Stockholm Viking Museum

This is a quick post about the Viking Museum in Stockholm which wasn't there when I lived there. We're in Riga now so we took the Tallink overnight ferry there and back again for the long Easter weekend. It's a cheap way to travel to Stockholm and kind of fun with the shows, bars, buffets, and rooms like the bigger cruise ships. It wasn't what I though of when I first heard about riding on a ferry. First, here's a few pics from the trip to Stockholm.

Random Budapest

Here's random left over bits from walking around mostly on the Pest side of Budapest where the Parliament is and the cute little Budapest Eye. OK, it's not small but it's not as big as the London Eye.

Budapest Museums

Budapest has some great museums like most European cities. It's also where my new favorite artist Victor Vasarely comes from so there's a museum devoted to him. I first noticed his work recently in a Frankfurt museum and it was great so I'll start with that museum. We also visited the Hungarian National Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, and the Budapest National Museum. The Kuntshalle Contemporary Art Museum was redoing their exhibits so there wasn't much open for the price. They pretty much discouraged us from buying tickets so we didn't. There's just a few pics of the exterior here.

Budapest Városliget Park and Vajdahunyad Castle

Városliget Park or City Park is a wonderful place with Vajdahunyad Castle. I really love this castle because it's an intentional mashup of old styles.

Vajdahunyad Castle was built in 1896 as part of the Millennial Exhibition which celebrated the 1,000 years of Hungary since the Hungarian Conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895. The castle features copies of several landmark buildings from different parts the Kingdom of Hungary, especially the Hunyad Castle in Transylvania (now in Romania). As the castle contains parts of buildings from various time periods, it displays different architectural styles: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque. Originally, it was made from cardboard and wood, but it became so popular that it was rebuilt from stone and brick between 1904 and 1908.

Buda Castle District and a Labyrinth

We went up the funicular to the top of the Buda Castle District just for the fun-icular of it. This time we turned right and checked out the rest of the Castle District with Fisherman's Bastion. We also went underneath the area and  wandered through a dark labyrinth. The only thing left was to fly over but I didn't see a way to do that so that's as much as we covered there.

Gellért Hill and Buda Castle