Budapest, Hungary Part 2: Art and Culture

Sorry for the delay on this closing entry on Budapest. I’m currently enjoying a month-long sabbatical back in the states so both my access to the internet and my desire to do anything are intermittent.

Anyway, here are a few more photos and a bit more commentary from last month’s trip to Hungary.

Food

This probably doesn’t warrant its own subsection (or really say much about Hungarian culture), but I wanted to share a couple curiousities discovered.


Yes, we ate at Burger King. It was cheap and we were tired of walking around. But the main point here is that in Budapest, the chain seems to be marketed as a sort of "All-American” restaurant. The packaging and imagery inside all revolved around quintessential American iconography (i.e. Football, Route 66, Coke, Baseball, etc.).


Inexplicably, we came across this: a café themed around a beer from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Very odd.


We didn’t eat here, but there was something about the naiveté of the cut-out I found compelling.

That, and the pig head that appears to be really happy about the fact that it’s dead.


Nathan and I ponder the meaning of life over a local brew.


Hungary’s answer to Jagermeister is something called Unicum, which I drank at Darryl’s insistance.

Statues, Statues

I know I take (and post) a lot of photos of statues, but Budapest has some great ones.


Hero’s Square, which features statues of many of the famous rulers of the country and plenty of allegorical figures.


A statue representing Peace.


One of 7 statues representing the tribes that settled Hungary (if I remember correctly).


Statue of Anonymus, the first writer to record Hungary’s history.


Random statue of a Sphinx.


Little Princess statue along the Danube.




Sculptural fountain outside the castle

And More Statues…

On Sunday we headed outside the city to Statue Park, a place where they took all the Communist statues after the fall rather than destroy them. I really like Constructivist art and design—it’s just one of those unfortunate coincidences that it came into vogue with the Soviet Empire and will always be associated with Socialist Propaganda. So being able to see some of this art (while mocking it at the same time) made for quite an entertaining afternoon.


Some nice Constructivist typography








We look toward our glorious future. Or something.
(thanks to Nathan for volunteering to capture one of my “brilliant” ideas...)


Head for the hills! The commies are coming!
(thanks to Darryl for capturing another one)

And that’s the end of that chapter {throws scarf over shoulder}.

Budapest, Hungary Part 1: Overview

A few weeks ago I traveled to Budapest with YAGs friends Darryl, Nathan, and Katie & Troy (just back from their honeymoon). We had a great trip and saw quite a bit, despite the occasional airport strike. Even though I was a bit outmatched in terms of camera equipment and skill, I took plenty of photos so I’ll share them over the course of a few posts.

Arrival

We arrived on a Friday night and were quite perplexed when our driver from the airport kept asking if our hotel was “sheep” (cheap?) and “baught” (bought?). We kept inisisting that, yes, we had booked a room, and yes, it was quite reasonable. Finally, he got through to us... Was our hotel a ship? Was it a boat? Now, it wasn’t that his accent was that thick or terrible that these words didn’t make any sense—we just had absolutely no context for what he was asking. As far as we knew, we were staying in a cheap little hotel in a decent location recommended by Hostel World. Turns out, unbeknownst to us, that we had booked a “boatel.” That is, a hotel on a boat.

Certainly unexpected, but not too shabby, and how many people can say they stayed on the Danube?



Our first night, upon arrival, we went out in search of food. It was sort of late (9-ish) and rainy, so we didn’t wander too far and we happened upon this:

I was a little skeptical; after all, the chef seemed to imply Italy, the name seemed to imply Asian Fusion, and the menu appeared to be fairly traditional Hungarian. Turns out, the food was fantastic — and cheap! (And the name was pretty accurate too: lots of pepper and paprika in Hungarian dishes.)

Photo-A-Go-Go

Darryl (below right) and Nathan (below left) are both quite good with photography, and while I dabble, I don’t have any fancy lenses and didn’t even have an SLR on this trip. Therefore, I left it to the pros.


One of Nathan’s shots of us all standing around and looking the tourist part quite well:


One of the prettiest floral pictures I’ve ever taken:



Some Sites to See

On Saturday, we wandered around for most of the morning and then Nathan, Darryl and I took a 4-hour walking tour (see our guide, Blanca, below). It was very informative and allowed us to pack most of the touristy stuff into one afternoon. I’m going to post all the statue photos at the same time, so look for those at a later date.



The Parliament building—Europe’s second largest after England


St Stephen’s Cathedral


The pediment (thanks Paige) above


The Opera House


Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe and second-largest in the world


one of the fences on the grounds


the strikingly beautiful Holocaust Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs


Buda Castle


a view of the chain bridge over the Danube


exterior of a large marketplace with really funky architecture


a musical fountain on beautiful Margaret Island, right behind our boatel


That’s all for now. More soon.