Saturday at the Museum

The weather got considerably chillier, which might not be such good news, but at least it allows for some guilt free idling in one of Budapest's many museums. As luck would have it, there are three rather interesting photography exhibitions right now: The Birth of Art Photography opened yesterday at the Museum of Fine Arts (http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/web/guest/articleview?mi_layout_id=29.30&mi_article_id=1014) and will run until the 1st of July, the National Museum hosts the 30th Hungarian Press Photo Exhibition until May 6th (http://www.hnm.hu/en/kiall/Exhibition.php?ID=83103) while at the Mai Mano Hungarian Photography Museum you can visit the Danube-Open Book exhibition which closes on the 29th of April  and even indulge in a nice coffee or tea in the museum's cafe downstairs. They also have a well stocked photography bookstore where you can occasionally bump into some really cheap bargain buys-they are rather random, so it's worth visiting often. (http://www.maimano.hu/andrekerteszterem/20120204_duna/index.html).

Friday Passtimes a la Russe

If you're bored on a Friday evening in Budapest, you really have no one to blame but yourself. If you live somewhere in the central districts all you have to do is leave the house and most likely in a few hundreds of metres you'll find a bar or a pub. I had been eyeing Cafe Zsivago on Paulay Ede street for weeks as it's on my route home from work. It looked rather Russian oldschool style from outside and once inside- it's even better. They have the compulsory paraphernalia- icons, samovar, different editions of Pasternak's opus and an overall feel of Russian novel interiors plus a rather exciting menu with pirogi, breakfast with champagne (open from 8 am, few places offer decent breakfast for early birds, so it's worth a try) and a mean spicy Dragon tea with milk. Quite surprisingly, they also seem to have rather animated parties come the weekend, and this Friday they are celebrating their second birthday too.

A Forest in the City

Yet another amazing thing about Budapest is that you can go for a nice stroll in the forest- and never leave the city. Normafa in the Buda hills is a ski centre in winter and a lovely spot for walks and picnics in summer. And there are three equally exciting ways to get up there: you can take a chairlift (libegő, literally "floater" in Hungarian) from Zugliget, the cogwheel train from Városmajor or you can ride on the Children's Railyway. (http://www.gyermekvasut.hu/english/chrw_home.php). The eleven kilometre long narrow gauge line runs between Hűvösvölgy and Széchenyi-hegy and is operated by children aged 10 to 14. You can even plan a trip including all three: take the cogwheel all the way from Városmajor to Széchenyi-hegy, switch to the little train and get off at Jánoshegy stop-after visiting the lookout tower situated on Budapest's highest point you can then take the chairlift back to "ground level" in Zugliget.

The Bulgarian Connection

While walking the streets and parks of Budapest towards the end of March you might occasionally see red and white yarns being tied to blossoming trees- this is not a local custom, but a Balkan one, kept alive by Budapest's expat Bulgarian community. The red and white yarn ornament is called Martenica and is offered as a gift on the first of March, it is then worn on clothing or around the wrist until one sees the first blooming tree- the Martenica is then tied to a branch of the tree for health and luck. Bulgarians and flowers have a long lasting tradition in Budapest: in the 19th century Bulgarian gardeners who had developed a special method of  gardening on small areas moved out from their homeland spreading to the centre of what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire and establishing themselves in Budapest too. They became so popular that their activity turned into a proper Hungarian noun "bolgárkertészet", and the main area of settlement, in today's Zugló has a street bearing their name, Bolgárkertész utca, incidentally the first street I lived in after I arrived in Budapest.

Riverbound

As any city near a waterway, Budapest has always had a special relationship with boats. Before bridges were built across the river, the crossing was made by boat- it seems quite strange to think, while casually strolling over Margit bridge, that in the past people had to queue and pay to be able to make it to the other side and payment of tolls was maintained on the bridges too at first. Now boats are used mostly for sightseeing, Budapest Transport Ltd has a boat connection between Soroksár and Csepel, and Mahart has boats going all the way to Vienna, but you can also invest in some shorter trips, to Szentendre or Esztergom. (http://www.mahartpassnave.hu/webset32.cgi?MAHART@@EN@@32@@6215319 ). Many boats moored to the docks never budge- they are used as restaurants, clubs or bars and here on Újpesti rakpart you can even rent offices on boats.

