Europe 2017: Day #30 A Day at the Opera

Friday, 1 September 2017

We had nothing really planned for this day, preferring to let things take their own course. This was probably due as much to a sense of our impending departure for home, as a feeling of growing mental fatigue.

I'm not sure who suggested the idea of dropping into the Hungarian National Museum, but given it was located directly across the road from our Budapest apartment the idea seemed not only sound but also easily achieved.  Two very good reasons for us on this day.

Two hours later we had a good potted understanding of Hungarian history, which seemed similar to Poland's, with foreign invasions, foreign rulers, empire ambitions, small periods of freedom, fascist and communist regimes and poor political choices, until the 1990s when order appeared to be righted again.

One of the things that Robyn had noticed the day before was the chance to have a look through the Hungarian Opera House.  So we walked there, slowly as the day was another warm one, purchased a ticket for the extended tour, had lunch and generally didn't do a lot, except watch the world walk by.

Front facade of the Opera House

The Opera House is a rather imposing building on the outside and beautifully decorated on the inside. We were lucky that we had visited when we did as the House was due to shut down for about 18 months for a refurbishment within the next few weeks.

The tour ended with a short singing recital where we noticed a familiar looking figure in the audience: Australian actor, Don Hany, was in the group with his daughter. It goes to show how tired we were that I couldn't put a name to his face until we got back to the apartment and looked him up. And, no, we didn't go and ask for his autograph.

By then we were tired again, so we headed for the standard early evening meal back at the Karavan street food place of our first night and it was time for some packing and bed.