Budapest 23/4

Another busy day.  We started off with a guided tour of the Hungarian Parliament building, an amazing place, the largest parliament building in Europe, and sitting in a very prominent spot right beside the river.  The queue to get in was very long but we had bought an orgaised tour and so went straight in.  Amazingly for such a huge building it only took 18 years to build with 2000 workmen on site at all times.  The building contains the crown of the first king of Hungary, St Stephen, which is over 1000 years old.  During the second world war the crown was given to the Americans for safe keeping and it was stored in Fort Knox until Jimmy Carter gave it back to the Hungarians when he was president.  It now is displayed in the main area of the Parliament.  After that we wandered back through the major activity areas and down to the Central Market Hall, just like Queen Victoria Market but all contained within a large two level building. We bought some lovely ham and rolls and strudel and had that for lunch. In the evening we went to a concert of popular orchestral works in a church with an eight piece string orchestra, they were excellent and the acoustics were fabulous. The weather is still perfect, apparently it is warm for this time of year.