Eat or Starve

Monday means back to work/school, which in turn entails looking for some cheap and tasty eats close to wherever you have to spend your hours of entrapment. There are two cluster areas for restaurants serving lunch menus, Ráday street and Liszt Ferenc square, with Kazincy street and it surroundings slowly getting there too. The kind advice seen above is parked in front of one of the newer establishments- Leves soup bar opened quite recently on Vámház körüt, just a step away from the Ráday food hub and serves, quite naturally, soup of all kinds. The staff is much friendlier than Seinfeld's ominous soup nazi and the dishes are tasty and affordable- the latest menu is always posted on Facebook at the beginning of the week. (https://www.facebook.com/levespont?sk=wall) 

Sunday Prayers

Serbs arrived in the area around Budapest mostly during the great migrations that followed the year 1690: they had helped the Hungarians against the Ottomans, but following the defeat of their common troops. they received the right to flee to the centre of Hungary and establish their own communities. They settled mostly in Szentendre, Pomaz and Budapest's Taban neighbourhood ((http://tabananno.blogspot.com/2009/11/szerbek-pest-budan-es-budapesten.html) - their first church was built here, but it was destroyed following WWII along with most of Taban's bohemian quarter. The Serbian community of Pest built the  baroque church which still stands on the corner of Szerb street in 1733- Serbian churches in Hungary always remind more of a Catholic or Protestant church rather than an Eastern Orthodox building, but the inner layout is the same as in the latter. The patron saint of the church is Saint George and some of the icons inside were painted by Nikola Alexic, who also painted the iconostases of the Serbian church and the old Romanian orthodox cathedral of my hometown Arad.   (http://360x180fok.blogspot.com/2010/05/budapest-pesti-szerb-templom.html)

Sunsets of the Spring Equinox

    

A Ride to the Museum

Vespas are not as common in Budapest as they are in Italian cities, but they are definitely the best form of transport if you want to easily reach the Petőfi Museum of Literature.(http://www.pim.hu/object.6c0085cf-1425-408d-9287-0bc89959bbf3.ivy)  Nestled in the heart of the city on a recently introduced pedestrian route, the museum is housed by the neoclassical Károlyi palace. Besides literary themed exhibitions, they also own an extensive library and a small shop where one can buy some of the more tasteful souvenirs available in the city. The same building also hosts the Károlyi restaurant, which has a lovely summer garden but is a bit on the pricey side, so if you want a quick cheap snack in the area you'd better head back towards Kecskeméti utca where you can find some student bars huddled around the building of the university.

Beggar on a Street of Gold

Like many other big cities, Budapest also has a rather burning homeless problem. To the annoyance of some city dwellers, they tend to be just as widespread in central, touristy areas as they are in the suburbs. And this makes the city look bad, they say. Some rather haphazard measures have been taken recently, which have caused more public outrage than offering actual help to these people. I tried giving money to the gentleman in the picture after I took the shot, but he saw my pastries and said he'd rather have those, because he is hungry and does not beg for money to buy drinks, as he is often accused. Of course many of them do,  but there are often very dark and complicated reasons behind why they ended up on the street. Some complain that shelters are violent and unsafe, so there is still a long way to go before we can say that the authorities are actively doing something to tackle homelessness as a social issue and not simply criminalize the homeless themselves.

Budapest Spring Festival

Budapest has a summer and an autumn festival too- no winter festival yet, wonder how they would solve the acronym issue, as both spring and winter begin with "T" in Hungarian, and there can be only one BTF- but the spring festival is definitely the most important and popular. This year it is held from March 16 to March 26  ( http://www.btf.hu/btf2012/index.php?l=en ) and it includes exhibitions,movies, concerts, plays and other various cultural extravaganza. The biggest star this time around is John Malkovich, who will be playing in The Infernal Comedy-Confessions of a Serial Killer on the 25th of March in Vígszínház. Catch him if you can- this kind of involves someone graciously donating their ticket to you, as both shows are sold out by now.

