Twenty-four hours in Hungary

As I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris a sickening thought occurred to me. Maybe I needed a visa to enter Hungary. It hadn't occurred to me earlier as I didn't book the flights and I'm used to Europeans being able to go freely where they want. I felt rather anxious wondering if I would go all that way by plane only to be sent back. My boss would not be happy about that.





In the end I needn't have worried. There was no border control to speak of at Budapest. I had only hand luggage. A bored border guy was sitting down, saw me and waved me through, didn't check my documents at all. Suddenly I was free in Hungary. That felt weird but it happens on entering France too, from a European country. So much of our travel details are computerised and controlled by 'Big brother'.

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with a unification on 17 November 1873 of west-bank Buda and Óbuda with east-bank Pest.




The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia. Magyars arrived in the territory in the 9th century but their first settlement was ransacked by the Mongols in 1241-42.


Following nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification. It also became the second capital of Austria-Hungary, a great power that dissolved in 1918. Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, and the Revolution of 1956.



Budapest is considered a financial hub in Central Europe and ranked as the most livable Central/Eastern European city on EIU's quality of life index. It is also ranked as "Europe's 7th most idyllic place to live" by Forbes. Budapest is home to the headquarters of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). I'll write more on that in a future blogpost.



Flying over Europe was quite a novel experience. I'm so used to flying over water, the Pacific Ocean to be exact, or desert (Australia) that the idea of powering across countries without geographic borders is amazing to me.







These days I feel quite comfortable exploring European cities alone. Budapest felt safe and very liveable. It wasn't possible for me to do much in just a few hours though. I had approximately 5 hours to explore and have dinner. Naturally I started with The Danube, the mighty river flowing through this part of Europe. For size it's impressive but the majority of buildings alongside it aren't. It can't possibly compare with Paris and it's less intensely built-up. There are, after all, less than 2m people there.






I wanted to explore both Buda (left bank) and Pest (right bank). To do that I needed to cross the Danube. There are eight bridges in total but the loveliest is the Chain Bridge. The weather was bleak, cold and windy. Somehow it fitted with some of the buildings still a reminder of the communist era, but it's the older buildings that really interested me.



 


On the Buda side is the imposing citadel fortress, further along is Castle Hill and Buda Castle and churches. On the Pest side you can't miss seeing the Parliament buildings modelled on London's Houses of Parliament.







There's also St Stephen's Basilica which is in a good state of maintenance but so dark my camera had trouble picking out much of the beautiful detailing.

There are some surprising styles of architecture which I felt were rather solid, heavy-handed and lacking in grace but maybe the climate has a bearing on that. It's -20C in winter and between 30-40C in summer.



Night fell and I needed to find some dinner. I walked into a rather unusual (for me) place. It could have been some meetup place in a 007 or Jason Bourne movie.






It had a strange collage of images on the walls which seemed to dare you to be uncomfortable or surprised. They seemed strangely sensual, even a bit sexual. English is widespread in Budapest. I found my English much more relevant than my French so coping in a country with such a very different language wasn't too difficult, except for trying to work out how to say place names-what a mouthful.



I ordered weiner schnitzel with potato salad but it wasn't quite what I expected. The veal slab was enormous though the crumbing was good. The potato salad seemed to be hot until I tried it. Stone cold slabs of potato in a runny sauce (no not mayonnaise-based) with lots of chopped onion, Surprising but actually good.




Fortified with food at a reasonable price, I walked back across the Danube and up a hill to the castle. Buses of tourists where sqarming all over the place but not a lot to see other than the view of the city and the outside of a church. It was late at night so there wasn't much to do.






I walked on, past a poster of Tom Jones advertising his coming performance in Budapest- he looked SO old and haggard.







Past a ballroom dancing class taking their lesson very seriously. Past all the twinkling lights and back to my hotel, the Lanchid 19 near the waterfront.



There are a number of spas from the influence of the Turkish era but I didn't have time to visit any. If I get a chance to come back that's something I'd like to do, as well as a bit of shopping. I didn't have time to do any of that before it was time to get to bed and the next day head off to a conference and then straight back to Paris.

