Today would finally be the day that we joined the boat portion of this river cruise vacation. Not the river cruising itself! That would be the next day. In the meantime we had the morning to poke around Budapest more before embarking on the ship, and then after embarkation we would still have more time to explore Budapest.
I keep saying “explore Budapest” but man we spent a lot of time in Buda. For example, this morning we were heading once again up to Buda castle. The previous day we had taken a tour of the castle but now we were seeing the Hungarian National Gallery, housed in the castle itself. We were going to take the funicular up to the top, but turns out it is $15 each, which is a bit steep (funicular joke there).
The gallery is really great! Lots of 19th and 20th century art. I suppose they had older stuff but it was very religious or Hungarian in a way I didn’t understand enough to get. The interior was redone in the 1980s and it looks it. On the Buda castle tour the previous day our guide was complaining that the interior now lacked the grandeur it once did, but I thought it was great. If you did find the interior a bit stuffy though a surprise for us is that you could go all the way up to the dome on top of the building and step outside for some stunning panoramic views of the whole city. Worth the price of admission alone.
But back to the art. Since its the Hungarian National Gallery, clearly there is a big emphasis on Hungarian artists. They were well tapped into the art movements of the time and so is just as gorgeous as everything else. Of the two paintings below, the first is Bathing House (1872) by Pál Szinyei Merse and the second being A Visit in the Afternoon (1879) by Mihály Munkácsy. I liked the bathing house scene for being slightly cheeky, the trio of girls obviously being sent to gather up the boy swimming and trying to maintain some propriety while doing so. The second I liked for being a colorful and breezy look at friendly domesticity.
A lot of the even more modern stuff really struck a chord with me. Occasionally I see some art and I want to take a stab at recreating it myself, these pieces now that I’m thinking about it typically being sculptures. Two from the museum are below. The first is Sphere (1965) by François Morellet and the second is Energetic Sculpture (1977) by Adolf Luther. I like Sphere as it reminds me of nothing so much as a depiction of crystal lattices that is on display in the Smithsonian. Plus recreating it seems like a good excuse to get a spot welder (having just did a quick search man you can get some dangerous stuff for real cheap). The second sculpture with its mirrors and geometries just seems like it could create so many possibilities. So far attempting that has been a good excuse to get a heat gun, but that is about as far as I’ve gotten.
Another aspect of what I liked about this gallery is clearly the gallery designers had done a lot of work assembling and juxtaposing different artworks to create a new statement. Below is a photo of two paintings placed across a doorway, both by Károly Ferenczy. On the left is Painter and Model (in the Atelier) (1904) and on the right Double Portrait (Noémi Ferenczy and Béni Ferenczy) (1908).
And then I’m not so sure the below juxtaposition was intentional but I do think it is funny. It is Sitting Worker (1934) by György Goldmann (already clearly a comment on The Thinker), along with a “no sitting” sign:
Intellectual work, physical work, no rest from work, man what avenues we have for self-expression. The exhibit that really blew me away the most was a whole exhibit on Art Nouveau they had going on at the time. All that work was so intricate and gorgeous and if I was anything resembling an artist I think I would be trying so hard to master the art nouveau style. I like the bold dramatic colors and outlines and how more can be more.
But I promised a boat. With the afternoon rolling around it was finally time to embark on our Viking longship, in our case the Tor. We picked up our bags from the hotel, hiked across the Chain Bridge, and were intercepted by two very nice men from the ship who carried our bags direct to our room while we checked in. What luxury! And then we pretty promptly turned around again to head back into town, pausing only briefly to reunite with my parents and brother who were coming down the gangplank. My dad didn’t actually recognize me standing right in front of him (he was distracted) but don’t worry my mom did. They were exhausted, having come directly from the airport, and so we left them to the room to do some souvenir shopping.
I write this paragraph mostly to plug a particular gift shop the Hungarian Folklore shop. It is located here. The big tourist spot to go to in Budapest is the Great Market Hall, which is pretty neat and filled with all sorts of stuff, and great stuff at that. If you go on a tour they’ll take you there, and on our official ship tour of Budapest the next day (where we would once again visit Buda castle) we did indeed visit the Hall. But we had spotted the Hungarian Folklore store on the map and tried to visit our first day, only to find a planned power outage blocking us. So it was a priority for us to visit once we were able and we are glad we did. They had all sorts of handicrafts authentically made from around Hungary. The prices reflected the craftsmanship, and so there was a lot of neat stuff beyond my price range, but we did get some really gorgeous affordable souvenirs. So make sure you go when you are in Hungary!
Having finally managed to visit we returned to the ship where we had dinner (my dad, continually convinced he should be on a diet, only ordered the appetizer for dinner, then discovered it was European portions instead of American portions, and so ordered the main as well, but refused a dessert until he saw how small they were, and then ordered his own, but then also ate my brother’s after my brother discovered the dessert was not to his liking, so that is my dad’s diet, a full three course meal plus an extra dessert). Once evening hit we head out into town once again to admire all the buildings with the lights. We were not alone in this and I was most amused to see women all dressed up and posing in front of the Hungarian parliament building. It is perhaps the most dramatic building in Budapest’s skyline, but I struggled to imagine women doing the same for the Capitol building. But some décolletage for democracy can’t be a bad thing, right?
