From the Andrassy Avenue, a beautiful Boulevard, with its
cafes and book-shops, and pleasant interludes of flower-beds and
fountains, you may get, in a few minutes--crossing the Danube on a great
steamer, and ascending the heights of Buda by a funicular railway--to a
spot where, seated in an avenue of chestnut trees and looking on the
villa-strewn slopes of sleeping hills, or watching the sun set in
splendour behind them, you may forget that you are living in a bustling
modern town, and one with an Exhibition to boot.
You may dream of the picturesque days when, as shown in Ujvary's great
panorama of the sister towns in 1680, Buda was by far "the better half,"
and Pesth was a tiny spot. You may visit the tomb of Gul Baba, father of
the roses, a shrine of pilgrimage to all good Turks. You may find a good
quarter of an hour in the Church of St. Matthias, whose spire comes up
white amid the green as you turn a corner; a curious monument, that was
three centuries a-building; its interior suffused, like St. Mark's, by a
golden glow, its coloured windows original in shape, and no two pillars
or capitals alike in design, yet all contributing to a quaint unity and
harmony. And it is at Buda that the chief national buildings stand,
usually flanked by chestnut trees, and the statues in memory of the wars.
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