In my opinion the city is worth a two day trip.

Time Out

It was a drowsy, glorious morning in JC's village as I set out for a walk. The guys had gone hunting again and I decided I didn’t have enough curiosity to repeat last weekend’s experience each Sunday; so I had a leisurely bath, dressed and left the house in shadow while I searched for the sunlight.






It’ s a year since I arrived in France and the weather is completely different. It’s hot, not freezing. It’s still, not windy. Here I was wandering down country roads and streets this autumn. It could have been peaceful with just the little birds twittering. It became a little less peaceful as I navigated a village street and a cock crowed on one side, followed by another the other side of the road. Then a dog barked, someone yelled at it. Two joggers scuffed by and a motorcyclist with a death-wish roared past.



Ah the countryside, I sighed, trying not to pay any attention to the shotgun blasts coming from all sides (hours later they were still firing). They are so loud. They were probably JC and his son. So many shots all morning reverberating around the village.


JC struck his hunter-gatherer pose as he cheerfully bounced out of the bedroom this morning, wearing his hunting gear and shotgun in his hand. A year ago I would never have considered myself having this experience. My imagination flew back three centuries as I pictured myself getting on with the day while the man went off searching for food because supermarkets weren’t invented. Of course the reality these days is so different and we don’t need to ‘sport’ our way to food as a hobby.


I love nature, the countryside, cottages and gardens and sometimes solitude. This was a morning to experience them all. ...A horse waiting for some attention...flocks of birds starting to prepare for migrations... brilliant berries and scarlet-leafed Virginia creeper... ancient orchards overburdened with apples of many varieties, a quince tree laden with golden fruit glinting like beacons...

...a pretty cottage with an old well...broken buildings, ugly houses built in the soulless second half of the twentieth century... hay awaiting winter...stone cottages from bygone ages... flowers putting out their last efforts before the cold death arrives... butterflies sucking on windfalls ... a Tigger-like squirrel with a brushy tail as big as his body inconsiderately eating all the walnuts and leaving the acorns (hasn't he heard about Ice Age the movie) who was bounding about in the conifer branches... a woman relaxing and reading outdoors.


I was rather surprised to find myself back at JC’s house. How did that happen? I’d crossed numerous streets, I’d circuited the main part of the village yet here I was, the compass pointed here. So I set off in the other direction but I didn’t get lost. The village is charming and there are some homes I’d love to live in. They certainly need their orchards looked after-so sad to see so much abandoned land full of nettles and sick trees, no love and appreciation and maintenance. I could transform them if i had the opportunity.



I arrived back at the house and took off my wet and grass-covered street shoes. The bodies of two dead pheasants were occupying a basket now and it was time to set to for a barbecue lunch. It was lovely dining outside and then relaxing in deck chairs. Well, it would have been almost Zen-like but for the gunshots. This is the countryside in autumn.

Culture on a grand scale

Last Friday night Jean-Claude and I went to a concert together, our first. It took place in the magnificent Cathedral of Chartres. The current cathedral was mostly constructed between 1193 and 1250.

What makes the cathedral special from an art historical viewpoint is its exceptional state of preservation. The majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th century. The windows were removed just before the German invasion of WWII and put back and releaded after the war.


Since at least the 12th century the cathedral has been an important destination for travellers -attracting large numbers of Christian pilgrims, many of whom came to see its famous relic, the Sancta Camisa, said to be the tunic worn by the Virgin Mary at Christ's birth. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So inside this enormous architectural and historic masterpeice, there we were, near the back of the church sitting on our uncomfortable little wooden chairs to listen to two hours of classical music. I tried to imagine all the events that must have taken place there-it's atmospheric and a good use of the facility for the community.


The chairs were arranged on the stone floor and the front of the Nave was lit for the tiny orchestra but there is no tiered seating so we couldn't actually see anything. As befitted the era of the music the orchestra was very small and there was a soprano - Noriko Urata, and a contre-tenor- Rachid Ben Abdeslam.






