Dawn train to Vienna

Having originated in Bucharest, our Vienna-bound "Liszt Ferenc" train left Budapest at dawn. The light inside the Keleti Station on Saturday was a bit murky from some light fog outside. A small crowd was gathered around the mechanical arrival and departure board watching new track numbers being assigned. A gravelly voice, muffled and tinny from the loudspeaker, echoed through the vast space announcing the impending arrivals and departures.

Once on our way, it was hard to stay awake as the soothing monotony of the clicking tracks and swaying train cars floated through the fog, out of the city, and into the early morning. 

Occasionally I'd open my eyes when the train stopped at some small station along the way whose anonymity was enhanced by the mist and web of overhead wires stretching to infinity.

Nyugati pályaudvar

I went to the Nyugati palyaudvar, one of the main train stations here today to buy weekend tickets for Vienna. We leave early in the morning for the two day trip. 

I was reminded how much excitement there is being at the grand old Nyugati train station, filled with people arriving from and departing to points far and wide as well as all of the transients and other shadiness associated with any train station. A train arrived from Debrecen while I was there, and the energy given off by the disembarking passengers as they flowed out into the city with a mixture of confusion and relief had me buzzing for a little while.

"Tarka Magyar!"

  
We joined thousands of people last Saturday here in Budapest in recognition of the International Day of Non-Violence, and to act against the increasingly vocal nationalist and racist groups in Hungary. Tarka Magyar translates as medley (or colorful) hungarian, and was the slogan written on signs everywhere and shouted in call-and-response chants. At the invitation of our neighbor Eva, a Humanist, we were glad to support such a demonstration so we marched in the Humanist (orange) section. Frankly, I was flattered that Eva would assume we'd be of like minds enough to want to participate, as we hadn't discussed politics until that day.

  

Hunyadi tér market

I found a new market near our apartment yesterday. Actually it's quite old, but a new one to me and probably my favorite so far in our part of the city. I'd seen the building before in the evening and thought it was just another beautiful old building ruin in an unpolished working class neighborhood. Yesterday I walked by when it was open and was surprised by the colorful world of bright produce, hanging meat and bakery stands inside. 

Many of the old buildings housing the main markets around the city were demolished and rebuilt more recently without any patina. The Hunyadi ter market is small compared to some of them, but the vendors inside made me

 want to frequent the place, never mind the prices. I recently fell into a habit of shopping at the grocery stores and as a result it's been harder to stay within our budget. Here on the other hand, I bought a few days worth of food (pictured) at the Hunyadi ter market for around 1400 forint (USD $7), during which I was surrounded by the romanticized Budapest of my imagination.
   

Last chance for soup

     
After hiking back down into Visegrad from the citadel, we found the town shutting down for the evening. We hurried to a tiny cafe to down some jokai bean soup outside while the canopies over the adjacent tables were being taken down and their chairs hauled inside. 

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. 

       

Ferry to Visegrád

     
Sometimes crossing a bridge is a big event and sometimes it's barely noticeable. For everyone else on it, this ferry crossing seemed barely noticeable. It was just how you get from the train in Nagymaros across the Danube to Visegrad. To me that normalcy made it a bit of an event, I guess. What's the threshold from ferry to bridge, anyway?

Scrabble-tile signs of Budapest

Another in a series of small things seen regularly around Budapest which I gradually realize contributes to the look of the place: these Scrabble-tile signs. 

Stumbling on pálinka

Walking along the Dunakorzo (the Danube river bank south of the Szechenyi bridge) on our way to Buda last weekend we happened upon the Palinka Promenad, a three-day celebration/promotion of the fruit brandy made in Hungary. It's an industry that seems to be building itself from moonshine into a respectable spirit, refining the laws that define rules of production. 

So, what the hell, when in Rome, right?  Palinka's more traditionally made from plums (szilva), apricots (barack), or cherries (cseresznye), but we tried some made from chestnuts and from quince. [Chestnut=dry and quince=floral.] The afternoon floated by a bit after that.

Turkish leftovers

I stumbled across the 430+ year-old Kiraly furdo (baths) tucked in behind some trees off of Fo utca in Buda the other day. The Ottoman Empire ruled these parts for roughly a century and a half, naturally leaving a permanent imprint on Hungarian culture and adding a significant layer in what makes Budapest. The copper domes and heavy stonework were identical to Turkish baths we'd seen in Istanbul.