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Musical adventures Budapest, Sunday 8 October 2000
After spending a couple days in Szegred, in southern Hungary, I returned to Budapest on Wed to prepare for Ellen's arrival on Friday, October 6.
Wednesday evening I left the apartment with only my book and wearing a t-shirt to go watch the sunset along the Danube, which was not very spectacular, but still, it counted as a nice ending to the day. On the way back to the apartment I thought I would stop at the Internet Cafe and send Ellen a last message before she departed. You may remember from a previous message, that I met some musicians from Moldavia in the underpass and they gave me a tape. Ned also met them when he was with me. As I was coming out of the end of the underpass, I met Cusic, the young violin player, whom I first heard playing a flute, and her husband, Oleg, the leader of the group.
Cusic invited me to come with them to where they were going to give a performance later that night. Of course I joined them, without hesitation, and looked forward to the adventure. I had no idea where I was going or how I would get back, but they said there was a night bus.
After stopping where they were living to drop off some of their stuff, we continued up the street to a large club like facility. At the gate they admitted me without a ticket as a friend of the band. There was a dining area, where they were selling food and drinks, and a large room with a stage and a wooden dance floor.
A band was playing Romanian music at the time, and Cusic explained to me that they would be playing around 11 pm, after the current group. They were not to be paid but were being provided an opportunity to be heard and get known. (However they were paid something).
People were dancing, perhaps what we would call folk dancing, in circles and lines. Cusic asked me if I wanted to dance. I looked at the dance steps, didn't have a clue about what they were, but decided to try anyway. We joined in one of the circles and danced away. The heat from the large crowd of dancers in the confined space, without open windows, was like a steam bath, and my t-shirt became quite soggy and I was wringing out my handkerchief from mopping my face and neck. But it was great fun. When Cusic went to get ready, another woman asked me to dance and I continued for quite a while.
Later, around midnight, the first group quit playing and the Moldavian group started playing. Cusic with her long flowing hair playing violin and stomping her feet, dressed in her velvet like black sweater and long flowing dress to the floor, Oleg in his green turtle neck sweater and khaki pants playing the flute, then the recorder, then a drum about 5 inches thick and about 18" across, and then something like a small lute-like instrument. Sasha, the tall blond guy was playing a guitar and Egic was playing an electric guitar.
After the performance they continued to play for me and an Indian guy from Assam in their dressing room until late at night when Oleg finally took us to find the night bus. The night turned cool, and all I had on was my wet t-shirt. Ellen remarked, upon arrival: Do you have a cold? Each trip seems to have a musical adventure, so this was it.
Thursday evening after watching another sunset I met a Korean lady, a pianist, who was giving a performance Sat morning with another Korean lady, a cellist, at a museum. She invited me to bring Ellen to hear her and gave me two tickets. Ellen arrived Friday afternoon, and we went to the excellent concert (Bach, Brahms, and Debussy), and afterwards met them for a series of pictures with our camera and each of theirs.
Last night, Sat, we went to hear a Hungarian Folk group with dancers. They were a large group of violin players, two clarinets, one bass and one cello player, and two guys playing things like giant hammer dulcimers (one of whom was quite spectacular). As the evening continued we began to realize the music was quite professional and didn't want the music to stop. The dancers were also very entertaining.
Today we walked around Castle Hill, the oldest part of Budapest, explored the Labyrinth under the hill, and attended church service in the old church on top of the hill. This evening we met with a friend's cousin and then continued packing for our departure for Prague tomorrow on the 8:15 am train.
We hope there is still some music ahead.
Ron and Ellen
Prague and more music Prague, Thursday 12 October 2000
We arrived in Prague by train on Monday evening, and were met at the station by Marek Wolf, astronomer and librarian at the Astronomical Institute of Charles University. In Budapest we'd bought tickets for ourselves from Budapest to Prague, but could only buy tickets for the bikes from Budapest to the Hungarian border. Depending on who we talked to, they told us that at the border either they didn't know what would happen, or that we would get a ticket from the Slovakian conductor. At the border, the Slovakian conductor indeed wanted to sell us a ticket, but since we had only planned to go through the little bit of Slovakia and on to Prague, we didn't have any Slovakian money. All we needed was a couple dollars worth, but he wanted either Slovakian krone or German marks, and wouldn't accept dollars. By the time we'd figured out the exchange rate (from a newspaper that one of the women in the compartment had) and exchanged with her a few $$ for Slovakian money, we had traversed the corner of Slovakia, the Slovakian conductor left, the Czech conductor got on, and we never paid for the bikes to cross Slovakia. The Czech conductor was happy to have either dollars or German marks or Czech currency, but absolutely not Slovakian currency, so we traded the Slovakian currency back to the woman and got our dollars back to pay the conductor.
