The Road Goes Ever On

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Castle Hill, 1

The next day we trammed and bussed over to Buda and its Castle Hill, which includes, duh, the Castle, as well as other monuments, and especially, fine views of the river and Pest.

Beautiful buildings, tiled roofs, all around

Fisherman's Bastion, a neo-Gothic structure high up,

affords great views

Pest

The Hungarian Parliament Buildings

The Danube, with Margaret Island; one of the world's great

rivers, 1800 miles from the Black Forest in Germany to the

Black Sea in Romania and the Ukraine; Europe's only

east-west river, a thoroughfare from the earliest human

times, one imagines

The Holy Trinity, i.e., Plague, Monument

Matthias Church, lots of renovation going on below; more

beautiful tiles above

As close as we got to the actual Castle

Another view of Pest

Eagle (dragon?) at the gate to the Castle environs

Another even longer tram and bus ride took us into the Buda hills and to Memento Park. After the fall of communism here, some enterprising souls gathered together what they could of the colossal communist monuments and statues and placed them all together in what is now called Memento Park. As with the Museum of Communism in Prague, this is all displayed with some humor, although the underlying story, especially of Hungarian resistance and rebellion, is tragic. But even the people who lived through it all seem able to laugh, a little, triumphantly now, at those years.

"Our founders" (this is socialist realism?)

Comrade Lenin

Alas, most of it is untitled

But speaks volumes

Must be thirty feet high

Vicki made me do this; I have leftist

sympathies, but not that left

"I am the Walrus"--Donnie, TBL

"Let's us Ruskies and Hungarians be pals, comrade"

Pretty well sums it up, machine gun and all

Esceri Piac

Esceri Piac must mean "street market" or somesuch. But this is no mere flea market. We've seen a few recently. This one attracts antique dealers and has some wonderful stuff (as well as the usual flea market fare). It took us more than an hour on buses to get to it, right on the southern outskirts of Pest.

Entrance on a gray day; it's actually a large enclosed
area, with some permanent stalls and shops, the rest
on tables all over

A cimbalom

Stall interior

In one of the galleries

Interestingly, unlike Germany and Austria, there was a good bit of Nazi
memorabilia for sale, reminders of how market- oriented Nazism was--they
were continually producing trinkets and other items, covered with their
symbols and slogans; the owners would not let me take pix of most of

it, but I did snatch a few

Presumably there's a black market for this stuff; one wouldn't want so much
as to touch it, however

Big Indoor Market

At the end of Daci Utca is the Lszamu Vasarc Sarnok, which, we figure, means "big indoor market."

There it is

At first sight, outside, I thought it had to be the Budapest

train station; it is humongously huge, three floors

Much of what is sold is paprika

And other local goodies

Garlic for those contemplating a trip to Transylvania

Fun (in English, too)

As well as goose liver

Vaci Utca

We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around, as is our habit, first to a craft-market near the synagogue, then down toward Vaci Utca, one of the main pedesrtrian shopping areas.

Fixer-upper Art Deco

Nice Art Nouveau all around, although not as prominent as

in Prague

All kinds of nice buildings to look at

Vaci Utca; we have, at length, figured out that

utqa means street; ter means plaza or square;

fortunately, many people, especially younger

(as is always the case), speak pretty good

English

Which is good, since there is not so much as a phoneme in

the signage or spoken language we can understand

The central tour bus port in downtown Budapest

Looking across the Danube, the giant Liberty statue

Budapest Synagogue

Our first stop, in what is turning into a week in Budapest (it's a long story), was the Budapest Synagogue and Memorial in the Jewish Quarter.

Facade of the Budapest's Dohany St. Synagogue, built
in mid-19th century, said to be Europe's largest

Interior; a beautiful place, not much defaced by the Germans

The style is Moorish Revival, but with many of the trappings of a Christian
church...pulpits, organ, etc.

Dome

Vaulting

Definitely Moorish-looking

Silver tree memorial to Hungary's half a million Holocaust victims, in the
synagogue courtyard; the tree was a gift of the American film actor Tony Curtis,
whose father was among those murdered

Nearly 500,000 Hungarian Jews were deported and
murdered in May-June, 1944

In the neighborhood; the philosopher Spinoza actually
has a cafe named in his honor; he resided in Budapest
for a time, evidently

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Two Years on the Road

Two years ago, today, we left dear Missoula, after selling, donating or storing nearly everything we owned, and after an especially frantic day and night of final packing and storing. But we made the plane to San Francisco, and then, after a less than one day visit with Rebecca and Jeremy, we made the next plane, to Tokyo, and then another, to Beijing. And so our retirement travels had begun. Nearly 800 posts on this blog as well as many entries on our website chronicle these two years. It's interesting to reflect that no previous years of our lives have been so well chronicled.

Many other reflections come to mind. We have seen many sights, met many people, touched on five continents, endured a few minor difficulties, and had many interesting and edifying experiences. The reflection that most readily comes to mind is that, even after two years of this traveling routine, our mindset--both of us--is still in "vacation" mode. Particularly as September rolls around, both of us, former educators, think about going back to work or school. Every day we have to remind ourselves that we are not really in a hurry, that we can spend another day or week if we want, that this is our lifestyle. We do miss having a home, and particularly our family and friends, but we'll get back to those things soon enough.

Meanwhile, if there are not enough castles, museums, cathedrals, and standing stones to see, or food and drink to savor, there is always the quotidien even of travel. Currently we are at a nice-enough campground in Pest (as in Budapest), two tram stops from the Danube. We have enjoyed touring this great capital. The weather today is grey and cool and threatening rain. Our particular challenge this morning is finding tires for our campervan. It is a Sprinter, made by Mercedes, and the tires are Conti's, whose world headquarters is in Vienna. But we have not been able to find these tires anywhere in Austria or Hungary. We have a lead back in Vienna and may have to back-track 160 miles there to get the tires. We need them before heading out of the EU/Schengen countries, into Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. But we're still having great fun and great experiences. Stay tuned for year #3.