Belt of Flowers

The Nagykörút ties the city's heart together, going from one Danube bend to the other, from Margaret bridge in the north, to Petőfi bridge in the south. This creates great confusion in first time visitors of the city, who have the distinct impression that they will end up by the Danube no matter which direction they choose- they are pretty much right too. The Nagykörút is lined with an endless array of shops, bars and restaurants.A close study will reveal the insistent presence of three categories: the Turkish fast food, the shoe store and the flower store/stand. There's the shabby flower stand selling cheap and often suspicious flowers close to Nyugati, the two competing ones on Oktogon, with the owners closely eyeing each other (and each other's prices), the quick fix stands in underground passages and then there's the fancier kind, a bit of France, a touch of lavender for the more self conscious buyer. The one above fits into the later category, and it is a relief to know that it is very close to four Turkish fast foods and over five shoe stores.

Mediterranean Budapest

If anyone ever questioned Budapest's many faces, here they have the Mediterranean. The little curvy streets or Rózsadomb lead down to the Danube, reminding the city of it's Ottoman past. Sadly, very few buildings still stand:Gül Baba's türbe (mausoleum) and several baths, of which Rudas is the most famous and popular. They are all spread around the first and second districts of Buda, this little street seen here leads to the türbe. No season is better than spring to visit this area, just locate the mausoleum on the map and try a random route upwards for some small Budapest surprises.

Freedom

Budapest's shortest bridge used to be my daily route a few years ago- as tram number 47 was slowly and rather noisily plodding along, I caught a glimpse of many a spectacular sunset and sunrise.Freedom bridge (Szabadság híd) is also the prettiest in fog- maybe it's the green colour which makes the contrast more exciting, or maybe it's the convoluted metal shapes. Its structure makes it the bridge of choice for climbing, sometimes unfortunately with a rather dark purpose: Hungarian photographer Péter Lakatos won a World Press Photo Award for Spot News, singles, in 2011 for his shot of a young man jumping to his death from the bridge's elevated tip (http://www.worldpressphoto.org/photo/2011p%C3%A9terlakatossn-1?gallery=890). Luckily most of the time it's just a case of rowdy youngsters in search of thrills in the big city, quickly ushered down by some rather cross policemen. The feathery beings on top are turuls, undetermined Hungarian totemic birds of fabled Asian origin, somewhere along the lines of a hawk/eagle/vulture.

In Transit

Keleti was where I first arrived in Budapest more than 10 years ago and it still remains somehow the end of the umbilical cord tying me to my origins- as long as Keleti is there, home is not far away. Budapest has three main stations- Nyugati (Western),Déli (Southern) and Keleti (Eastern) It has always fascinated me that it does not have a Northern Station, based on Paris having Gare du Nord I assumed all big cities must have one. Nyugati, designed by none else than Gustave Eiffel, is considered the prettier building and for this ill conceived reason has the Orient Express visiting it now and then, but Keleti is the real deal. Hosting most of the international train traffic, it is teeming with life and excitement. People come and go pulling their bags, local taxi drivers and hostel owners try to zero in on innocent prey, the Arab gyros stand owners sip their hot teas in sleepy reverie,  disorientated foreigners desperately look for an elusive train, experienced commuters grab a tabloid and some snacks, latecomers curse fate for having their trains exiled onto lane one (by Keleti logic, lane one is the farthest away from the entrance...) Keleti is the spectacle of life. Which comes in very handy when MÁV kindly delays your train. They do that quite often, I'm afraid.

The City is Theirs

People come and go but they are always here. Every nook of the city bears their (often foul) trace.They travel undisturbed. They watch us from above. Some of them proudly wear the name of their hometown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Short_Face_Tumbler). They soil our squares. They steal our food. They are pesky and irritating. But we'd sure miss them if they were gone.