Marek took us to the dormitory near the Astronomical Institute where we are staying in a room on the floor reserved for visitors to the Mathematical and Physical Faculty, at no charge, because the Astronomical Institute has not used its allotted number of visitor nights in the lodging.
Tuesday we visited Marek's library, then set out to explore the old part of Prague, which is, as expected, quite beautiful, with block after block of lovely old buildings, squares, churches, and monuments. We met Marek again in the evening for a violin and piano concert, with a young violinist named Helena Soukupova. Marek told us that this past summer at a music festival in Prague, she had won a European prize as a young musician. She was spectacularly good, probably one of the best musicians we've ever heard anywhere. She looks to be in her early 20s, and can't be more than 25, and reminds us (for those of you in Virginia) of a young Emily Couric, both in facial expressions, especially the way she smiled, and in her self confident stage presence and poise.
Yesterday we explored Prague castle, one of the oldest in Europe and supposedly the largest palace complex in the world. It sits on top of a hill, and there are wonderful views of Prague and the river. In addition to a huge number of buildings, the complex also contains a Gothic cathedral and a Romanesque basilica, and some very nice gardens where we sat and read our books for a while.
We had dinner in a restaurant on the large main square, a great place to watch people, and had a fine conversation with a family from New Zealand at the next table.
We finished the day with a trumpet and organ concert in one of the old churches, nice, but definitely a come-down from Tuesday evening's concert. There is so much music going on in Prague that we could have gone to 6 concerts last night: three at 5 pm, one at 6:30 pm, and two at 8 pm.
Today we did a bit of logistics (train tickets, lodging reservations, etc) with Marek's help (much easier when you have someone who speaks the language!) and some more exploration of Prague. Tomorrow we go by train to Cesky Krumlov, where we will begin our biking by exploring that area for several days.
Ellen and Ron
18% grade Jindrichuv Hradec, Czech Republic, Tuesday 17 October 2000
Cesky Krumlov, where we went from Prague, is like a fairy tale town, with a castle high on the hill, and the ancient town at the bottom with the river winding through it. Our guide book said it was one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, and it was right.
It is great to be biking again. However, there certainly has been a variation in the terrain from one day to the next! Our first day we traveled upriver for 26 km along a beautiful level wooded road, like a National Park, with the river flowing beside us. And there was no traffic because they were paving one small section of the road, but had detoured cars around a very long section. On our way back, we stopped to look at some little weekend houses, each with a lovely garden, and were invited for tea by a couple in one of the houses who spoke a little English. They had been mushrooming in the nearby pine forest, and had a dish pan full of various kinds and colors of mushrooms, and also had a white mushroom about the size of a soccer ball. We had never seen a mushroom that size! They sliced and fried some for us and it was quite tasty.
Our second day biking from Cesky Krumlov was quite different. Very early on, we came to a sign that said 18% grade, so we pushed our bikes uphill for a couple of km -- only to find a little while later that there was another longer hill that was a 12% grade. The views from the ridge line were spectacular, and the ride back was certainly more fun, since we got to do all those grades down hill.
Yesterday (Monday) we took the train from Cesky Krumlov to Veseli, and from there rode to Trebon. Once again, the ride was over level terrain, this time through a region filled with many lakes and pine forests. Many of the lakes were actually constructed in the 16th century to raise fish, and they are still being used for that purpose. We were lucky to be riding in the area at the time of the fish harvest, when they drain the lakes almost completely so the fish are all gathered in one small deep area. We watched a complex operation involving scooping, sizing, sorting, and loading the fish into bins on trucks. Most of the fish are carp, and some were huge, needing two men to carry them. We both had carp for dinner -- ok for a one time experience (the goldfish at home don't need to worry).
Since some of the off road trails we had been on yesterday were so nice (packed dirt through the forest), we tried another one as part of our ride today from Trebon to Jindrichuv Hradec. It turned out to be mostly mud, so we did a lot of walking around mud holes and carried our loaded bikes over a bridge made of two small logs (luckily with handrail). For the rest of the trip, we stayed on paved roads, some barely wide enough for one car, but had a very hard time following the bike route, and did the last part on little roads that were not part of the route because we could not find the turns. But it was still a beautiful ride, even if we are tired tonight.
