Danube Cruise #11: Statute Walk on the Budapest Waterfront

The Little Princess Statue

In today's 11th blog about our Viking River cruise down the Danube, you'll walk with us along the waterfront in Budapest, Hungary and see some of the unique statutes and sights along the way. 
 You'll meet the Little Princess, Colombo, an artist, girl and her dog and a policeman. 
There are other statues there, but these are the ones we saw (well, except for Colombo, but I love the character!)


 The Little Princess

Tom, Mary Margaret and Don with statue of an artist

Kriskiralylany means little princess

The ‘Little princess’ is a statue of a little girl sitting on the railings of the Danube promenade. It’s one of the most popular sculptures in Budapest for tourists to take pictures of/with. It was created by László Marton in 1972. Marton’s eldest daughter used to like playing in a princess costume and this image inspired him to create this statue. Few people know that copies of this sculpture can be found in the Hungarian town of Tapolca and in Japan as well, in front of the concert hall of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space.

Colombo with a dog

Somehow, we missed this one:   Columbo
 I, Rob, used to LOVE watching the Colombo television show in the 1970s with my parents, so I thought this was pretty cool.   The statue of Columbo is one of the newest sculptures in Budapest. It can be found on Miksa Falk Street. It depicts Lieutenant Columbo and his dog from the famous television 1970s television detective show “Columbo.”Colombo was played by actor Peter Falk, who was born in Hungary, thus a statue was erected in his honor. The statue was unveiled in 2014.



A Girl With Her Dog

Girl with her Dog

This statue was created by sculptor Raffay Dávid. It portrays a girl playing with her dog. This statue can be found very close to the statue of the ‘Little Princes’, on Vigadó square. An interesting fact about its creator is that he already knew that he wanted to be a sculptor when he was only 3 years old.

Policeman statue (we missed)

Policeman

An other sculpture that is very popular among tourists is a statue of a policeman, standing on the corner of Zrínyi street and Október 6. street. It was created by Illyés András and it has been standing there since 2008. It was inspired by characteristic faces of the city, and its physique was formed after the artist’s grandfather.
 NEXT: SHOES ON THE DANUBE AND DOWNPOUR ESCAPE!