August 17, 2010: Buda Castle and the Art Museum

August 17, 2010: It was nice to wake up knowing that I could prepare my own breakfast -- imagine eating a grapefruit again! And there was even a grapefruit spoon in the apartment to use. However, while preparing my eggs, I learned another word in Hungarian: the package that I purchased yesterday with the word butter on it had another word before it: "Krauter" which I learned is not the manufacturer of the butter; "Krauter" must be Hungarian for "garlic"! So, my eggs contained an extra ingredient I had not counted on. I wonder what I'm going to do with all the garlic butter I purchased -- perhaps find some escargot to cook? At any rate, the eggs were fine cooked in garlic butter, and I must say that the yolks of the eggs were the darkest orange I've ever seen a yolk to be. Perhaps that's because they were brown eggs?

My adventure for the day was to visit the art museum which I discovered is on the Buda side of Budapest -- right on top of the hill in that large building I displayed in a previous blog entry. Being familiar with getting around in the Vaci utca area, I set out on foot through Vaci utca, crossed the Chain Bridge (see pictures) going over the
Danube River, and walked up to the line to board the funicular going to the top of the hill. However, the line seemed to go very slowly, so I decided to walk up the hill instead -- good choice since the cost to go up the funicular was ~$4.00 and the walk was really quite simple, gradually rising up the hill going through courtyards, turrets, and other castlelike features. I was at the
top in no time even going leisurely. The art museum was the first building I saw on top of the hill. The art museum houses only Hungarian art, but the five large floors of permanent pieces embraced all the art periods of other European masters. It was really quite impressive to see what looked like Rembrandt here, Baroque art there, etc. I also was quite impressed with the art of the great great (great?) uncle of the person whose apartment I'm staying in -- there were two whole rooms devoted to Paal Laszlo, a painter of the late 1800's.


There was a stairway going up from the fifth floor into the dome of the art museum. Looking out were panoramic views of the city below. Also, one could see men assembling wooden booths in preparation for the folk arts festival to be held this weekend (St. Stephen's Day, a national holiday will be August 20th and there will be fireworks, etc. to celebrate.)

Leaving the art museum I wandered through the streets housing souvenir shops and restaurants, eventually passing the Matthius Cathedral and beyond that the Fisherman's Bastion, a white stone wall with all sorts of elaborate towers, turrets, and walkways.

The picture of the magnificent building with red steeples across the river is the Hungarian Parliament Building.

After viewing the Fisherman's Bastion, I found an inviting staircase that wound its way down the hill so I wandered through streets going downhill until I ended up at the bottom of the funicular.

Then a short walk back across the bridge and through Vaci utca and I was home.






























I'll conclude today's entry by making some more observations on Hungarian life:

• Street musicians can often be seen on the streets and in alleyways. Most tend to play the violin, especially czardas type music. This music often has flourishes that sound quite gypsyish. The quality of the playing is actually quite good. I've also heard jazz on the street with other instruments besides violin.

• Today it finally struck me that there really are very few overweight people on the streets -- this considering all the sidewalk cafes seem to be quite busy all the time. In general, though I'd say that the average Hungarian looks very svelte. And who knows -- perhaps with all the walking I'm doing, I'll be able to lose the stomach I've developed!