As mentioned a few days ago, we recently went to Hungary. I’ve now edited the 260 photos down to a “for the family” set and an even smaller “for everyone else, particularly those with short attention spans” set. The latter is here…
As mentioned a few days ago, we recently went to Hungary. I’ve now edited the 260 photos down to a “for the family” set and an even smaller “for everyone else, particularly those with short attention spans” set. The latter is here…
I remember a Borges essay-tale, where a guy, in the twentieth century, tries to write Don Quixote again. What he writes is word-by-word the same thing Cervantes wrote, but Borges says that it’s completely different, because Pierre Menard (the writer) lived several centuries after Cervantes, and it all changed. Same sentences, different meanings. Having been to Hungary myself, having taken more or less the same pictures you took, I wonder what your experience was. I mean: being you an Englishman, and above all, a European, those things should look more familiar to you than to me, those pictures should represent completely different stories to mine. My first impression was something like “this is like a small Vienna”. But then again, I’m not European. We may have taken the same pictures, but I bet we lived the experience in a completely different way.
PS: I risk “Caput, mater et magistra ecclesiarum Hungariae Basilica” to mean “Head, mother and master of churches, the Hungarian Basilica”, but my Latin is dusty to say the least…
Yeah, there was definitely something very comfortable and familiar about Budapest. There’s more to it than just the appearance (good weather and friendly people are a big help!) but a lot of the 19th century architecture is very reminiscent of Prague, Salzburg (I haven’t been to Vienna) and even parts of Stockholm or Paris.