Adventures with Julia

September 21, 2017

Today was a whirlwind in rain.  Mariana, our Budapest guide for the day, picked us up at 10am with a car and driver.  Good thing.  Can’t imagine how we would have seen much walking in this huge city in the rain.  As it was, we saw many buildings through rain drops.

Our first stop was the 19^th century Market Hall.  It is an incredible facility with soaring metal columns, high walkways and attractive produce shops full of fancy fruits, vegetables and other edibles.  Our Hungarian friend, Annamaria Sauer, gave us several tips about what to do in Budapest.

 

 

 

 

 

The first was to buy and eat Langos with garlic.  So Mariana took us to the second level where we found much prepared food and Langos being freshly made.  Thanks for the idea Annamaria.  We really liked it and thought of you as we gobbled it down.

We also had some hot, puffy cheese scones.  They were good too.  We saw many prepared Hungarian dishes ready to take home for dinner.  This was a popular place for both tourists and locals.

 

We drove around many streets and buildings, including the Great Synagogue, and Heros Square, that were not worth stopping for in the rain.  Saw several interesting art noveau buildings.

Went into the Music Academy with beautiful tile work inside, and the opulent Szechenyi Spa.  We visited the Lizst Museum, which was his home during his later years.  Lizst had an interesting piano desk in his living quarters that he used for composing.  Mariana was very interested in café’s and told us it was a popular Budapest pastime at the turn of the century, when dwellings were very small, cramped and cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Café’s proliferated for different groups of people, who would hang out in several different ones every day.  The one we visited was the New York Café, in the Boscolo Hotel.

It was built by the New York Insurance company and is the most popular café in the city.  Huge and grand, it was completely full.  Not exactly your local neighborhood café.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a photo and left.  We tried several times to visit the House of Terror, but the line was so long, we finally gave up.  Did not want to spend an hour standing in the rain waiting.  The building was used by Fascists prior to WWII.  After the war, it became the headquarters for the Communist Party.  It was used by both organizations as the most notorious prison in Hungary.

After driving all around Pest, we crossed the Chain Bridge to the Buda side and drove past the old palace, and up the hill to St Matyas Church.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful building with a variety of interiors due to the occupation of the Ottomans, who made it into a mosque for 150 years.

Later it was destroyed and rebuilt by Franciscans in the 1600’s.  Damaged again in 1723, it was rebuilt in Neo-Gothic style in the late 1800’s.  It houses a baroque Madonna and a Black Madonna.  Next door to the church is the Hilton Hotel, which has incorporated ancient Roman ruins into the structure.  Well done.

Late in the afternoon, we made one last pass at the House of Terror and gave up.  The line went around the building.  We had no time to spare.  Back at the hotel, we said good bye to Mariana, changed clothes and walked quickly to dinner at a fine restaurant that came highly recommended, called Rezkakas.  It lived up to its reputation.  We finally had a good meal.  Mark had goulash soup and foie gras and I had venison.  How’s that for Hungarian food.  Then we grabbed a cab and went to the Bela Bartok National Concert Hall for a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  The theater is quite new and modern and so was the production of Don Giovanni.

Sadly, our seats were high and in the back, so it was difficult to see faces and actions.   The acoustics were very good.   We had read the synopsis thankfully, but the supertitles were in Hungarian and we could not keep up.  Besides the 8 singing parts, there were a dozen figures on stage all in white costumes and powder, who either held statue-like poses, or behaved quite sexually with each other.   They kept us entertained when we could not follow the singing.  By intermission, Mark had had enough, so we caught a cab back to the hotel and bed.