Old school Hungarian geography

We went to the Agricultural Museum in the Varosliget here in Budapest on Sunday. The building housing the museum isn't that old by local standards. It was finished in its current form in 1908 for the Millenary anniversary of Hungary to showcase the various indigenous architectural styles. 

100 years is still plenty old enough to build up whatever blend of wonderfully smelly particles that go into "old museum" musk. The exhibits have the density that comes from years of squeezing in new 

displays in among the older ones. Many of the cards listing information about the exhibits have long ago yellowed, and some are written with a heavy dull pencil tip. All of these textures add up to a rich, dense sensory reminder of the old Catholic school I attended until 5th grade. 

While I was swept up in the atmosphere, a lot of insight is still offered about the role its landscape has played in Hungary's evolving hunting, fishing, forestry, conservation, crop and livestock traditions. I've always enjoyed the dioramas in these types of museums, and the ones here interestingly blend the building's gothic architecture into the scenes of Hungary's plains, marshes, and prehistoric cave life. (By the way, either the cave dwellers of prehistoric Hungary had particularly big boobs, or the clay models of them here were just a lot of fun to make.) 

As a kid I used to love those old maps in which colorful images of mines and cows and fish were superimposed over the regions that chiefly produced those products. This was like finally getting to walk around inside of one of those.