Tuesday, May 15
We had tickets to see Handel’s Oratorio, “The Messiah”. Since the theater was a four mile walk from our apartment we decided to take the tram. This time we got cheeky and bought our tickets from one of the automated vending machines. This might not sound very impressive until you realize that the only language that the machines use is Magyar. We considered this a significant accomplishment (and no, we didn’t use Google Translate).
The Bartók Béla National Concert Hall is actually contained within the local Ludwig Museum. The museum complex is a beautiful modern building. Besides the museum and the concert hall it also contains a reference library, a restaurant, a book store and an instrument shop. The interior has high ceilings, grand spaces and clean lines. It reminded us a lot of Lincoln Center.
The concert hall is very large, has three balconies and seating all along the perimeter. The space over the stage is dominated by an enormous pipe organ. We sat in in the first balcony overlooking stage right and had a bird’s eye view of the entire ensemble. The piece was performed by the Purcell Choir and the Orfeo Orchestra, a group that formed originally in 1990 for the express purpose of performing Purcell’s Baroque opera Dido & Aeneas. They perform regularly in this hall.
We’ve participated in and heard many performances of The Messiah and this was one of the best ever. The orchestra and choir performed as a single instrument. Their dynamics and balance were exceptional and their articulations clean and precise. The groups blended exceptionally well within themselves and with each other. Their interpretations of some of the dotted rhythms was unusual and interesting. Even the conductor’s tempi were well chosen. It never felt rushed at any time. If you have the opportunity to see this group perform we can recommend them highly to you. Here is a youtube performance of the same piece from last year. These soloists are not the same ones that we heard but the orchestra and chorus are manifestly the same: 2017 Performance. In our performance the alto/countertenor solo was performed by a countertenor.
Distance walked: 3.1 miles
Wednesday, May 16
One of the most famous Hungarian composers was Franz Liszt (1811-1886). He used his home on Andrássy Street to start a music academy. Today we visited his home which has been turned into a museum. In 1875 a new academy/concert hall was built a few blocks away and it houses the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. More on the academy later in the month after we attend a concert (or two) there.
Liszt was born in the city of Doborján, Hungary which is now the city of Raiding in Austria. Liszt always considered himself a Hungarian but never spoke a word of that language. It is said that he couldn’t even spell his name in Hungarian. His first language was German.
The museum is a recreation of how his apartments appeared when Liszt lived there. Many personal effects are on display such as family photos and portraits. We particularly enjoyed seeing several of his pianos and liked to imagine him playing them. There was a large collection of scores that composers had sent to him for review. At one point an exasperated Liszt published an article in the newspaper asking people to stop sending him scores. He said that he needed time to do his own work.
(Liszt Museum)
One of the most interesting artifacts was a composition desk created for him by the famous piano maker Bösendorfer. The middle draw contains a three octave keyboard that sounds when small hammers strike fixed sized metal sheets.
After the museum we visited City Park again. We wanted to check off a few things from our list. We saw the Statue of George Washington, donated by Hungarian Americans in 1906, and the Timewheel. The Timewheel is a large circular hourglass that runs for one year. Just like a regular hourglass it is turned when the sand runs out. The sculpture was unveiled in 2004 to commemorate Hungary’s admission to the European Union.
By this time the weather turned rainy so we decided to head over to the nearby West End Mall for lunch. The mall, which is across the street from our apartment, is very large. It encompasses three floors and runs for an entire city block. We were delighted to see it had an enormous food court.
The food court had the usual American restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and KFC. We opted for something more interesting. We got a plate of fried chicken and parsely potatoes from a Hungarian booth and, from a Greek shop, we got fried catfish and Turkish rice. Both were very good. For dessert I had ice cream and Deborah had bubble tea (a Taiwanese tea drink with tapioca balls).
Distance walked: 7.1 miles
Thursday, May 17
At one time there was a Melting Pot restaurant here in Budapest but it closed. To ease the suffering the Grand Budapest Cafe decided to have fondue night every Thursday. It’s no longer a regular thing but, if you reserve a table for Thursday night and request fondue, they will make it specially for you. Guess where we had dinner?
Their fondue menu has two main choices: fondue and raclette. There is also a choice of sides that includes potatoes and a sausage plate. We just ordered the fondue which came with a basket of bread. Our fondue was mainly ementhaller cheese with a good helping of white wine. We washed it down with a few glasses of house wine. It was filling and delicious.
We planned to take some nighttime pictures so we killed some time by walking around Town. We decided to kill even more time by stopping in at Café Gerbeaud for dessert. We’d been there before and were dying to have another one of their coffee drinks. We also ordered a typical Hungarian dessert called Palacsinta Gundel. It is crepe filled with ground walnuts, raisins and rum topped with dark chocolate sauce. Ours also came with dark chocolate ice cream and a ragout of apricot. The pancake is slightly thicker than a French crepe so it can be jammed with richer fillings. Yum!
(Palacsinta Gundel for Dessert)
After dessert we walked down to the Erzsébet Bridge and started taking pictures. Next we walked back up and crossed to Buda at the Széchenyi Bridge, walked all the way back to up the Margit Bridge, crossed back to Pest and headed home. We wound up taking quite a few pictures. Some came out really well.
(Crescent Moon over Buda Castle)
The rest of the night was spent continuing to binge watch “Mad Men” on Netflix before getting to sleep around 1:00 am.
Friday, May 18
We received an email from our landlord telling us that Sunday and Monday were holidays and that many shops, including grocery stores, would be closed. We’re very grateful for his thoughtfulness. We headed out early for coffee and then hit the grocery store, where we bought enough food for the next few days (translation: we got enough cookies and chocolate bars to choke a horse).
For dinner we planned to meet our new Hungarian friends, Andrea and Balazs, at a restaurant in Óbuda (Old Buda) called Zöld Kapu Vendéglő. For this trip we walked North and crossed the Danube over the Árpád Bridge. This part of Buda had been a Roman settlement in ancient times and bore the name of Aquincum. The area it littered with Roman ruins.
Today it is a charming residential area with a pedestrian walkway featuring cafes, restaurants and shops. At the appointed time we started walking in the direction of the restaurant. At one point we heard someone shout “Deborah” from a passing street car and looked up to see Andrea whizzing by us. We only knew two people in the entire city and had just run into one of them. We had a good laugh. Unfortunately, Balazs was unable to make it but we hope to see him again before we leave.
We sat in a charming covered patio next to the garden. There was an extensive menu with a large number of interesting choices. On our way to our table we saw what other people had ordered. The portion sizes were enormous and everything looked wonderfully delicious. We ordered beef with sour cream and dill sauce accompanied by nokedli (dumplings) and fried pork stuffed with cheese and sausage accompanied by spaghetti Milanese. We ate about half before giving up. Thanks to Andrea for reminding us to take a picture BEFORE eating our dinner.
(Too Much Food)
We couldn’t leave without sampling the desserts. We shared an order of palacsinta (crepe) filled with poppy seed paste and it came with a generous portion of two different sauces – one was vanilla and one was a combination of raspberry and blueberry. We would have been satisfied with just the sauces! It was all quite delicious.
We made an attempt to atone for our sins by walking all the way home. Andrea walked with us and we talked about life in Hungary and her time in the U.S. It was a very pleasant evening.
Distance walked: 10.1 miles