It's so fun to just immerse yourself in a new place and absorb all that you can - looking and noticing and reading and researching and listening and wondering and making connections, all in a rather random fashion. Budapest's two parts, the hilly old city of Buda and newer, flatter Pest, are divided by the Danube River. We are fortunate to be staying for these 10 days in an apartment located on the edge of the Jewish Quarter on the Pest side of the river. This area is a mix of Jewish establishments coming to life again after the atrocities of recent times, amidst a dynamic entrepreneurial flurry of small restos, galleries, "ruin pubs", stores, etc. A definite "down at the heels" look of abandoned buildings has evolved into "shabby chic" and attracted graffiti and street art, now punctuated by construction work to rehab the old places, turning them into high price rents. As our guide on a tour of the Jewish Quarter noted, synagogues and buildings housing sacred ritual baths are situated next to pubs and bars in a weird mix of the old and new, the holy and the profane.
One of the hallmarks of this area is the street art, which we discovered purely by accident, by just looking up and being surprised to see huge walls with images. Now the focus of guided tours, they have been professionally created and are an attraction.
Rubik's cube. The inventor, Mr. Rubik, is Hungarian
One of the first places that we visited was just a few doors from our apartment, a museum dedicated to Robert Capa. I had heard his name and was vaguely aware that he was photographer. It turns out that he was Hungarian and a photojournalist who covered five wars during the 1930's and 40's. His subjects were both the combat situations but also the citizens whose lives had been upended by war. The show was historic and compelling.
The museum was also hosting a contemporary show entitled Golden Boundaries, describing the lives of teens as they sort out who they are through dress, activities, friendships. Despite locations as diverse as the slums of Mexico city and Tbilisi, Georgia, as well as a youth detention center in Hungary, the youthful journeys were remarkably similar.
Poke a stick in the ground anywhere in Budapest, and hot water will come spurting out, goes an old saying. This has been a spa town for a very long time. We couldn't wait to soak in hot mineral water - and were not disappointed. There are options, of course, but our landlord and our Eyewitness Guide book had both recommended the ancient Rudas Baths, built in the 16th century by the Turks.
Off we went on yet another gray, snowy day with our bathing suits tucked under our arms. The pools were obviously a destination for retirees, seeking to ease aches and pains. The minerals are reputed to alleviate arthritis. A few young Asian tourists seemed as full of wonder as we were. We stretched out in the burbling hot water, letting any travel stress float away. What a sublime experience!
Walking tours are our cup of tea, we discovered. Bruce and I were drawn to the Communist tour, led by a woman admittedly too young to have experienced that period. But she was a bright university grad who had done her homework, including talking with her parents and grandparents! We learned about the brutal period of Soviet domination when there was little food, outside news, only one political party, and arrests and torture were frequent. This was followed by "happy communism", the period after the uprising of 1956 when the Soviets relaxed some of their harsh measures and Hungary became a holiday destination for people from other communist nations. Our guide's mom had listened to Radio Free Europe every evening. Her dad had attended church, a different form of protest in that era.
Buildings constructed during the Communist era are known to be of shoddy workmanship, hard to heat and drafty, with thin walls that allow you to learn all about your neighbors' lives! All of this makes them cheap to buy now. Our guide pointed out one of these easily distinguished buildings alongside one of the lovely, early 20th century buildings.
Imagine our surprise to see a statue of Ronald Reagan on this tour! The Hungarians appreciated his efforts to end the cold war, leading to the departure of the Soviets, which happened in 1989. Reagan is placed where he looks at the American Embassy, a most heavily guarded building, btw, as was the one in Prague.
Budapest's Holocaust Museum is impressively organized. The years preceding the war are laid out as a series of losses for the Jews, with each type of loss becoming more serious until the final loss: life itself. The creeping nature of the erosion of rights gives one pause in today's world. And one can certainly understand the fierce desire of the Jews to have their own homeland where their destiny is in their own hands.
We read that Hungary's current Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, is intent on re-establishing the grandness of Budapest through restoring the aging, once opulent structures and building new ones. Several of the museums that we would have liked to visit are closed for renovation. We did tour both the National Museum, where the gilded 10th century coronation robe was on display, and the National Art Gallery, where we had a tour by an English-speaking Mexican woman!
The Hungarian language has proven to be even more of a conundrum than the Czech language. Very few words have English similarities - or French/Spanish - which I guess makes sense since Hungarian has a different root. The unfamiliar combination of letters seems to mock us, as we try to decipher meaning in the many historical markers. Fortunately, essential messages - and many adverts - are in English. Business people take one look at us and launch into English.
There are not a lot of tourists around at this time of year. We rarely hear American English. Now, at the end of our time in Budapest, we have a slight sense of living here: we can find our way to the small grocery store around the corner and to the main streets without the use of our map; we're not surprised to hear the church bells across the street ring out the hour, can put our code into the security number pad at the apartment automatically, and a Hungarian thank you ("kurssemum") slides out easily, in a rough approximation of the real thing. We've enjoyed our time of discovery here and have a better sense of the culture. I wouldn't mind seeing the sun before long!
Tomorrow we board a bus for a 7 hour ride to Krakow, Poland.
No comments:
Post a Comment