Buda

Ok, so this is an admission that makes me seem like an ignorant American, but there you go. I never actually realized that Budapest was in reality 2 separate cities with the names of Buda and Pest (slightly sh the 's' if you want to sound cool and European). They are very distinct as well.
Pest is almost entirely flat. This is accentuated even more since all the buildings are 7ish stories tall and so the topography never varies.

Buda on the other hand, is situated on the hilly side of the river, with all sorts of fun caves and cliffs. It has the palace and the old town and all the rich people live there. There are quite a few bridges connecting the two towns, but one of the first (possibly the first, I don't remember) is the one guarded by these lions. It must have been quite a fete at the time, even here, the Danube is an amazing river.
As you climb up the hill, one of the most noticeable structures is this fairy tale like Fisherman's Bastion.

It is full of turrets and statues and was, as far as I understand it, created for the tourists of previous ages. Basically as a place for rich people to parade around.

Lovely though, no?

The main cathedral was a beautiful gothicky thing, though much of it was covered in scaffolding at the moment. I was most impressed by the roof and the beautiful ceramic tiles.

Those tiles showed up elsewhere as well, and really were stunning.

On a smaller scale, the whole old town/tourist town had these wonderful street lamps with geraniums.

But, of course, (and another thing I didn't really know so well, doh!) Budapest was pretty devastated by the last world war, and many buildings were destroyed. Most were repaired, and interesting architectural relics were uncovered. Others were left as a testament to the destructive power of war. ie the ministry of war building that used to be 2 or 3 stories tall and rather grand...

And others were rebuilt. This monstrosity was once called an architectural masterpiece or something. Believe it or not, it's a Hilton hotel. Brown glass and concrete with stone rubble scattered throughout for effect. hmmmm, 70s anyone?
One interesting thing was that all the bombing actually uncovered the ruins of the ancient castle that once stood on the hill.

The palace itself, that I gather was almost completely destroyed (and while restored to pretty on the outside is supposed to be basic white walls and fluorescent lights inside), had some really cool statues. I normally don't go much for pictures of statues, but I liked this one.

It is of a fairytale about a king who liked to go hunting in the woods and he got lost one night. He found a woodsman's hut and asked to stay. Amazingly (ha!), the woodsman had a beautiful daughter and the two fell madly in love. When the kingly boy left the next day he expressed all sorts of gushy stuff about seeing her again etc. One day she caught a ride into town with a farmer. As they entered the city they were stopped by the royal procession. When she looked up as they passed and realized her love was the king, she drowned herself in despair for the love that could not be. So, now she has a statue.

Honestly, the story was cool, gruesome and annoying, but cool. But I really liked the statues for the dogs.

One of the things I loved about this city was the public transportation. I never waited more than 60 seconds for a train/bus/metro, and it was normally more like 20. The escalators were a little scary though, incredibly steep.

Oh, and at night... they lit everything up and it was really quite stunning.