Budapest -- Matthias Church

These are pictures from Matthias Church, named after King Matthias Corvinus. The church began as a basilica in the 13th century, and Charles Robert of Anjou was crowned king there in 1309. The church was enlarged in the 15th century, then fell to the Turks and became a mosque from 1541 to 1686. In 1867 the Emperor of Austria and his wife were crowned as sovereigns of Hungary there, and Franz Liszt composed and conducted the Coronation Mass for the occasion. The church was damaged during World War Two, and the reconstruction work took 20 years to complete.

This was one of my favorite places that we visited during our trip. Of course, they just had to be renovating the exterior when we were there, so we didn't get to see much of it. I did manage to get this shot, though (note the crow):



The inside of the church is covered in beautiful paintings:











There were so many more, but the church was so dark that you just couldn't get a picture of any but the lowest paintings -- they were the only ones within reach of the flash. The ceilings were beautiful, too, but also too dark to photograph properly. Luckily they had some pretty postcards in the gift shop!

A man and his bird

I took over 400 photos in Budapest this week and have only just now started sorting through them! Here's one of my favorites, taken at Fisherman's Bastion: