Basilica, brunch, murals, pinball

Started the day being all grown up and finished the day the complete opposite…..

First up, St Stephen’s Basilica, historic, ornate and awaiting a special guest over the next few days, only The Pope! Loads of chairs and massive screens had been erected out front and there was TV tech in and out. Looks like it’ll be quite a show.

Next was a fab brunch at the up market New York Cafe, where we enjoyed scrummy plates of eggs Benedict (such tastefully sized portions, we could easily have eaten the same again!) and a ‘naughty but nice’ taster selection of desserts. We endured this hardship for a special cause, Col’s birthday!

Then we walked in search of some murals, there is street art in unexpected places, so it’s lucky if you notice it - in particular we were looking for a large Rubik cube - which we eventually found. (The Rubik cube was invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian professor).

After much walking, trams, and the splendid M1 metro, we found ourselves at the pinball museum. Yes you heard that right. A museum FULL of pinball machines, from old to relatively new. Some other arcade faves lurked there too, such as space invaders, Pac-Man, Tetris etc. When those doors opened, the sedate group of grown ups who had been patiently queuing at the door, morphed into a crowd of excited children! Eyes like saucers, such was our disbelief. We almost ran in, and picking a machine randomly, pressed that flashing ‘start’ and got flipping. As the place filled up, the ting ting ting of machines increased in volume. Two hours went in a flash (literally, as all the machines flickered and flashed in a rainbow of displays). At the end, I was still rubbish at pinball, but boy, what a brilliant way to end the day!Lue lisää