The evening was divided into two parts, the first was Stabat Mater by composer Pergolese. It reflects the pain a mother goes through when she sees her son die and was written in 1736 about the death of Jesus. The second part was the same death but from the perspective of the last seven words spoken by Christ on the cross and was completed by Haydn in 1787.


Religious stuff doesn't thrill me but I had religious instruction for years when I was young so I knew a fair bit of the context and words. The orchestra was very good and the singers were OK but not my cup of tea- too operatic for my taste. From time to time two tiny birds would flit very quickly over the orchestra, their little bodies catching the spotlight momentarily, quite charming. But it was very cold inside the cathedral, with no refreshments or comfort or even a view. JC had his telephoto lens on, walked boldly up the centre aisle and took some shots which you can see here. It was an interestiong experience but I think I'd like to try something a tad more comfortable next time.

The other cultural event of the weekend was the Rugby World Cup match between New Zealand and France held at Eden Park in Auckland.


In general I detest Rugby. I can't stand the fanatical religious attitude in NZ to this ballgame or the violence that can surround it (players who beat up females, the whole warrior Maori culture thing). I hate sanctioned violence. As I watched the opening to the game it certainly looked gladiatorial with each team coming out and the usual posturing and threats by the AllBlacks to kill the opposing team- that's sportsmanship...not.


I don't watch rugby games but I was in a completely different situation this time. It was NZ vs France. I have strong links to each country. This time I had to watch it with a French commentary. Fast, furious French back and forth between the two commentators. I understood some of it and now I know a few Rugby terms in French.

After 30 years of NOT watching Rugby games (except a test match in the mid 80s when I had to accompany my daughter's father to one- really boring, had to read a magazine for the opener). Yes, it has been 30 years and the game has changed. It's more polished, the techniques in the lineouts and scrums are different, the game continues now even if a player is injured. The players are pinup boys. They also get paid a disgraceful amount of money.

JC commented on the physical differences between the two teams: the AllBlacks seemed to be bursting out of their microfibre uniforms like incredible hulks, whereas the French were of a more athletic build and weren't covered in tatoos. The ABs are built like triangles and don't have normal builds although a couple of them seem quite attractive. The muscles are a bit over the top on some of the players. I could see the French had less power in the scrums and fumbled the ball a bit-their management was furious.


Overall I thought it was a good game without silly fighting or arguing about referee decisions. The AllBlacks deserved to win and I enjoyed watching my two favouite countries. It was interesting for me to watch this game from a different country; a bit of emotional distance between me and NZ, but I did enjoy connecting with my roots for a short time. We'll see if they can keep it up to win the World Cup. Final score was NZ 37 to France 17. AB Captain Richie McCaw had his 100th test match.

Outdoor Pursuit

A beautiful sunny autumn morning dawned for the start of the hunting season. I’d agreed to come along with Jean-Claude, his son Vincent and Vincent’s girlfriend Sondrine.









I was wearing old clothes, added to that JC’s oldest hunting jacket and a hi viz vest, topped off with my new hunting boots and I was armed with my camera. The men were armed with rifles. Around their waists were cartridge belts. Around their necks were dog ‘peepers’to whistle to the dog and electrical dog controllers which emit a small electric charge if the dog doesn’t do what it’s told. This is important for the dog’s own safety. I was impressed to see that JC follows good safety procedures with the vests. He also walks along with the barrel of his rifle open. This way he cannot accidently fire at someone or himself if he trips. I was told to keep one or two metres behind JC in case he had to turn and fire suddenly.







Baika, JC’s hunting dog also follows safety procedures. She wears two collars when on the hunt. One is a hi viz collar with something like a little mini cow-bell. In this way you can hear where she is in the undergrowth. The other collar has an electrical device attached which emits small electric shocks activated by the handler by remote control. There was one section of woods where one side dropped steeply to the road. It was dangerous for man and dog. If she did not respond to voice commands she would receive a zap. I’m not sure if that was necessary on this occasion or not. Baika is six years old and exercises her hunting instinct every day, hunting on JC’s property for rabbits, mice and ducks and anything else she can smell.







