May 22, 2011: Buda Castle area, Labyrinth,

May 22, 2011: Today we headed to Buda Castle where, among other things, we went to see the Munkacsy Trilogy exhibit. On the way to the art museum where the exhibit was, we passed a ceremony that was taking place on a square. The speaker was using Hungarian (obviously) so I couldn't tell what the ceremony was for, but it appeared to be in memory of the soldier in the statue:

We continued on our trip to the museum before the speaker had finished speaking. At the museum, there was also a new special exhibit of Marko so I visited that too while my guests continued to look at Munkacsy. On the way to the Marko exhibit, I passed a choir that was performing Brahms. 

Brahms Concert at the Art Museum

The voices were outstanding and the acoustics of the art museum helped magnify the sound. The Marko exhibit was huge, showing paintings of Marko and his sons (I guess -- there were different Marko names next to the paintings and the dates of the Markos were different). The paintings were categorized as "Mythological", "Biblical", etc. I didn't have much time to see the exhibit since my guests were looking at Munkacsy when I went to see the Marko paintings and I needed to meet them soon, so I guess I'll have to revisit the exhibit when I have more time to spend there.

After the museum we went to see the front of the Buda Castle and the great view across the Danube River. There was a goose liver festival taking place when we went there. I guess that Hungarians have festivals for everything at the Castle (Last week it was Palinka Festival -- I wonder what's next).

Foie Gras (Goose Liver) Festival at Buda Castle

Then we went to St. Matyas Church, Fisherman's Bastion, and then to the Labyrinth which I had never visited before. The Labyrinth is a long cave that lies under Castle Hill. Although the tunnels were interesting, I found the "exhibits" that filled them a bit campy -- they had so called archaeological findings of "39 million year old" -- fossils of athletic shoe footprints on exhibit and also artifacts that aliens had left in the cave "millions" of years ago.

After the Labyrinth, we walked down the street to see the Hospital in the Rock (see previous blog entry for details on this). 


After this, we went to the New York Cafe in Blaha Lujza ter for a cup of coffee (see previous blog entry for pictures of this magnificent coffee house restored in 2006). Since it was still early, we took a short walk down Elizabeth korut, passing another fine hotel that Steve had to examine.

Further on down the street was a plaque showing the house where Gustav Mahler lived when he was in Budapest.

Place where Mahler lived when he was in Budapest

A short distance from here we walked down the street in Budapest where there are a lot of play houses. Here's an interesting statue in front of one of them.

 
After this we returned to my favorite restaurant for dinner. We had a great table outside and the meal couldn't have been tastier -- cream asparagus soup with ham pieces and nut oil, a very moist chicken dish with exciting spices on it and with very buttery mashed potatoes (Hungarians really know how to fix mashed potatoes!), wine, a walnut tart, and cappuccino. 


And so ended another very full day for my guests and myself.