Ellen and Ron
Rain, mud, headwinds, and lost -- but having a wonderful time! Poprad, Slovak Republic, Tuesday 24 October 2000
Trying to find our way out of Jindrichuv Hradec we discovered that the maps were poor and incorrect (besides all the construction on the route the map said we should take). It began to rain, and of course we were not packed for a rainy day. It took us an hour and a half to find our way out of town through the construction mud and the rain. By the time we arrived at our next destination hours later (but not very far away) our spirits were as wet as our gear. We spent most of the time drying out our clothes and repacking everything in plastic bags for the expected rain the next day which did not appear (of course). So much for our 5th day of biking.
The next day, cloudy and cool but not raining, we biked to Slavonice which was a wonderful little town where we met a hotel manager from Belarus who spoke excellent English. The hotel was still being renovated and wasn't officially open, but we had a spectacular room. We invited her to have dinner with us to celebrate her 26th birthday a couple of days later.
Thinking we had avoided the last of the bad weather, we optimistically began our longest bike ride yet as the skies gradually cleared. By the time it was bright and sunny we had a strong headwind that got stronger as the day progressed, to the point that it was work pedaling down hill, not to mention the long, several km uphill climbs. Regardless, the scenery was beautiful with great sweeps of green open fields across the plateau looking south and across the Austrian border. We saw a flock of big birds that kept their distance from us which were either cranes or storks and also a lot of deer.
Vranov nad Dyji, our destination, was in a steep river valley with a large castle on the rocks above it. We stayed in the County Saloon Hotel with neat little classic saloon swinging doors at the entrance as well country and western music in the restaurant. We spent two nights there, so we had time to explore the castle and do some hikes up and down the river to the lake and in the national park while our bikes rested for a day.
The next day after our 4k climb out of Vranov, approaching Znojmo, we were passed by a runner. Later after following along with him to town, and giving him a good luck penny, he invited us to his home for tea and cookies and introduced us to his family. He is a police detective (he compared his job to the FBI) and also rides a bike, as well as being an artist. They didn't speak English and we of course didn't speak Czech, but we managed to communicate and show our pictures of home and family. He told us that he biked to Trebon and back in one day (we had taken five leisurely days for the same trip). This reminded Ron of his bike trip around Cape Breton; he was feeling really proud of completing the trip in 10 days when he was passed by a very fast biker whom he met at the end of the trail. Ron asked him when he left and he said "This morning".
In Znojmo, instead of spending the night, we caught a train to Bratislava, Slovak Republic, where we left our bikes at a pension while we came to the Tatra Mountains.
The biking we have experienced in the Czech Republic has been some of the most pleasant and beautiful biking we have done anywhere (despite the rain and headwind).
By the end of this coming weekend we expect to be back in our apartment in Budapest.
Ron and Ellen
Tatra mountains -- without bikes Budapest, Sunday 29 October 2000
Monday morning 23 Oct we left our bikes and most of our gear at a pension in Bratislava, and set off with just our day packs, feeling very light and unencumbered. We took the train to the High Tatras, arriving first in Poprad, and then via the "electric" (a sort of glorified tram) at Stary Smokovic. The Tatras are steep jagged mountains that rise up from the plains with virtually no foothills, just a long gradual incline up from Poprad which ends suddenly with the steep mountains smack in front of you.
We were there in the off season, late for the hordes of summer hikers, and before snow and ski season, so things were very quiet, accommodations easy to find, and restaurants uncrowded.
On Tuesday, we went to Tatranska Lomnica and took the cable car/ski lift up to Skalnate Pleso (1751 meters). The views were spectacular, and we had lunch on the terrace of the restaurant where we could see for miles (or kms). We walked around the optical observatory that is perched on the side of the mountain there, and watched the cable car go up from the point where we were to Lomnicky stit, the highest point in the range at 2632 meters, just a jagged rocky point with the barely visible cable car house on top. Ellen refused to take that leg of the trip (the guide book describes it as a "white knuckle ride")!
On Wednesday, we took a loop hike, starting by taking the 7-minute funicular ride up the mountain from Stary Smokovic, then hiking across the face of the mountain to a lake. Before we started, Ron complained that we weren't going to climb a mountain -- he was wrong! The first part of the hike was steadily up and up, first through pine forest, then through dwarf pine as we got higher. We never got above the tree line, but we were close. The second half of the trail was steeply down, and down, and down -- we'd come part way up on the funicular, but had to walk all the way down. The surface of almost the entire trail was rocky, with soccer ball sized rocks (and frequently larger), so the hike was actually stepping from one rock to another. At the time, we weren't sure whether it was more difficult going up or going down, but by the end of the hike we'd decided the downhill was actually worse. Our sore calf muscles, which are just now getting better, were convincing evidence that the down was harder!
