocky coast of Italy's Cinque Terre
• More from my summer traveling Europe - amazing Rome
• From my summer in Europe - amazing Pompeii
• Turquoise ocean and vineyards on cliffs - the amazingly stunning Amalfi coast
• My Summer in Europe: Pictures from lovely Florence, Italy
• Enchanting Siena
•Venice
•Lake Como, Italy

Switzerland
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 1
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 2

Germany
• One of my favorite cities from my European backpacking trips - Ulm, Germany
• Lake Constance
• Cute HOUSE Overload - the charming medieval homes of Germany's Romantic Road
• Regensburg, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria  

Austria
• Salzburg
• A charming lakeside village, Hallstatt
• Beautiful Vienna
• Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna

Hungary
• Budapest Part 1

*disclosure: This post is brought to you in partnership with Varvacations.com

You have read this article backpacking through europe / Budapest / European Architecture / Hungry / Matthias Church / medieval city / travel photography with the title medieval city. You can bookmark this page URL https://bellashabby.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-summer-in-europe-budapest-part-2.html. Thanks!

More from my summer in Europe - AMAZING Budapest

Budapest may not always be on the top of people's European dream destinations, but let me tell you - it blew my mind! The city is so real, the people warm, and the sense of history is everywhere. We also had some of our most favorite meals there!

Here are some fast facts about Budapest:
"Cited as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, its extensive World Heritage Site includes the banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter, Andrássy Avenue, Heroes' Square and the Millennium Underground Railway, the second oldest in the world.  Other highlights include a total of 80 geothermal springs, the world's largest thermal water cave system,  second largest synagogue, and third largest Parliament building. The city attracts about 2.7 million tourists a year, making it the 37th most popular city in the world according to Euromonitor."
via Wikipedia

Budapest was once two different cities, Buda, the hilly section on the West side of the Danube, and Pest, the flatter East side.

I mostly enjoyed the ancient sites on the Buda side, like Fisherman's Bastion.

A view of the Parliament Building on the East "Pest" side from within Fisherman's Bastion on the East "Buda" side.

The Hungarian Parliament Building is the third largest.

How gorgeous are the rooftops of Matthias Church?

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge is an amazing way to get great views of the city.

Chris and I taking a much needed rest

The architecture all over the city is breathtaking.

A Special Note on Traveling / Travel Tip

When traveling for long periods of time on a budget,  your biggest cost will most likely be lodging. Hostels tend to get a bad rap stateside, but in Europe I stayed in MANY hostels much nicer than the economy hotels in the states.

However, Hostels in Europe abound, and sorting through and selecting the right one for you can be a challenge. I recently stumbled upon a new hostel booking site: PackerShack. Unlike other existing hostel booking sites, PackerShack places a strong emphasis on its map. One of the hardest parts of our hostel search was flipping back and forth between google maps and the hostel booking site to see if the hostel we were checking out was within walking/metro distance of the sites we planned on seeing.  With PackerShack, you can easily sort the list of available hostels by price or by ratings. I wish PackerShack had been around when we were planning our trip!

Click on the image for a larger view of PackerShack's user interface.

Here's that list again of all my posts from our travels that I've posted -

Spain
•Introduction to my European backpacking trip and a list of places we visited
• Galicia - Baiona and Isle de Cies
• Galicia - the coast, some charming vineyards, and Pontevedra
• Santiago de Compostela and gorgeous hidden beaches
• Gorgeous mountain lakes of Picos de Europa
• Stunning mountains - Picos de Europa
• Bilbao and San Sebastian
• Beautiful Barcelona
• The amazing Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
• Art Nouveau dream house by Gaudi in Barcelona

Italy
• Not to miss - the gorgeous rocky coast of Italy's Cinque Terre
• More from my summer traveling Europe - amazing Rome
• From my summer in Europe - amazing Pompeii
• Turquoise ocean and vineyards on cliffs - the amazingly stunning Amalfi coast
• My Summer in Europe: Pictures from lovely Florence, Italy
• Enchanting Siena
•Venice
•Lake Como, Italy

