Liget Projekt and Museum Quarter

Essentially, Budapest is a little jealous of Vienna, Amsterdam, London and even Hull, who all have whole quarters of their cities dedicated to museums, culture and - most importantly - tourism. 

They've decided to get one of their own, designed by the Japanese architect, Sou Fujimoto, who also did the Serpentine Gallery's pavilion in 2013. 

I love the idea of a cosy corner of Budapest devoted to art and music and design. That's not what Budapest wanted though.






They want big, and modern, and big!


I can't find much info on the Liget Projekt in English, so I have translated (badly) a section about the plans from the website:

 "The Budapest ‘Liget’ project is aimed at renewing and developing the entire City Park   complex between 2014 and 2018. During the project, the green park area will be increased, and new cultural institutions and recreational opportunities are to be expanded. Thanks to this project, the City Park and its surroundings - currently known throughout Europe as a tourist and culture destination - will become a key cultural leisure park.

The museum quarter of 2018 consists of five new buildings and the City Park: the New National Gallery-Ludwig Museum, the Ethnographic Museum, the House of Hungarian Music, the Budapest Museum of Photography and the Hungarian Architecture Museum. Operating under the Budapest ‘Liget’ Project is a collection of cooperating institutions that mesh together to provide a diverse European ranking and a place in which to spend quality leisure time.

In addition to the construction of the museum quarter, a comprehensive renewal of the park will take place after the call for landscaping proposals in 2015. The park is a green site and the concrete roads that currently cross the park will disappear, leading to an open green park area - growing by 60-65%. The park’s new recreational facilities and new services will be developed: there are plans to include a floodlit running circuit and new sports fields, playgrounds and bike stations.

Under the project existing institutions, including the Circus, the Zoo, the Museum of Transport and the Vajdahunyad Castle, will also be developed. As part of the investment, the old run-down and derelict Szabolcs Street hospital will also be renewed, and the National Museum Storage and Restoration Centre will be built under the framework of brown-belt investment which is in line with current international trends. The merged institutions of the museum quarter institutions will be allow the reinstatement and opening up of new green areas."

More info and wild dreams found here: http://www.ligetbudapest.org/index.php

Choo! Choo!

A friend of mine suggested a little excursion for this Sunday. The Children's Railway. Or the Gyermek Vasút.

It's up in the leafy area of hilly Buda and the track runs right through the forest. For reasons of location, I'd never even heard of it.

When my friend said "Children's Railway", I didn't think in the possessive sense. The train that came to my mind was one of those miniature trains, or one of the train-cars that you see driving on the roads in holiday towns sometimes (in Hungarian, these are known as the Dottó).

So, when we rolled up to the station and found the ticket office, I was surprised to see this rather diffident chap doling out the tickets:

In actual fact, the Children's Railway, is run by children. Which is awfully charming, don't you think?

Just look at their little uniforms!

This place was straight out of an Arthur Ransome book. And luckily we were right at home, as my friend had brought along some provisions. Not Enid Blyton approved ginger ale and scones and jam, but we substituted Hungarian style and made do with cold beers and cheese scones instead. (You're allowed to drink beer on the train - just like on any other.)

The trains are pretty rare and apparently you won't find them outside of Hungary. I really don't know much at all about trains or transport or anything like that. I think most of the trains come from the 1960s and they also have a steam train, but sadly it wasn't running today.

We set off a little late and quickly had our tickets inspected.

There are a few stations, so you can hop off and have a little walk around the forest and at some of the stations there are places to get something to eat. From János-hegy station you can reach the Érzsébet look-out tower by foot.

We travelled along the whole line. We started at Huvosvolgy and ended at Széchenyi hegy, which I think is technically backwards, but I don't really see the difference. 

The track runs mainly through the forest, which is pleasant enough, but occasionally you can catch a glimpse of the panoramic views of Buda.

This idea of children running the railway is quite exciting to me and I'd never heard of anything like it before. I had a good explanation from my travelling companion and I did some reading on it this evening. The Children's Railway was an activity set up in the Soviet Union to encourage kids to learn about how the railway works and, I suppose, to push them to choose a career in it. It all sounds like good clean fun and I can't believe it never took off as an idea anywhere else. Communist connotations and all that, maybe.

