adrassay.�t.and.beyond

it's just too cold. -10 this morning when i arrived at my project office. i am NOT going to write about the snow and the weather, but something slightly different, to escape from the cold, slippery road and winter traffice. let's go back to summer, this is the second last posts i still have about my summer budapest trip. hmmm... summer.. think of the sun, extra day light, when it is as cold as this, i actually appreciate summer more.

sometime in august

after the opera house, you walk eastbound towards hero square. and you like what you see here. not gucci or prada but the sculptures and the architecture of the buildings, just so refine...

as you walk along andrassy �t, you saw lukas (another famous caf�/pastries shop) and you say to yourself, no you should not go in, you already had new york caf� and muvesz today. after 200m, your inner self ask you to turn back, so you follow your heart, after all you are not sure if you will be back here again.

you are glad you pop in for a visit. although at this stage your eyes are bigger than your stomach. as dutch saying "my eyes are bigger than my stomach", you are full but you still want to eat but there is no more space in your stomach... so you look here and there....

lukas is more parisian and with a modern twists, not like the rustic hungarian and austrian galore that you have tasted so far and not impressed. you can even find macarons here, but you have no more room for cake, so here is the deal, two macarons to take away (lemon and triple sec) , and a two scoops sorbet (peach and apricot), both despite having similar orange colors, taste very differently, natural and good.

and you carry on with your walk along adrassay �t and enjoying the sorbet and whatever scenes that arouse your interest along the way....

more shops and pretty doors and bronze statues...

a broad boulevard with a separate lane for pedestrians...

and boy! these long tall pink ice cream, seems interesting, you wonder if they taste good ... but nope, no more room for ice cream...

with the sugar rush, you decide to walk to hero square instead of taking the metro so that you can burn off the extra energy. you did the right thing! you love the architectures along the avenue, plenty of things to see and keep you busy, not a single sign of boredom!

house of terror, a neo renaissance block stands as a symbol of recent hungarian history as the most dreaded location.

the base for the political police engaged in tracking down opponents of communist regime.

isn't this heavy iron chain speaks for itself...

you wonder about what had once happened in the house of terror? no, this is too heavy to discover the answer, so you walk on further...

and you reach the embassy area...

to some impressive embassy buildings around kadaly izorond

and before you realize you already see hero square is greeting you just some distance away. adrassay �t may seem long but the walk is such a pleasure and could take ages if you hop in to every shop and places of interest. for you, your end goal is hero square and the city park where you know szechenyi thermal is awaiting for you. and that's exactly what you wanted to conclude your last full day in budapest.

szechenyi.thermal.bath

i am actually feeling grumpy right now... besides the fact that i am not really feeling fit (neither am i sick) just at the border line and was woke up twice by his alarm and couldn't go back to sleep again, by the time i dossed off and  woke up, it's way too late to drive to work and my head is bouncing again...  so i looked at my appointments and shift everything to tomorrow. not my day but these things happened...  what i really want now is to soak into a hot spring water and let the heat of the thermal water rejuvenate my body.  since it is not possible to get near to anything like that besides the sauna and steam bath at my gym facility, why not travel back again to my never finish summer travel story?  at least back then it is warm and i am soaking in a hot thermal bath in budapest.

sometime in mid august

it’s almost late afternoon, you are according to plan, you arrive here to rest your sore feet and tired body.  you have walked all the way from andrassay út to here. 

you found the thermal bath complex, you pay and you enter.  this building is even more humongous than gillert thermal bath that you been to a day before. 

no one speak english here, no english instruction either.  you are frustrated because the attendant doesn’t understand you.  you don’t know how things work here; there is no explanation in english. 

but you must admit this place is beautiful, a gem consider this being a swimming pool complex or thermal bath complex. 

you waste time in finding how things operate.  you feel like you are in some sort of communist chamber and under passage and wish you could figure out the hungarian language which is not latin or germanic based.  you are in the tower of babel, and lost in translation. 

you start with the indoor pools, what is called a mud pool is not a pool in murky mud but a pool with a higher content of medicinal water (with strong smell).  I love the thermal bath, it relaxes you especially after a long walk today.  there are about 15 different pools, you are spoilt of choice, you  just hop in and out from one to another, with different temperatures.  the 80 celcius degree sauna also helps release the sweat and you feel really good.  despite the fact that you were not at ease at first, but now you beginning to feel relax.  you jump into a 20 celcius pool after the sauna, and feel your both feet numb and the open pores close immediately, you couldn’t get your whole body into the 20c pool so you switch to a 38c pool and you feel so much better. by now your foot sore, muscle ache has gone with the wind thermal water.

when the indoor pool and complex closed, you go to the outdoor pool, the air is quite fresh but the thermal water keeps you warm. you stay until past 7.30pm, you witness the light up view of szechenyi . the open air pools embraced by the wings of this beautiful old building, the classical roman pool halls and the cavernous sauna. 

you return to the gas chamber like room, take your shower, blow dry your hair and ready to explore this part of the city by night.

you walk out the thermal bath complex, the building is illuminated by now and you still find it amazing that you actually swam in places like this, a fairy tale or a fantasy place.... 

and in reality you are now in cold december with temperature of -2c out there and not feeling well yet without a thermal bath...

meeting.sissy.at.budapest.opera.house

a busy day at work and the dutch traffic is driving me crazy! i witnessed three accidents just along a short drive from schiphol-rijk to my office at around 3pm, and two accidents on my home bound journey at 7pm.  these days i am tired of driving and traffic jam instead of tired from my work.  anyway, set asides the reality of autumn traffic and the fact that not all my rome photos are ready, so i decided to continue with one of the last few tales of budapest...

