Dent, Bob: Budapest for Children - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)
8. Intor the Past - Museums
66 INTO THE PAST exhibitions, though small, are lively and colourful with lots to look at. No texts in English, but in each side children can put a coin into a slot to hear a voice in English comment on the displays. In the commerce section, the staff show you working models of Budapest’s first flashing light advertisement (for beer) and an HMV dog that tapped on a shop window. (If they don’t, indicate you’d like to see them working.) Here, also, look out for the display about post-war inflation and the picture of a man lighting a cigar with a ten-mil- lion-pengő note! Above you can see the destroyed Chain Bridge and what Budapest looked like in 1945. Open 10-18 except Monday. Children free, free for all on Fridays. Telephone Museum [Telefonja Múzeum] No. 49 Úri u. One of Budapest’s newest museums which, until recently, was actually a functioning substation. A rare example of a Hungarian museum giving children some “hands-on” opportunities for playing and learning — call up your own English-speaking guide on the phone, dial a song or a story, make the old exchange equipment work, talk to or send faxes to each other, use the video-text to ask questions, and, if it’s working, use the video phone to talk to and see each other simultaneously, etc. Open 10-18 except Monday. Small charge for children, but free for all on Wednesdays. Wheelchair access good—on street level with no steps anywhere. Music History Museum [Zenetörténeti Múzeum] No. 5 Táncsics Mihály u. On the floor of an old mansion (wheelchair access good). Probably mainly for children who play an instrument, the small display includes old violins, etc. and an instrument-making bench, though in the back there is a display of more general interest of folk instruments —hurdy-gurdies, zithers, bagpipes, horns, cimbaloms, etc. Items are labelled in English and printed materials in English are also available. The upstairs “Bartók Workshop” is very specialised with collections of scores, etc. Open Monday 16-21; Wed-Sun 10-18; closed Tues-