This relief, above one of the station entrances, depicts three Pioneer girls in uniform. Pioneers were the equivalent of Scouts or Guides in communist countries and it was the Pioneers who originally ran the railway. When Socialism ended in Hungary, the Pioneers ended too (in 1990), but enough money was gathered to keep the railway running and the only noticeable change was the colour of the childrens' ties, from red to blue.

Perhaps I should point out that the children sell tickets, man the stations, operate the signals, but there's an adult to drive the train and others to supervise. 

You can read more about Children's Railway in English here: http://www.gyermekvasut.hu/english/chrw_home.php

Accidental Tourist

A few weeks ago now, there was an article circling the Facebooks of my Hungarian friends. It was written by Frugal Traveller, Seth Kugel. He was returning from a trip to Transylvania and decided on a whim to hop off the train at a random village in the Hungarian countryside. The village was Mezobereny.

I'm sure the appeal to my Hungarian friends was that a random American had decided to write about a town quite familiar to them. For me, it was that Seth Kugel had made a random Hungarian town a little less anonymous.

I wanted to do the same. I longed for the summer, when it's a little more appropriate to hop on a train with your phone and some cash and land in the nearest likely looking town. 

And then I realised, I had done something a bit like this already.

So. Here is my story about a little village in Slovenia (and some other places too) that I discovered last summer.

It all began in Ljubljana. It was beautiful. The weather was nice. But there was a problem. The problem was that it wasn't Budapest. I decided to leave. To go back to Budapest? I'm not sure.

I drove out of the city and up the motorway. I started to get hungry. The car started to get thirsty. I came off the motorway. I drank coffee. I saw a big castle on top of a big hill. I found a map in my car. I pondered. 

The key fact here was that I didn't have an iPhone or GPS. This was old-fashioned navigation. This was back to my childhood in the 90s. This was pulling over at the side of the road to check the map. This was a follow-the-brown-sign adventure.

So I drove. I tried to drive towards the castle on the hill. Somehow it never materialised and I got distracted.

The first thing I discovered was a river. 

I'll set the scene. I was driving. I was a bit lost. I had no idea where I was going and if I was making the right idea. I had a strange feeling, like it was illegal for a 22 year old British girl to drive a Hungarian car around the Slovenian countryside. Or something like that.

I was just making my way back to the motorway, when I spotted a couple of cars pulled over at a junction. They had their doors open and they had towels and flip flops and looked liked they'd recently been for a swim. That was it. 

I took the turning and I followed the road, the whole time waiting for someone to flag me down and tell me that something I was doing was forbidden.

I turned a corner in the road and saw a river to the right. Promising.

I turned another corner.

I saw this and it looked pretty fantastic. What was even more fantastic, was the dirt track that led right through the bright green field towards a crowd of trees hiding a few cars and eventually the river.

It was nice. I won't say it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen because it wasn't. But it was about 35 degrees and I wanted to swim and sunbathe. There were other people there too. For some people I guess it would have been perfect if the place had been deserted, but for me, doing perhaps the most adventurous thing yet in my life, I was happy for the company. Just so I knew the water wasn't going to kill me. That kind of thing.

I grabbed my towel and waded into the water. The current was weak enough that you could just walk straight through to the other side without getting your towel wet. There was a sketchy moment when a couple started shouting at me. I stopped dead, standing waist deep in the water, waiting to be told it was Slovenian only, or I was about to be eaten by a crocodile. No, they were actually calling their dog back. 

I was in heaven. The sun lasted for a good few hours and I got suitably crispy. Nobody bothered me. I had a few dips in the water which was nice and cool. I found a comfy spot amongst the rocks. It was very clean, except for a watermelon quarter that someone had left downstream.

As the sun went down I began to realise I didn't have a place to stay that night, and with the prospect of sleeping the car, I reluctantly made my way back across the river.

When I got back in the car, my bikini soaking through my clothes, my cheeks burning from the sun, I ate the end of a sandwich and embraced my new life as a traveller. I took a few photos, with no hope of ever returning. 