Wednesday night we met and had dinner with a couple who are in their third year of teaching at the international school in Prague, and really enjoyed our time together and our conversation. She was from Nova Scotia and he was from Liverpool. They are getting ready to apply for another international teaching post, but have no idea at this point where that might be or with which international school system.
Thursday we took the train back to Bratislava, arriving in the early afternoon, and spent the afternoon and evening walking (despite sore calves!) around the oldest part of the town.
Friday morning we took a train from Bratislava to Sturova, the Slovak Republic border town. We biked from the train station to the Danube (which is the border between Slovakia and Hungary), where we took a boat across the Danube to Esztergom. We spent a little time exploring Esztergom by bike before taking the train back to Budapest. It was nice to come "home" to our flat, and unpack and do laundry!
We spent all of today exploring Budapest by bike, including Margaret's Island and some of the parks and high points in the hills on the Buda side of the river.
Ellen and Ron
Ellen back in Virginia, Ron still in Budapest Saturday 4 November 2000
I arrived back home on Thursday evening 2 November, and am now doing laundry, sorting through monstrous quantities of both paper mail and email, and trying to adjust to the Virginia time zone before starting work on Monday.
Last Monday in Budapest, Ron and I visited the Budapest City Hall to look at a 1:500 wooden scale model of the central part of Budapest (made from American walnut). It covered a huge area in a ballroom-sized room. We enjoyed picking out various buildings and landmarks we had seen, finding the building where our flat was, and getting a better idea of the relationships between parts of the city. With the model was a very interesting photographic exhibit on the history of Budapest and the ongoing renovations of buildings in the city.
Then we went to an exhibit at the Polish Cultural Institute about the 18 day strike at the Gdansk Shipyard in 1980 that launched the Solidarity movement. There were lots of photographs, and the accompanying text was in Hungarian and English. During dinner that evening at the Italian restaurant near our flat we had a long conversation with our waiter. He grew up in Dunaujvaros, about 60 km south of Budapest on the Danube. The name means "new Danube city", and it was built in the 1950s by the Soviets to house people who worked at the huge steel mills they also built there. He has been in Budapest for two months, and is working to make money to go back to England to study graphic arts. He has completed one year. He is studying in England because under the Hungarian university system, there are only 3 places each year for graphic arts students in the entire country, and there are 1000 applicants for those 3 places -- he says only people with connections get a place. His plan is to work in England for a while after he gets his degree, since right now there is much more opportunity in England, and then, in perhaps 10 years, come back to Hungary with his training and experience.
Tuesday we spent the morning and early afternoon doing various errands, including reconfirming my return ticket and finding a shoe repair place to fix Ron's shoe. Riding trams and tracking down appropriate addresses was a fine adventure. We also visited the small subway museum: Budapest had the first underground railway in Europe, completed in 1896.
Wednesday was a holiday (All Saint's Day) and most of the shops were closed (luckily we'd done the last of our shopping on Tuesday!). We wandered around in a huge city park during the morning, then had lunch with a young American man we'd met last year in Istanbul. He lives in Budapest and is a student in a Case Western Reserve University program in Budapest for international business and economic development which was started by George Soros. The program has students from all over the world, including many from eastern Europe and from the republics of what was the Soviet Union. Toby has traveled a lot, and lived in China and Vietnam for 2 years. He has taken the current semester off, and with a friend has started a company to encourage western companies to invest and locate in Central Europe, Russia, and Asia, and to work as liaison between the companies and the local governments. After our conversation with our waiter on Monday night, it was interesting to hear that one of the things Toby and his partner had recently been talking about with Hungarian government representatives was the problems that result from the strict limitations on the number of student places in various disciplines.
Since it was raining (only our second rainy day of the whole trip) we went back to the flat after lunch and coffee to read and finish packing my stuff.
Ron reports that now that he's on his own, he is staying out late, sleeping late, and eating junk food!
He plans to leave Budapest tomorrow (Sunday), taking the bike on the train to Debrecen in northeast Hungary. That area is supposed to be very nice for biking. He also expects to spend time in eastern Slovakia and western Romania. At some point, the weather will become unpleasant for biking, and he will go back to Budapest for a few days, then set off again without the bike. Further adventures to come!
Ellen
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