Our first day in Budapest

Yesterday we started with a tour of the grand opera house in Budapest.  It's quite elaborate and one of the crown jewels of the city.  

We next went to the synagogue which was built in the mid 1800s.  It was fascinating to learn about the history of the Hungarian Jews.  It amazed me that at the peak, nearly 20% of the population was Jewish.  They even had their own version called "Neologism"  (between conservative and orthodox).

 The synagogue itself had elements of a cathedral with preaching pulpits on the sides and a big organ. 

The synagogue is in a complex with another synagogue and school, surrounding a courtyard that was made out of necessity into a graveyard during WWII.  This now is a kind of holocaust memorial.  Many, but not all, of the Jews in Hungary were murdered or died over the course of the war.  

We then drove to the top of the hill to see the view and the palace buildings.  Much is under renovation so we didn't go in.

We had lunch at a bistro where the highlight was getting great pastries ... apple strudel at last!

We stopped by the Hero Square, a giant plaza with statues of various heroes from the many tumultuous times of Hungary's history.

Our last formal stop of the day was at the Gellert baths.  This is an older bath house feed by natural hot springs.  There are many baths all over the city.  It was quite a process to register and enter.  My favorite was the automation.  You received a "proxy watch" which was a plastic armband with a watch-sized disc.  You used this to enter the baths.  Then, you held it up to a wall mounted device which assigned you a locker.  Then, when you got to your specific locker, your proxy watch could open it up.  The watch is waterproof so it also was your proof of purchase, and you were to wear it the whole time.  When you leave, you drop the proxy watch into a box and it releases your locker for others and lets you out (and keeps the watch ... as Cathy pointed out, it keeps it like they keep the last ball in mini-golf!).

We were constantly lost in the baths going from room to room and pool to pool.  Each pool is at a different temperature.  We had to rent towels so we stopped at the towel desk where a stern looking woman, who we decided to call "The Soviet", explained that we are being charged quite a bit but when we return them all, we get back the deposit.  This was challenging for us given that we were all going to leave at different times, so we set up amongst ourselves an elaborate system to try to get all the towels back to Joan, who was to return them for the group.  Midway through the visit I tried to exchange my soaked towel for a dry one, but The Soviet was having none of it.  She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and made it clear that no such thing was possible.  In the end, Joan managed to cajole her into returning the deposit even though Lenny had separately returned his towel.

Since I'm saying kaddish for my dad, I wanted to go to services, and Lenny, Cathy and Sandy joined me.  We went back to the synagogue and headed for a small room in the school.  The security guard wasn't letting us in, but fortunately a young man came by and we explained that we wanted to say Kaddish, and he instructed the guard to let us in.  Cathy and I had to go to the separate woman's area.  They did both the afternoon and evening services in about 20 minutes flat, and it went so fast, and with such a strange accent, that it was nearly impossible to follow.  Every time I figured out where I was, I would lose it a few minutes later.  Fortunately the young man caught my eye each time the kaddish came up, so I was able to accomplish my goal.

We then had dinner in a small Transylvanian restaurant (is Transylvania a real country?).  We tried the chicken paprika, which is a Hungarian spice.  Then we met up with Guy/Pascale, Joan/Karl for an organ concert at the giant St. Stephen's Basilica.  The music and the structure were quite impressive, although the rock hard seats not very comfortable!

After a stop in a fun cafe for some wine and desert, we called it a day.

Donna 

From Prague to Budapest

Today we got an early start to get on the road to Budapest.  I thought this would be a few hours drive but it turned out to be quite a long day in a bus.

The original plan was to stop in Bratislava, Slovakia, which is between Prague and Budapest.  However we once again ended up changing plans.  It's a good thing we have a private tour, since they don't seem to mind when we change things!

We wanted to visit Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic.  The Villa was designed by Mies Van Der Rohe, the famous modernist architect, and has recently been restored.  We had tried to organize this in advance with no luck, because it was completely booked.  Through my business, I had met a well-placed Czech businessman, so asked him if he could help.  Well, he called me on the bus saying that he'd managed to get us in at 1pm. We all were thrilled.  Brno was also in between Prague and Budapest, so became a logical stopping place for lunch and the tour.  But the time we took there meant we had to cut Bratislava.

It is quite a stunning building, reminding me very much of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture ... flat lines, huge windows, custom designed built-in furniture.  The main living space is particularly stunning with a giant onyx wall.  The history is wild, in that the Villa was created for a Jewish family who left at the start of WWII, and in turn was taken over by the Germans, made into a physical therapy center, and ultimately run by the government of the Czech Republic.

One of the fun technologies we experienced was the shoe shrink-wrap machine at Villa Tugendhat.  In order to protect the original floors, they want you to put coverings on your shoes.  But rather than ask you to wear those annoying shoe bags, they have a shrink wrap machine.  You put your shoe-clad foot on the machine, and it quickly heat-wraps a layer of film around the bottom of your shoe.  It feels just a touch warm, but then hardens quickly into a solid layer.  When you leave, you just peel it off.  I've never seen this before, and I think it would be good for house tours and other places where they want to protect the floor.  Much better than forcing you to take off your shoes as well!

I'm not sure what Bratislava would have been like but I'm super glad we got to see Villa Tugendhat.