Gödör forever

This used to be the terrace of Gödör club, which has been closed at the end of January and replaced by something called Akvárium-last time I checked, they had no chairs out on the stairs (yet)- of course, it is very early spring, but Gödör would have had a few odd chairs out as soon as the temperature became bearable. And of course, I will complain if it's not the same chairs- their rather uncomfortable metallic nudge on the middle of my back is forever etched into my sentimental memory. I would say spring has arrived when I could have my first Campari Orange on the stairs at Gödör, and I would pursue this activity for most of the summer, during weekends and after work. Gödör being so central, you could always drop by, even if on your way to some other appointment, have a drink, a chat or a quick read and revel in the fashion display of young folks walking down the stairs. (Some just walked up and down aimlessly, mostly to show off their latest outfit). Hopefully Akvárium will have some hideous metallic chairs too for summer idleness, but nevertheless, I feel some of the magic is irrevocably gone.

The Ides of March

It might have been a bad day for Caesar, but it's a holiday for Hungarians, one of the three national days as a matter of fact, alongside August 20th and October 23rd. This might mean they're an indecisive bunch- or they just love to celebrate. And if I am to choose one, I'll definitely go for the 15th of March. The weather is usually mild and there's so much spring in the air, very befitting for a holiday celebrating a revolution, more precisely that of 1848. On this day the poet Petőfi Sándor (whose statue can be seen in the shot) read out his "National Song" (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1848hungary-natsong.asp, could not help but smile at his name being translated as Alexander...) and the 12 points, which formulated the wishes of freedom and self-determination of Hungarians, were read out by fellow writer Jókai Mór. The whole thing did not end too well, and the uprising was repressed by 1849, the Hungarian revolutionaries laid down their arms on August 13th at Şiria/Világos, right next to my hometown,Arad.

Some Like It Hot

Budapest is close enough to Vienna to be a coffeehouse capital- unfortunately the number of classic spots left is way smaller, and many spaces are invaded by flashy modern furniture and dubious coffee. Művész coffeehouse (http://muveszkavehaz.hu/mkhaz.php?act=fooldal) on Andrássy is one of the old guard-the building which houses it was built in 1884 and the space itself was used for sipping the divine dark liquid since the early 20th Century. It even boasts its very own bohemian literary hero- author Iván Mándy had a permanent table here , which is still in place today. He was a truthful chronicler of the cities lesser known haunts, smoky bars, old cinemas and side streets. Some translations of his short works into English can be found here: http://mek.niif.hu/02700/02771/02771.htm#0.

Spring Sky over Budapest

Spring is slowly creeping in on the city. The temperatures are a bit winterish still, the vegetation is still sleepy, but there is something in the air that feels like spring. Light comes earlier, and the skies are crisp and happy in the morning. The 15th of March is usually the threshold in Budapest, it's a holiday with street parades, strolls in the park and then somehow the weather always becomes considerably warmer and kinder.Hope this year is no different.

Good Old Times

This beauty, a nice and shiny VW Karmann Ghia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Karmann_Ghia) can be found parked on the Körút, complete with fancy upholstery and a cute period hat inside. Hungarians do love old cars, they even have special registration plates for these vehicles, beginning with OT, from old timer, naturally. You can rent old timers for your wedding or film (http://oldtimerpark.hu/) and there is an organisation grouping old timer owners, which holds yearly meet ups- next one is scheduled for September 14-16 2012, but you can take a short trip to Békéscsaba this weekend for their "away" show.(http://www.oldtimershow.hu/)

Light in the Night

Whenever I think of black and white night photography, I mentally conjure up one of Brassai's pictures. (http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/BRASSAI.html, good collection of shots, but God bless their souls, they could occasionally drop the Dracula part when mentioning Transylvania) Of course, he shot Paris. And Paris is the mother of all cities. But he went out at night with his camera and found something new. A new way of seeing what everyone else was watching with old eyes. He could have done that  in Budapest too, but fate and history had by then torn him away from this city and land, as it sadly happened to so many artists from Eastern European countries after WWII. So all I can do is wander up the hill to Citadella, thinking of his legacy and listening to the Danube's quiet drone behind me, for as my friend once said, Paris is chic and all, but compared to the Danube, the Seine is a bloody canal.

The Secret Life of Statues- Belgrad rakpart

I must have crossed Belgrade ramparts dozens of times and never noticed him. It may have been the golden late afternoon sunlight that filtered from above Gellert hill, or the commotion cause by a removal company truck manoeuvring on the sidewalk, and then I suddenly saw him. In a city defined by its old buildings,details often escape you, a gargoyle here, an angel there. And every day can be a new discovery.