The hunt wasn’t really very organised. It was just the two men and us two women with cameras plus the dog. We set out down the road and walked about two hundred metres before leaving the road and plunging into the woods. After a couple of minutes we emerged on farmland. You get a lot of exercise on the hunt. I found the hunting boots an absolute necessity as I trudged along up and down sloping fields, wading through dense brambles and dead branches in woods, climbing up steep banks under old railway bridges.


At one point JC asked me to carry his rifle while he helped Vincent look for a shot bird down a slope. Jeepers. It’s heavy but not too heavy and I carried it barrel open with the cartridges showing. Sondrine decided that was too good a shot to miss and captured the moment digitally. From time to time we came across other hunters, some had dogs and some didn’t but none of them had safety precautions in place like JC and Vincent. One guy seemed to want to pose for me with his dead pheasant sticking out of his jacket. Hunting jackets have a big pocket in the back for kills. The dog finds the prey and helps the hunter flush it out. The hunter fires and may or may not hit the target. When the animal goes down the dog is supposed to find it and allow the hunter to retrieve it.


All morning I heard ‘sniper’ fire reverberating around the slopes. Those guns are loud close up. The men had double-barrelled rifles and cartridge belts around their waists. I didn’t feel unsafe; it simply sounded a bit like very loud car backfires though I knew it was the sound of death for something. The adrenaline surging through JC when a bird flew up from trees was very palpable. I was surprised to see that the birds struggle to gain altitude quickly. They seem like people who have fallen from a great height into deep water and must battle their way desperately to the surface and life. Really, though it only took seconds it seemed such a long time, watching the pheasants trying to get high enough into the air but with a double-barrelled rifle the hunter has the advantage if the first shot misses. Vincent was quite successful. He bagged two pheasants, a cock and a hen. I was so focussed on the plight of the birds each time, I forgot to take a photo.

JC didn’t hit anything which is normal for him. He told me his pleasure comes from watching his dog work. She would run along with her nose to the ground. If she smelt something interesting she’d stop and look. Her nose would cast around for what was there and where it was. In woods she would bound about like a gambolling lamb in the undergrowth, directed by peeps and shouts from JC and Vincent. At regular intervals JC or Vincent would let out a ‘woop’ which the other would repeat in the distance. This enabled them to know where each was for tactical and safety reasons. Once again, other hunters seemed rather lax in that.


It was somewhat difficult for me to enjoy nature. For starters, I had to keep up with the hunters so I couldn’t slow down or stop to look around and soak up the scenery. Also, the countryside is not that interesting. For the most part it looks empty (smart critters would have gone on vacation to a city). The woods are not all that beautiful or full of interesting plants and insects, birds or animals. I‘m used to New Zealand forests, woods, rivers, lakes and mountains and fields which seem rather more dense and interesting with their variety of living things. We did see a small deer dash [ast us but they need a special cartridge to bring them down and it was too close to the road. Nor fair for the animal or motorists so the men let it go.

JC pointed out where small deer had been sleeping, he seemed to able to smell where certain types of animal had passed by. That was rather impressive. Near a clearing he said the bad smell would be a dead animal somewhere close by. I couldn’t smell much but was happy to move on.

We doubled back and headed towards the creek at the back of JC’s place looking for duck, trudging through nettles and brambles, trying not to trip over parts of the disused railway line. The train hasn’t used it since the tracks were bombed during WWII. It’s overgrown with weeds and saplings but is easy for hunters to use. Vincent shot a usck at the water’s edge. Baika was told to jump in the creek and retrieve it. She had some problems handing it over so Vincent had to lean down and pull it up and wrap it in a plastic bag and shove it in his jacket. The duck didn’t look pretty after that, covered in mud.



Even in the fields and woods there is litter. It’s so unsightly. I can’t understand why someone would want to light a fire and leave cans and plastic rubbish bags, full and bottles lying around in nature. When JC was president of the local hunt club he organised the hunters to do a massive cleanup of the local countryside. They even removed old rusting cars. Their contribution to the environment I suppose. They also pay fees to hunt. Part of this goes to the landowners. Sometimes the hunters try to protect disappearing ecosystems. Each year they do a wildlife census to determine populations of species. This year one bird species and hares were on the ‘not to be hunted’ list.

