Margaret Island
On Friday we heard that there would be music in front of Szent István’s basilica. So we went to the basilica to see what was going on. There was a bunch of activities because of the International Eucharistic Conference, so we walked around some of the booths. They were mostly religious book sellers, and all in Hungarian so not very applicable to us. In front of the basilica there was a stage set up and a small band playing with a woman singing children songs. The kids got to join in the activities where they danced in a circle, jumped over scarves, and played small musical instruments. There were some people dressed up in traditional outfits taking pictures and we got a great picture of the kids in front of the basilica. On our walk home we stopped to eat and then walked through Erzsébet tér, which is a square with a really cool giant Ferris wheel that was all lit up at night.
The next day, Saturday, we heard there would be a family festival sponsored by the Eucharistic Conference on Margaret Island. Since we hadn’t been to Margaret Island before we decided to go. It only took about 10 minutes to get there, and we had no idea we would spend the entire day on the island! There were a ton of people, and we just followed the direction everyone else was going. We passed the big fountain (more on that later) and across a square and the big Budapest sign. There were several restaurants and bars, which had some hot air balloons strung up and a really cool display of old bikes used as decoration.
We made it to the festival, and there was so much going on! There was a stage with music, folk dancing, a comedian (not too funny when you don’t know the language!), and more musicians. There were a ton of booths with different activities, and many of them we skipped because we did not know what was going on. The language barrier is a little tough at times like this. We did find many booths with crafts or children’s activities, and we spent quite a lot of time crafting. There were puzzles to put together and a Lego tent with tons of Legos for the kids to play with. You also could get a numbered section of the big Lego board and build the piece to look like the picture. Then you went to the board and the volunteers would help place your piece on the board. By the end of the day there would be a big picture built by everyone who visited the station. Pretty cool! There were also many bracelet making stations and everyone made at last one bracelet. Zoey and Willow got to make yarn dolls, and Zoey even wove a basket!
We wanted to explore more of the island, so we walked north past the festival. There is a big garden with roses and other flowers, and Willow needed a bunch of pictures in front of each flower. Past this is a small zoo, where we saw big deer and several birds, but not much else. We walked through the remains of the Dominican Convent, which had lots of twists and turns for us to explore. We then walked up to the top of the Margaret Island Water Tower, which had a tall spiral staircase all the way to the top. There was a nice view up there, and we could overlook the big outdoor theatre. There was an orchestra warming up, probably for a concert that night. Willow loves music, and she wanted to stay up at the top of the water tower listening to the music for a long time. She was also disappointed we weren’t going to stay for the concert that evening. You could also see the big block apartment housing that was build during the Soviet occupation. Saint Michael’s Chapel was near here, which is a small church that is not too exciting. Only my mom and I went in here because everyone else was finishing their gelato we stopped to get.
We continued north and walked through the Japanese garden, where the kids were disappointed there were no frogs sitting atop the lily pads. The musical well was just north of the garden, but it wasn’t playing music and only one of the fountains was working. We then went to a playground, which I think was Ronin’s favorite part of the day.
The bus took us back south down the island, and we stopped to eat at the outdoor restaurant/pub Champs Sziget, which was pretty good. Every hour on the hour the big fountain plays music with a light and water show, and the kids loved this (and so did I). It was really cool, and we will have to come back to the island so we can see the different shows that play at each hour. There was also someone making giant bubbles, and the kids had a blast chasing the big bubbles and all the little bubbles. By now we had spent the entire day on the island, which was a pretty good Saturday.