Lazy spring in Városliget

You ride your bike, you walk your dog, work on that early spring suntan, have lunch al fresco, idle your way to 

Pecsa (http://www.pecsamusichall.hu/) for some tickets. But you never think of King Béla IV gathering his army to face the Tatars, nor do you think of Lajos II leading his troops away towards that fateful battle at Mohács. Városliget is quiet about all this things, although she witnessed them. The secrets of the city lie buried beneath your feet.

Chained to Legend

I am always at a loss when people visiting the city asks me about the statues: who's that? Most of the time I don't know, some poet/warrior/politician/and so on. But I am very competent when it comes to the lions on the Chain Bridge. They're the ones without tongues- the legend says the architect who made the bridge claimed that if someone could point out a fault with it, he'll jump into the river. So a kid noticed that the felines have no tongues, which they don't, I've inspected myself personally. And that is what makes the bridge really exciting, after all.

This used to be my playgound-Ajtosi Durer sor

Budapest is like a big throbbing organism, never growing quite old, but always changing. This is Durer kert,  now one of the nightlife staples of the city, a venue hosting some of the most cutting edge concerts around. It was meant to be torn down to make place for a fancy wellness centre with a spa and a goddamn solarium (Hungarians sure love to be slightly orange...). Thankfully, it hasn't worked out so far. Before being a club, it was my university- these days I'm sipping beers in front of the Horrors in the aula magna where I passed my first exam. English literature. Couples are making out in the corners of the little room where I woozily daydreamed through Syntax one.The course book store is occupied by foosball tables. Before being my university, it was the Sacre Coeur institute for girls. That's kind of a long way to go. Wonder what will be next.

Islanders

Before being called Margaret Island, it was Rabbit Island-though I have never seen rabbits there, only runners- when you need to get out of somewhere real quick, running perhaps, Hungarians say you put on your rabbit shoes. There's also ducks, squirrels and ferrets- these last specimens can sometimes be seen roaming majestically (under the loving eyes of their owners) on the ruins of the Dominican monastery that served as a home to the young lady who gave her name to the island, Margaret, daughter of King Bela IV.

By the Danube

     As I sat on the bottom step of the wharf,
    A melon-rind flowed by with the current;
    Wrapped in my fate I hardly heard the chatter
    Of the surface, while the deep was silent.
    As if my own heart had opened its gate:
    The Danube was turbulent, wise and great
 
    Jozsef Attila- By the Danube

    A rakodópart alsó kövén ültem,
    néztem, hogy úszik el a dinnyehéj.
    Alig hallottam, sorsomba merülten,
    hogy fecseg a felszin, hallgat a mély.
    Mintha szivembõl folyt volna tova,
    zavaros, bölcs és nagy volt a Duna.

   József Attila- A Dunánal

The view from Gellert-hegy

Though Budapest was not built on seven hills, it has some mountains. Well, geologically they are hills indeed,  Gellert-hegy  towering at...235 metres, but better not argue about that. A climb up Gellert is a welcome outdoorsy activity right in the heart of the city and the panorama is not to be missed either. The mountain/hill has some secrets too, hiding a cave and a termal lake, which might have served as the origin of the name Pest (logically, the city on the other side of the river), coming from a Slavic word denominating oven. There were some lime burning ovens too in the area, so more forensic clues as to how Pest became Pest arise. But who was Gellert? He came most probably from Venice and had set his mind on converting the Hungarians to Christianity, around 1046 AD. Hungarians were not so sure about that and promptly dumped him in the Danube-another version claims it was not Hungarians, but Venetians themselves, who considered Gellert a possible traitor.The hill is still occasionally used for darker purposes by the city's inhabitants: some people choose to end their lives by jumping off, an echo of Hungary's infamous renown of being one of the most suicide prone lands in the world. 

