Vivid Visegrád

   

Visegrad is a small medieval town about 45 minutes by train north of Budapest, where we went to see a 13th century citadel high on a hilltop dominating a bend in the Danube. After an hour hiking up the steep hill by the village, we emerged from the woods to a parking lot with a tour bus and souvenir stands before the final climb to the citadel ruins. Circling the base of the rock on which the citadel was built, we passed a children's archery range, a horse waiting to give a ride around a small pen, and a plywood throne available for your portrait as a king or queen. A little further on the trees opened up to a spectacular view of the Danube Bend, a region of small towns and tall hills where the river makes a turn, flowing south through Hungary.

Inside the largely in-tact ruin, armor and weapons displays and food and hunting dioramas gave a sense of life under constant pressure from rival kingdoms and the riches at stake in the centuries of wars fought here. We paid a little extra to see the wax figures, and for that we saw an overflowing feast that looked a little stale, and a scene of music and dancing that looked strangely un-merry. It was a little disappointing when the medieval torture displays I'd read about were no longer around. Perhaps recent events in the world have made it no fun anymore.

It was all nicely vivid despite the laughs. Maybe because, having grown up in the New World where I'm used to the Middle Ages being reproduced more cartoonishly, the campy displays here within such a genuine and dramatic setting succeeded in making palpable what the citadel might've really been like once upon a time.