I'd like to know if it was legal to go swimming in that river. There were a few shifty looks from the locals, as if they were worried I was going to let the secret slip.

They needn't worry. I've had a few looks at a map since then, and if you paid me I couldn't tell you where I spent that glorious afternoon.

I don't think these barns could even be a clue. They were rather special to me, but I saw more as I travelled around.

I drove away, looking for a place to stay. The next few hours weren't as successful as the first half of my day. 

I don't think I've ever been on an organised family holiday. We either simply came here to Hungary in the summer and stayed with my grandmother, or went to somewhere in the UK with a promising sounding name and hoped for the best when it came to finding accommodation. My parents never once thought to book a hotel. I guess the attitude was that if you book somewhere, you have to stay there. And if you don't know where you're going, why would you want to do that?

This isn't an attitude I share with my parents. I believe everything should be booked and paid for, at least 4 months in advance. However, the skills required to find a B&B at 11 o'clock at night finally came in handy. At half past nine, after a near panic attack and a stop at a rather fancy vending machine on the side of the road, I found somewhere. After 3 hours looking for 'panzio' or 'gasthaus' or even 'hotel', I learnt a Slovenian word 'gostisce'.

I was right up on the Austrian border by this time, at a place called Krivograd. I got surprisingly few funny looks from other guests and only a 'So, where are you from?' from the manager. For one night, it cost about 30 euro, not exactly cheap for a motel, but I was desperate. Breakfast was included and the view... you can see for yourself.

I went on my way. The plan was to find anywhere I could swim. It seemed like a good thing to aim for. I drove for the whole day. I didn't find any water, but I did see a lot. 

I followed a church up a hill.

There were a lot of churches like this in Slovenia. Seemingly out of reach at the top of a hill with no road. I pursued this one though and it was worth it. There were a few houses surrounding it but the area was entirely deserted. I nearly jumped out of my shirt when the bells rang. Apart from that, it was silent.

I picked a spot and spent a couple of hours sunbathing, reading, and pretending I was Heidi waiting for Peter and the goats.

Oh and this was my faithful Suzuki, who brought me to the top of the mountain.

I owe so much to that wonderful car, which right now isn't so wonderful and only makes occasional trips to Tesco. 

Part two to follow...

Ecseri Flea Market

Last weekend, I went with a friend to Ecseri Flea Market. Contrary to any logical thought, this market is not in the small town of Ecser, but in fact on the edge of the city, in the XIX District.

I'd heard about this market from a few people but I'd never made any serious plans to go there.

However on Saturday evening, I met a girl who wanted to see a man about a violin, so on Sunday morning we met outside the Great Market Hall to venture into the suburbs/countryside.

After a tram, a bus, the realisation that we were in fact not going to Ecser, and another bus back the way we had come, we made it. Just in time too. On a Sunday the market closes at 1pm. We waved goodbye to lazy weekend browsing time and dashed inside, and incredibly, straight across a violin stall.

A lady pointed us towards a little shop and inside we hit the jackpot. There were rows of violins just waiting for us. The only problem now was choosing one.

My friend decided the older the better, so we looked out for the most weathered-looking one we could find. After a quick conversation with the shopkeeper in German (he decided this was the best language, as he couldn't speak English and we couldn't speak Hungarian - or German for that matter). He was very helpful though and taught us two new words: funkcionális and dekoráció.

We picked a funkcionális, thanked him, and left. The prices for the violins start at 30.000ft (about €90).

I had to stop myself from spending on some silly things for my flat. Like this tiny TV. And what might be an easy-bake oven next to it.

The guy was pretty nice about the fact that we arrived at closing time and spent a good half hour deciding on a violin. He even threw in a free case.

We managed a quick tour of the remaining stalls.

Before saying goodbye..

We headed back to the city for some lunch at Pozsonyi Vendéglo, near to Jászai Mari square, which is a nice, reasonable place to have a Hungarian meal. Warning: the starter portion sizes alone will leave you full for a week.


To get to Ecseri Flea Market (and not to Ecser): take the 54 or 55 bus from Boráros tér and get off at Használtcikk piac (20 stops). The bus stop is right outside the market. To get back, use the same stop .. but the 294E will take you to Határ út where you can get the metro.