Trabi on Andrassy street

Snow is gone from Budapest, but the Trabi will stay on. As there was no local mass production car during Communism, this beauty reigned supreme. And it still does in many Hungarian hearts- they even have a special site, http://trabant.hu/menu.html, though most of the suggested links do not work anymore, staying true to the spirit of the car, so to say. There are a few shots of spectacularly pimped up specimens, though, which might be seen fleeting by Budapest's streets from time to time. Not that this beast was famous for its speed, being made from what is pretty much enforced cardboard, it reached breathtaking peaks of 112 km/h. It did pass the infamous Swedish moose/elk test though, unlike its much younger and sprightlier German brother, the Mercedes A-Class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test). Which did not save it from a sad fate sometimes, after the fall of Communism in the east many Trabis were abandoned by their owners and nature took its course- flick to 00:34 to see how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg44qKSbsdQ .

Luludog on Kiraly street

Being a cat person in Budapest pretty much makes you a hopeless eccentric doomed to eek out a meagre existence on the fringes of society. For Budapest is the paradise of dogs, dogs of all shapes, sizes and undetermined and indeterminable breeds. And their turds on the street. Luludog (http://www.luludog.hu/), however, is targeted at the fashion conscious dog (owner), though often you can hardly tell them apart, so fond are Budapest's dwellers of writing dog ads in the first person. I am a little lost beagle.Fine with me, as long as you don't crap on my doorstep. *They do.

Tulips in my window

Tulips came from what is now pretty much China and were brought to us by the Turks. The Dutch fancied them so much they covered half the tiny land they conquered from the sea with these lovely flowers. The "tulip" denomination present in most European languages comes from the Turkish turbans, but some feisty Balkan languages such as Romanian and Serbian went straight to the origins and use the Turkish version of lale(a). The Hungarian wild tulip (Tulipa hungarica) is yellow and inhabits mainly the Iron Gates region. naturally situated not in Hungary, but between the above mentioned Romania and Serbia. My grandmother finds the tulip to be a very useful flower, as it is used as an electoral symbol by the main Hungarian party in Romania. "I never bother with reading their names, I just stamp the damn flower!"

Gozsdu udvar ends here

So Budapest. At the end of the Gozsdu udvar, which hosts a splendid little market each summery Sunday (http://www.gouba.hu/en/about-the-gouba/what-is-gouba/) and several posh restaurants all year long you can find this magnificent establishment. Kind of a second hand sex shop where you can freely rummage through the ware, whatever the implications of the concept might be. 

Elizabeth Bridge at dusk

My favourite bridge in Budapest, partly because it reminds me of the bridge across the Bosphorus (which I've seen) and the Golden Gate (which I haven't). The original bridge standing here was blown up during WWII and the new cable bridge was built between 1961 and 1964 based on the designs of Pal Savoly. They proved to be a bit shaky and the heavy tram lines got removed from the bridge in the seventies, today the bridge is crossed by the main bus line of the city, served by numbers 7/173 and their express counterparts. Before crossing into Buda with the bus, you should drop in to Jégbüfé (http://www.jegbufe.hu) on the corner of Ferenciek square for some oldschool Hungarian pastries. Beware of little old ladies blocking the queue while being unable to decide whether to get rákóczi túrós (http://chiliesvanilia.blogspot.com/2006/03/hungarian-curd-cheese-square-rkczi.html ) or francia krémes. Or how many of them to get. And yes, right next to their feet there is a tiny little dog. And yes, it bites.

Morning in the Jewish neighbourhod

The city’s Orthodox Jewish congregation decided to build its own independent synagogue in 1909. Based on the designs of Sándor and Béla Löffler, the Secessionist style synagogue was completed in 1913. The façade of the synagogue which fronts onto Kazinczy Street is considered to be one of the outstanding works of Hungarian Late-Secessionist architecture.

The principal feature of this red-brick building, located on the bend of Kazinczy Street, is its main entrance; this is also the focal point for the religious symbols. Access, to the recently completed Sasz-Chevra Chapel, can be gained via the gateway leading into the courtyard located next to the synagogue. The synagogue has continued to functions as such to this day. The Orthodox kosher Hanna restaurant is located in the building complex next to the synagogue. (http://marvaoguide.com/index.php/Hungary/Kazinczy-Street-Synagogue.html )