Switzerland
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 1
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 2

Germany
• One of my favorite cities from my European backpacking trips - Ulm, Germany
• Lake Constance
• Cute HOUSE Overload - the charming medieval homes of Germany's Romantic Road
• Regensburg, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria  

Austria
• Salzburg
• A charming lakeside village, Hallstatt
• Beautiful Vienna
• Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna

You have read this article backpacking through europe / Budapest / European Architecture / Hungry / medieval city / travel photography with the title medieval city. You can bookmark this page URL https://bellashabby.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-from-my-summer-in-europe-amazing.html. Thanks!

More from my European backpacking trip - the colorful and unusual Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna

I have really dropped the ball on sharing my images from my 2010 summer backpacking around Europe, so I'm going to try to do it more often. I'll pick up right where we left off, in beautiful Vienna, Austria. I'm sharing with you today the very cool and unusual Kunst Haus Wien, a museum celebrating the work of Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

 A little bit about the house and Friedensreich:

   Hundertwasser's original and unruly artistic vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, and design of facades, postage stamps, flags, and clothing (among other areas). The common themes in his work utilised bright colours, organic forms, a reconciliation of humans with nature, and a strong individualism, rejecting straight lines. He remains sui generis, although his architectural work is comparable to Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in its use of biomorphic forms and the use of tile. He was also inspired by the art of the Vienna Secession, and by the Austrian painters Egon Schiele (1890–1918) and Gustav Klimt (1862–1918). He was fascinated by spirals, and called straight lines "the devil's tools". He called his theory of art "transautomatism", based on Surrealist automatism, but focusing on the experience of the viewer, rather than the artist. via Wikipedia

 The museum ... is designed in typical Hundertwasser style, with wavy, undulating floors and a notable lack of straight lines. Bright, glaring colours are used throughout, and foliage abounds. There is a fountain in the foyer, and a restaurant with abundant plant life reminiscent of a winter garden. An unevenly winding staircase leads to the main part of the exhibition on the upper floors. To keep the rooms flooded with daylight, Hundertwasser, who was said to be fond of sunlight and therefore windows too, had a glass frontage built in front of the facade.via Wikipedia

Hundertwasser designed an apartment building close to the Museum, it also "features undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a divine melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows." -via Wikipedia

The exterior...

A shot from the staircase.  Notice the curve of the floor where it meets the wall below.

  4 images above via my honey

Below are some shots of the gallery spaces

via Kunst Haus Wien

 Hudertwasser dabbled in almost all forms of 2D and 3D art. He started as a painter but ultimately focused on architecture. Here are some of my favorite works in some of his various mediums:

so beautiful!  Many of his lithographs have metallic gold accents, which makes them especially beautiful, but that aspect doesn't come through well in photographs.
via Hundertwasser.com

My favorite part of so many of his 2D works are the markings he makes on the sides and bottom.
via Art Brokerage

One of his postage stamp designs

via Photobucket

Some of his architectural masterpieces:

A model of the Bad Blumau, a spa

2 images above via Flickr

2 images above are of the Rogner Bad Blumau, in eastern Austria
via Paintings Art Picture

Hundertwasser with another one of his models

via Picasa

I hope you've enjoyed this little glimpse of Vienna and one of it's most cherished artists!