twenty fifth august

“you must visit the Hungarian state opera house” as your host jennifer told you.

now you are here, right in front of you is this famous opera house. it is a building that showcase of neo-renaissance architecture but with some elements of baroque.

along with it richly decorated details; you can just stand there and stare at the grandiose lobby for hours and hours.

let alone you haven’t get into the real inner beauty – the auditorium hall as yet. you came by to buy the ticket for the guided visit at 3pm. this is the only way you can have the glimpse of the horseshoe shaped auditorium as there is no performances on during the summer.

you waited in the hall way waiting for the tour to start, you walk the elegant stair case, up a few level and enter the velvet red and chandeliers decorated auditorium.

the guide says that this opera house is almost a replica of vienna opera house but only half a size smaller, as the hasburg monarchy didn’t want this opera house to be bigger or equal to their homeland opera house. you haven’t been to vienna yet, so it is not up to you to judge.

the guide tells the tale of franz josef and sissy whom you are quite acquaintance to due to the 3 movies that you have seen about sissy.

 it is lovely to learn about them and the love of sissy towards the hungarian people and vice versa. the whole building is decorated with various oornamentations include paintings and sculptures by leading figures of hungarian art of the time.

apparently sissy came so often that one of the room is named after her the ‘sissy room’, and the ‘royal room’ (which she only uses when franz josef is with here)...

hero.square.budapest

well, my photos for the budapest state opera house are not ready for posting yet, so i will skip the story of sissy and franz josef for now and show you the hero square.  as far as my memory recalls, i walked from the opera house to hero square and beyond...  is a long straight boulevard with plenty of sights keeping me busy...  i arrived in the late afternoon and took a quick stroll around the hero square, a quick glimpse of city park and vajdahunyad castle (a vampire feel castle) before i soak in szechenyi termal bath .  all those will come in different posts....

hero square by day during late afternoon

the night view is completely different from the day scene.  it is quite breathtaking and still very communist even with the light illumination.

the left wing of the square

the middle tower

the right wing of the square

the hall of arts (műcsarnok)

there are two museums facing each other like a rival with the hero square in between that as if the hero square is acting as a peace mediator for both museums that stand at each flank of hero square

 

museum of fine arts

as i walked toward the bus stop to catch a bus back to my home, i have one last look at the hero square, he is quite a handsome square isn't it?

::muvesz::

[monday blue....i am not quite ready for work after a well fed weekends, but the reality is i am sitting in front of my computer. i have been doing good with the fasting, no tea or coffee so far, i am doing okay with plain water and vegetarian diet. for now, i will continue with my summer story of budapest...]

twenty fifth august

from new york caf�, you hop on to tram 6 to octagon. you are now ready to check out the opera house. well, not quite ready yet!

the opera house guided tour starts at 3pm, so you have plenty of time for lunch at m�v�sz caf� just diagonally opposite the opera house, has been around since 1898.

you enjoy your lunch there with a goulash soup as starter, this is the sort of goulash soup you like a dash of modernity not so hearty...

a m�v�sz salad that consists of cheese, duck meat, green, pine nuts and croutons. you like your salad, it is nice and refreshing even though the cheese is a little salty. when you are done with the savory fix, you make a quick tour inside the caf�.

you came across the cake stand at the entrance and you see the black forest cake, quite tempting but not tempting enough for you to have a piece...

more cakes on the parade...

some you don't even have the name for it but one thing for sure, you won't want another piece of cake after new york cafe. you walk straight in...

you like the chic interior that reminiscent of a 19^th century salon with gilded stucco, wall to ceiling mirrors, wrought candelabras and gilded picture frames.

now you are ready for the opera house.

high.tea.round.and.about.rotterdam

we both need a long overdue haircut so rotterdam is the destination!! after the haircut, since we didn't want to hang around in the city center so we thought of some arty fix and drove to the museumpark area.

this is a bronze sculpture nearby kunsthal, a public art

i asked him for this perfect pose... well not quite, perhaps i could do it better :)

with just slightly over an hour and a half, we first thought of going to kunsthal museum but on second thought it probably won't worth the rush before the next appointment.

so we just settle down at the kunsthal's cafeteria, each of us ordered a cuppa and a soup and say a little prayer of course!

then we decided to take a short walk to the other museum, the autumn view is evident and visible, and the low temperature (10c) and the chilled wind just confirmed that autumn is here while we walked from kunsthal to boimans van beuningen museum...

there, we just hang around the museum book shop, browsing, touching this and that and playing with gadget ...

life can have different perspective when you look at it through another lens. i quite like these images... then we take our stroll back to the car park and drive to hotel new york where we will have a high tea with a friend....

at hotel new york, it took us awhile before we are seated. the venue is crazily packed and the queue is long even for those with reservation like us.... we asked for a window table, so we got one at a not too noisy corner....

english dutch hightea for three... not too elegant, not finese either... english traditional hightea is not something that easily imitate by other country... nonetheless, here we have some huge sandwiches with tuna/cucumber, pompodori (sun dried tomato) and egg assortiments. some decent scones but dissapointing jam, the middle tier is alright, all sweet and/or sour bites...

me and S, and johannes of course as camera man....

then again, sometime high tea is not about eating but rather the rituals of drinking tea and enjoying the small bites and chatting away with good conversation....

i will visit ritz carlton london for a real english traditional afternoon next time when i step in to london again...