Checking out the Pécs

Last weekend my friend Zsofi and I ventured to Pécs, a town in Southern Hungary, which is unfortunately not pronounced like the muscle group, but like Paych. We went to see the Fringe Festival, which is a weekend long celebration of amateur artists with hundreds of free performances offered all over the city in every genre conceivable. Normally, the festival is in Budapest, but the Festival Center relocated it to Pécs because the city was chosen at Europe's Capital of Culture for 2010.


I expected Pécs to be pretty, but it was downright gorgeous, especially in its quaint downtown. This is partly due to the fact that it's the home of Zsolnay - a famous ceramics and tile manufacturer, so his creative roofs like the one pictured above decorated the city's skyline. However, a huge portion of the city, including its main square was under construction. To get anywhere, we had to loop around fenced-in construction zones and try to avoid the sound of jackhammers. Thus, we decided the city would be more appropriately titled the European Capital of Construction 2010.

Besides the gorgeous roofs, another facet of the city that I immediately loved was its rich religiosity that reflected many of Hungary's political stages. Within a five minute walk of each other, there was an impressive mosque, a stunning cathedral and a synagogue. Since there isn't much Muslim influence in Hungary since the Turks left, the mosque has been converted into a Cathedral church. I found this hybrid fascinating, because the interior was circular, rather than the long aisle to which I've become accustomed. Plus, they've adapted the murals to reflect the stations of the cross, but the style still looks influenced by the East.



However, this shifting denomination works the other way too. The main basilica, picture above, (which was also under construction) was used by the Turks as a mosque, so there was a Moorish influence to the Christian temple too, most evident in its crypt:

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good shot of the synagogue because of construction blockades, but here's a beautiful performing arts center where we saw a dance troupe. I will write more about the Fringe Festival itself in my creative writing blog: http://marisa-musings.blogspot.com/

A Family Affair

In mid-March, I was graced by the presence of my wonderful in-laws, Mark and Nancy, and by super-fun cousins, Laura and Brad. We did the standard Budapest and Zagreb tourist fare, and here are some photographic highlights of the trip. The photo above is of Nancy, Mike and me at a wine tasting at Doblo, where we sampled some (too much) of Hungary's fabulous vintages. For more on this, see my other blog.

Nancy admiring the fascinating meat selection and adorned piggies at the Central Market in Budapest. The creepiest thing we saw was a huge, flattened cow tongue - they are the size of a toilet-seat. Yuck.

In addition to riding funiculars (which I also wrote about in my other blog), I got to experience a new tourist attraction - Statue Park. In most formerly Communist countries, when the regime changed, citizens and the new government destroyed the Social Realism statues that decorated their cities. However, Budapest was not as hot-headed as its red counterparts, and they decided to save many of the statues, which were later installed at Statue Park, which is about a 20 minute drive outside the city center. The park wasn't as big as I had anticipated, but there were still some impressively large sculptures or the ideal Communist worker, such as the one below that is overtaking Brad, and many triumphant depictions of Lenin and Stalin. Above, you can see how well Laura would have blended in with the Commie youth movement.




This picture of me and my cousins was taken in Zagreb. Notice the glorious sunshine. After this picture was taken, we basked in the sun for at least 20 minutes.

Nancy and Mark in the "green horseshoe" of Zagreb, where there are multiple picturesque parks in a row.