Budapest: Parliament Love.

Prior to arriving in Budapest, I held a vision of the city as being exotic European city. One with an ancient history, beautiful baths, and an eclectic mix of easy to see architecture styles.

The one piece of architecture that is the most exotic, to me, in the city is the Parliament building.

This is one area of the city you can not miss. It is too beautiful.

The courtyard that spans the front of the building was a great place to sit and meditate for 30 minutes in the Sun.

I got to watch as people filtered through the square on their lunch breaks. And across the way was the Ethnographic Museum, also an architecture treat.

The sculptures atop it were fun to look at, just like in Heroes' Square.

I didn't go into either building though. Too much too see outside in Budapest.

I listened as bells rang, children chased each other through the sprinklers embedded in the grass (and their mother became livid), the street cars jingled by, and tour groups came stomping through.

I even helped one German tourist find how to navigate from the Parliament building down the river to another area to meet a friend. She was afraid of getting on the street car and ending up somewhere wrong. I told her she didn't even need to get on it, but rather follow the path along the Danube River past the second bridge, and she'd be exactly where she needed to be in 20 minutes.

Eventually, I got up from writing at my bench seat and walked across one of the bridges to the Buda side. I wanted to capture one last view of the building as the Sun was setting...