For me, that week, Budapest looked frozen and dormant. The city sights are beautiful and grand and the spa-s and thermo baths are really impressive.
If I’ve got enough courage to walk in the cold along Danube is because I knew there was a sauna waiting back at the hotel.
The unforgettable experience was my visit to the National Art Museum, in Buda Castle.
I don’t exactly regret the time I spent for the ground floor and first floor, at least it wasn’t freezing. But I would have never thought that such objects would ever pass as “art” and be displayed in a museum. First I was trying to find some excuses or some strange circumstances. In the end I blamed myself for not being enough open to other expressions of arts. Close to abandon and return in the street when saw a poster sending to the upper floor, to visit a gypsy art gallery. Intriguing, nice, different, daring combinations of bright colors that somehow reminded me of the streets of India and color combinations used for saree-s. I was also surprised to read the statistic, I didn’t know there are really so many gypsies living in Hungary.
Later on at the hotel, the musicians performing in the lounge are gypsies too. For me, Hungarian gypsies brought a splash of sound and color over a monochrome city.
I kept searching for something authentic and I found something I liked, close to a skating park. It was a monument dedicated to all their kings and rulers, for almost 900 years, from their arrival in Europe until recent times. I liked the sculptures a lot because they were so expressive and so green.
Their first rulers were rough Mongol guys all riding horses and could notice that: with the passing of time, kings were becoming more and more fat and ugly, giving up on their horses first, then giving up to holding weapons as well. It was interesting to meet all of them chronologically.
I am glad I’ve been to Budapest, although I don’t feel any urge to go there again – reason being that I don’t think it’s more to discover. It’s a charming Central European city, of course, and I liked it more than Prague, but it’s somehow neutral.
I left wondering what is in fact the true Hungarian spirit and their true style?