We were in a big rush when we got to Budapest as we had set up a dinner at the home of a young couple through the www.eatwith.com web site ... sort of an Airbandb for dinner.  It was pouring rain (we have otherwise been lucky with the weather) but we managed to find the place.  The hosts, Balasz and Ester, lived in a small apartment up several flights of stairs.  It was full of books, CDs, and wild decorations.  They had moved their living room furniture in order to create a table for 6 of us (Cathy and Sandy had decided not to join us).  Balasz had prepared a marvelous meal, full of Hungarian specialties, and being flexible about our various dietary restrictions.

One item that Balasz served was unusual.  He refused to tell us what it was until after we tasted it. All we knew was that it was a part of the chicken.  It was the consistency of a pate, and reasonably tasty.  Well, much to my chagrin, we learned that these were chicken testicles!  I think Balasz was wise in disclosing that late, as I would undoubtedly have skipped it had I known. I found myself not wanting any more.

We had a lively conversation, learning a lot about living in Hungary and about Balasz's work as a documentary filmmaker.  Their one year old son, Phillip, took a liking to Lenny and decided that was who he wanted to feed him dinner!

Donna

Second day in Prague

Yesterday we started out at Prazsky Hrad -- the Prague Castle.  This is more than a castle ... more like a small city, and the seat of the government.  There is a massive Gothic cathedral in the center that was stuffed full of ornate coffins and saints' relics.  We also walked through some of the old rooms with interesting ceiling structures where many ceremonial activities take place.

We've become fascinated with defenestration.  This sounds like deforestation but has nothing to do with it.  Defenestration is the fine art of throwing people out of a window.  There have been 3 major defenestration events in Czech history, and it seems we are due for another, so we kept clear of the windows.  There was also a similarly fun activity of throwing someone off the bridge rather than out the window; our guide told us that is depontification.

We next went to the National Gallery.  We were only scheduled to be there for 1/2 hour but we all immediately fell in love with the place and switched up the schedule to stay longer.  It is an enormous building with many interesting pieces, both Czech artists as well as international artists.  We focused on the modern art.  The building itself was impressive with a major installation in the entrance that is hard to describe - it was room-size layers of black material covered in water, with a shimmering reflective screen behind.  There also was an Ai Wei Wei snake made of backpacks hanging above the entrance.

We spent a lovely lunch in one of Prague's oldest restaurants near our hotel, and then each headed our own way for a little bit of shopping.  In the evening we attended a performance about Dvorak in a magnificent old home that also housed some artifact's from Dvorak's life.  The singing was good, although the acting was a little hokey -- they were pretending to have a soire while waiting for Dvorak to arrive. He never made an appearance, though, and was reported to have died.

After some tapas and wine at a local wine bar, we called it a day and starting preparing for our journey to Budapest.

Donna 

Our first day touring in Prague

We had our first day in Prague with our guide Vladimir.  He gave us a great overview of the history of Prague and the Czech Republic, which is quite confusing with all the countries getting together and coming apart.  The good news for Prague is that it was not destroyed through the multiple wars, but the bad news is that they were assaulted by multiple invaders -- even in modern times, from being occupied by the Nazis to being occupied by the Soviets. 

We strolled through the old town and admired the architecture. It's quite classic and beautiful, with a lot of rococo style.  We crossed the Charles Bridge into the older part of the city, and saw the beautiful astronomical clock.

 We took a van to a monastery where Vladimir had organized a private tour of their amazing libraries. Two huge rooms were filled from floor to ceiling with old books in all languages.  It was stunning.  My favorite was a set of 10 books given to the monastery by Napoleon's wife, which was a guide to the Louvre. Only 4 copies still exist.

We forced Vladimir to stop for lunch. Apparently he was determined to power through 6 hours of sightseeing without a break, but we mounted a rebellion and managed a very nice lunch break.

 Afterwards we visited the museum of Czech artist Alfons Mucha, who was famous for his large "Art Deco" posters of women.

Guy, Pascale, Lenny and I added on a quick trip to the Jewish quarter.  There aren't really any buildings of the original ghetto left, but there are several synagogues and an amazing cemetery.  It's hard to believe any of this survived at all.  I found the most moving part was the synagogue which had been converted into a memorial for the 80,000 Czech Jews who were murdered in the holocaust.  All their names were inscribed on the walls, with birth and death dates, organized by village.  It was very powerful to see evidence of whole families destroyed.

On a lighter note (okay, I can't think of any better transition after talking about such a dark subject), the most unusual thing we saw was a live photo shoot in central Prague.  I have no idea what it was for, but a totally naked woman was strolling breezily through the streets with several photographers in front and behind.  Maybe it was an advertisement for her sandals, since that was all she had on.  The  photographers in our group rather enjoyed using her as a subject as well, but I don't think we will post those photos because we might get booted off blogger! 

Donna

PS: Remember you can click on the photos to make them larger.

Arrived in Prague

After an uneventful flight from San Francisco through Zurich, we arrived in Prague in the late afternoon and rendezvoused with Guy/Pascale, Cathy/Sandy, and Karl/Joan. We're off to our first day of touring this morning.

The view of the Area Hotel garden from the window of our room.

Off to Eastern Europe

Stay tuned for the launch of the blog about our trip to Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, and Krakow.