Here's that list again of all my posts from our travels that I've posted -

Spain
•Introduction to my European backpacking trip and a list of places we visited
• Galicia - Baiona and Isle de Cies
• Galicia - the coast, some charming vineyards, and Pontevedra
• Santiago de Compostela and gorgeous hidden beaches
• Gorgeous mountain lakes of Picos de Europa
• Stunning mountains - Picos de Europa
• Bilbao and San Sebastian
• Beautiful Barcelona
• The amazing Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
• Art Nouveau dream house by Gaudi in Barcelona

Italy
• Not to miss - the gorgeous rocky coast of Italy's Cinque Terre
• More from my summer traveling Europe - amazing Rome
• From my summer in Europe - amazing Pompeii
• Turquoise ocean and vineyards on cliffs - the amazingly stunning Amalfi coast
• My Summer in Europe: Pictures from lovely Florence, Italy
• Enchanting Siena
•Venice
•Lake Como, Italy

Switzerland
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 1
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 2

Germany
• One of my favorite cities from my European backpacking trips - Ulm, Germany
• Lake Constance
• Cute HOUSE Overload - the charming medieval homes of Germany's Romantic Road
• Regensburg, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria  

Austria
• Salzburg
• A charming lakeside village, Hallstatt
• Beautiful Vienna

You have read this article Austria / backpacking through europe / Bad Blumau / Friedensreich Hundertwasser / green architecture / Kunst Haus Wien / medieval city / travel photography / Vienna with the title medieval city. You can bookmark this page URL https://bellashabby.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-from-my-european-backpacking-trip.html. Thanks!

From my summer in Europe, Beautiful Vienna

Vienna, Austria...the country's largest city, deemed the "city of music" because of composers like Beethoven , and the "city of dreams," for being the home of Freud. My favorite part of Vienna was it's beautiful gardens.

The gardens of the Belevedere Museum are not to be missed.

Me enjoying the lovely weather in the gardens

We thought this advertisement for a souvenir shop was hilarious

One of the highlights for me of the entire summer was seeing the adorable and gorgeous Lipizzaner mares and their babies at the Spanish Riding School.

Inside St. Stephan's Cathedral

A busy tourist street

The Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, commemorates the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews killed by Nazis between 1938 and 1945.  It is very poignant.

"The outside surfaces of the volume are cast library shelves turned inside out. The spines of the books are facing inwards and are not visible, therefore the titles of the volumes are unknown and the content of the books remains unrevealed. The shelves of the memorial appear to hold endless copies of the same edition, which stand for the vast number of the victims, as well as the concept of Jews as "People of the Book." The double doors are cast with the panels inside out, and have no doorknobs or handles. They suggest the possibility of coming and going, but do not open." -via Wikipedia

Anyone been to Vienna or hoping to go one day?

As always - thanks to my boyfriend Chris for these gorgeous photos.

Here's that list again of all my posts from our travels that I've posted -

Spain
•Introduction to my European backpacking trip and a list of places we visited
• Galicia - Baiona and Isle de Cies
• Galicia - the coast, some charming vineyards, and Pontevedra
• Santiago de Compostela and gorgeous hidden beaches
• Gorgeous mountain lakes of Picos de Europa
• Stunning mountains - Picos de Europa
• Bilbao and San Sebastian
• Beautiful Barcelona
• The amazing Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
• Art Nouveau dream house by Gaudi in Barcelona

Italy
• Not to miss - the gorgeous rocky coast of Italy's Cinque Terre
• More from my summer traveling Europe - amazing Rome
• From my summer in Europe - amazing Pompeii
• Turquoise ocean and vineyards on cliffs - the amazingly stunning Amalfi coast
• My Summer in Europe: Pictures from lovely Florence, Italy
• Enchanting Siena
•Venice
•Lake Como, Italy

Switzerland
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 1
•Jungfrau region, Switzerland, Part 2

Germany
• One of my favorite cities from my European backpacking trips - Ulm, Germany
• Lake Constance
• Cute HOUSE Overload - the charming medieval homes of Germany's Romantic Road
• Regensburg, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria 

Austria
• Salzburg
• A charming lakeside village, Hallstatt

You have read this article Austria / backpacking through europe / baroque architecture / Belvedere Museum / holocaust memorial / Lipizzaner / medieval city / travel photography / Vienna with the title medieval city. You can bookmark this page URL https://bellashabby.blogspot.com/2012/03/from-my-summer-in-europe-beautiful.html. Thanks!