We walked back to JC’s place and had a BBQ lunch of brochettes made the night before. These are metal skewers with diced vegetables and assorted meat- in this case, pork, beef and lamb interspersed with pieces of green peppers and onions. And fries, fruit and ice-creams. What an indulgence. It was a merry dining table with four adults and four children. The children had stayed back at the house while we hunted.

Vincent explained it’s not the killing he enjoys, it’s the childhood memories of the countryside as he re-encounters the sights and smells of his childhood. Each to his own means of nostalgia I guess. For me, memories of my childhood would need to involve my Grandmother and my pets and they’ve been dead for years.







I find the creatures in nature more beautiful when they are alive and not panicked. I don’t want to possess them. I eat meat, yes. I’m glad I don’t have to kill it. It was very interesting to go on the hunt and see what it’s all about but I wouldn’t need to do it often.

Home-made

This weekend was not conducive to doing anything outdoors. Very cool, wet and windy. JC and I were going to see Chartres and its cathedral lit up at night, animations, entertainments but it was too wet to even leave home. What a shame. Instead JC introduced me to châtaignes (sweet chestnuts). We’d think of them as a fruit or nut from a tree. The French don’t call anything that isn’t a Walnut, a nut.The prickly outer shell was nowhere to be seen when JC bought them from the supermarket. I’d seen them before but ignored them through my lack of knowledge and experience.


They can be eaten raw, roasted or preserved. They can be made into some sort of cream, flour, icecream. JC peeled one and gave me a piece to eat. It didn’t seem very appetising. It wasn’t. It’s edible but seemed like a very uninteresting attempt at being coconut. I couldn’t see the point of eating it, but apparently in the past it has been a diet staple for more mountainous areas of France, Ardeche etc- poor people’s food. Remember those old stories about people roasting chestnuts around an open fire? It still happens, but not often. Remember those old braziers in England or France, on the street where vendors would sell hot chestnuts in snowy weather? That is all extinct.


JC roasted some in his frypan. It takes quite a while. He put coarse salt in the bottom of the pan, not for flavour, he said, but to make it easier to turn them. It’s important to cut the bottoms off the nuts, otherwise they tend to explode when they get hot. They are ready when the insides puff out the end a tiny bit. Try not to let them burn. Warning, they are difficult to crack and peel in your hands if you don’t let them cool down a bit. To me they seemed to taste a bit like floury sweet potato or overcooked pumpkin with a certain graininess. They taste better cooked but for me there are tastier things than these.


One of those is home-made apple tart made from home-grown apples. JC has a tree laden with some very tart apples which are suffering from moth attacks and lack of sun. The solution is to pick some and use them. He has made apple juice for sauces and compote last winter. This weekend I decided to make an apple tart for us. I don’t recall if I have made one before and kitchen equipment is rather different in France so it was a bit of an experiment. I have NO recipe books of any kind now so I resorted to the internet. So many different recipes for Apple Tart (not Pie). I decided to just wing it using common sense.


Recently JC bought an interesting gadget for peeling and coring apples. It doesn’t look all that robust but it’s surprisingly effective despite its small size. You can regulate the thickness of the peel, it cores as you go and is easy to clean by running it under the tap (see photo). It peels and slices apples into a spiral so it makes that job of preparation very easy and tidy. I needed apricot jam for the glaze after cooking but there wasn’t any so I used a favourite French jam made from Mirabelle plums which has echoes of apricot flavours. It worked a treat.


When JC got back from his AGM at the local Hunt Club he thought the tart looked wonderful. What was even better, he said it was delicious (served with sweetened whipped cream made the old way, not from a can). Yep. A success, thank goodness as I was beginning to think I might be a hopeless incompetent in the kitchen department and it’s rather intimidating trying to cook for French people. It’s so many decades since I had any interest in cooking. I want to explore more sauces and tarts in the future. I shall try to let the seasons dictate what to make. That way I can have something new to look forward to each season.