Budapest, Hungary: Where the Hills End

These things happen. Somehow I lost about 100 pictures of our three day sojourn through Slovenia. A lesson to not do even simple computer tasks after cycling in hot and humid conditions for six hours.  So there are no images to prove we were there, just a few credit card receipts.  These things happen.

We headed due north from Plitvick Lakes into Slovenia rather than staying in Croatia and going through the capital of Zagreb.  The city did not interest us, and neither did the busy roads to get there.  Our first day was a quiet Sunday morning, and for the first time on this trip we saw more than a few recreational cyclists out for the day, and also dedicated bike lanes through the larger towns. The houses were in the style of Swiss and Austrian chalets.  Every house looked occupied, in contrast to the many abandoned ones we saw all over Albania and Croatia.  In the rural area, almost every yard had a substantial vegetable garden. On this day, after the rains of a couple days previous, men and women were out hoeing their way ahead of the weeds.  Our impression is that Slovenia is a relatively prosperous country.

We went through the town where Melania Trump was born, Novo Mesto, with a small and interesting walled old town.  We went up a rural road to avoid the highway that took us up 15 percent grades. We had to push our bikes up a kilometer or so (we thought we left that terrain behind in Albania), but at the top were views of mountains and valleys not unlike the Alps.  And just as we were getting used to how Slovenia did things, we crossed the border back into Croatia to see a romantic castle at Trakoscan, followed by another night in Varazdin with another castle.  And then we crossed into Hungary, where we can continue this story with pictures.

Not hard to sustain over 20 km/hr on terrain flat as flat can be in all directions.

Hello, Hungary!

Some town names are so long they don't fit on the map.  But unlike Croatian, there are at least a few more vowels.

We did a ride-by of Lake Heviz, the largest warm water lake in Europe.  We could only peer through the fence at the swimmers and their pool noodles taking their morning therapeutic soak.  It was our first glimpse of the Hungarian spa culture.

Soon we were cycling on the shore of Lake Balaton, the largest and shallowest lake in Europe.  There is a bike route that goes around the perimeter of the lake, about 200 kilometers total.  Much of the route is dedicated bike paths, and there ferries that will allow for shorter loops.  It is a popular bike tour destination for the region.  We were there on a weekend, and there were people with minimalist panniers going from hotel to hotel.  It is pretty much flat, but there was more than one stout European with an ebike doing the tour.

The Tehany Peninsula juts out into the middle of the lake from the north shore.  There is a high point where a historical abbey exists.  It is a popular weekend destination for walking around and eating gelato, as well as taking in the view of Lake Balaton, here looking to the east.

Catholicism is the predominant religion of the country, and even the smallest town will have more than one church.  This brick church was particularly interesting.

Lake Valence is east of Lake Balaton, the third largest lake in Hungary, but small enough to cycle around in one day.  We happened to be going counterclockwise, while several hundred other cyclists were going clockwise on this day in early June, apparently on an annual family fun ride event.  We intersected with them around noon, and many were sunburned and almost as wilted as we were on the hot and humid day.  We had our Hungarian thermal experience that night.  We stayed at a campground next to a thermal spa.  The campground host talked us in to upgrading for a couple of dollars each for entry into the spa.  Now, soaking in hot water did not sound very appealing after biking in the heat all day, but we went for it.  It was quite an experience.  There were hot water pools shaped like donuts with people going around in circles.  There were huge shallow outdoor pools with canopies with people sitting in the water.  We chose one of the two huge indoor pools, apparently preferred in the winter, with jets and benches in the water to prop yourself up on while you soak.  It felt quite nice, actually, and the people watching was worth the price of admission.

It was a day's worth of cycling to get to Budapest from Lake Valence.  We came in from the industrial southern end , over a bridge that gave us views of the city.

WE stayed in an AirBnB for four nights, in what was described as a typical Budapest townhouse.  Lucky us, it was newly renovated and we were the second guests.  It was in the heart of downtown, and this was the view from our second-floor window.

The Dohany Street Synagogue is the largest in Europe, and quite a beautiful building.

The lasting impression we have of Budapest is that it is a city of massive buildings.  Much of the city was destroyed a year before the end of WWII.

We spent a day in the Hungarian National Museum, where this guy watched over the front entrance.

Franz Liszt was a notable Hungarian musician and composer, and this piano was given to him when he was a child prodigy pianist.  It was a piano previously owned by Beethoven

It made a great impression on us to see an instrument with Beethoven's name on it, and to think that he once played it.

Day two:  walking along the Danube on both the east and west shore.  Budapest is actually two cities in one.  Here wer are looking at the east side, of the town of Buda.

We crossed the Chain Bridge from the Pest side to get to the Buda Side.  Built in 1849, the bridge was bombed in WW11, and only the towers survived.  It was rebuilt in 1949.

We climbed up the many stairs to the top of the hill on the Buda side to look back at the Chain Bridge and the Parliment building with its domed on the horizon.

The Buda side is a more compact urban area with several churches, including this Gothic church with a glazed tile roof.

Later that afternoon, back on the Pest side, we did a tour of the Parliment building.  A bit opulent, especially these carved figures watching over us.

Our townhouse was just a few blocks from the Liszt Academy, a renowned music school with five concert halls.  An internet search gave us a performance schedule, and just our luck, there were a series of free diploma concerts happening while we were there.

We attened a symphony concert in the Grand Hall.  It was actually a small venue, just a couple of hundred seats.  The performance were three pieces, each led by a different student conductor.  We expected that the orchestra would also be students, but when they came on stage the members were more around our age.  Maybe a community orchestra, we thought.  But they played beautifully, and later we found out it was the MAV Symphony Orchestra, a professional orchestra formed by the state railway after WWII to visit the destroyed towns of Hungary after WWII.  It was a magical night, and the highlight of our visit to Budapest.

On the last of our three days in the city, we continued our immersion into all things Liszt, and visited his studio where he taught when he visited Budapest.  The studio was the first home of the Liszt Academy, and is now known as the Old Academy, while the campus and performance hall we visited the previous night is the current home of the institution.  There was this drawing, made from a photograph, of Liszt and his assistant in the studio.

The studio as it is presented today has much of the original furniture and paintings arranged just like what is seen in the drawing.  In the same building was a concert hall, but locked behind closed doors, so we could not get a peek.  But lucky us, there was another diploma concert that night, in the Old Academy concert hall.

The concert hall was nothing more than a small auditorium.  But there was a polished Steinway on stage, and the diploma candidate that performed for us was the definition of perfection.  One of the peices he performed was by Liszt, an appropriate ending grace note to our visit to Budapest.

7 AM, and time to get out of the city and onto the EuroVelo 6 bike route that will take us north on the Danube.  Stay tuned...