After a long rest our little group split up to complete the day. My sister’s friend had come off working night shifts, so she was very tired and wanted to stay in to rest. My sister and I still wanted to explore, and to give her some space. So we headed out alone to go to St. Stephen’s Basilica again in the late afternoon. We had heard that there was going to be organ practice at 5pm, and were both keen to hear it as we would not be in Budapest for the next official organ concert there. Unfortunately there turned out to be no organ practice. It was still an incredibly beautiful and atmospheric place. Afterwards we went back to the apartment for supper. My sister and I sat down to plan afterwards but ended up bickering, which was not too much fun, although I mostly feel sorry for my sister’s friend having to put up with us. She also has a little sister though, so I’m sure she understands how it goes.
That evening my sister and I ventured out to take a walk along the Danube river. (My sisters friend was still too exhausted to come with.) It was a little late, at around 8pm, but it seemed safe enough. We walked across the chain bridge and stepped on to the Buda side for first time and got unreasonably excited about that. We walked back along the bridge then followed the river until we reached the parliament building again. There was not a single fence between river and land, and there were plenty of places where you could walk down steps right down into the water. This, coming from health and safety obsessed UK, was a little surprising. It was extremely cold near the river but very pretty – all the main sites were lit up. We both took millions of pictures. I’m not sure how well my pictures came out, as it’s my first time having a camera able to handle night photography. I played around a lot with the settings to at least try to capture it. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before, having only visited Europe once before, and too long ago to have clear memories. I became quite enamoured with the grand, fairytale architecture all lit up just so. I could begin to understand the romance of Europe for travellers.