Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1979. január-június (33. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)

1979-05-24 / 21. szám

Thursday, May 24. 1979.

SUSAN JOSEPH:

e4 two day tourist's view of Budapest

On Friday, April 13, my companion and I began a one-week vacation to the foreign city I love best, London, and his favorite European destination, Budapest. We had booked our trip through an agent in Manhattan who specializes in Hungarian travel. Our package /round trip from New York to Heathrow Airport, London, on Iran Air; round trip from Heathrow to Budapest on Malév the Hungarian airline, for a total cost of $ 485, plus a $ 15.- visa- fee/ did not restrict the amount of time we were allowed to spend in either city; the one limitation we faced was that Malév flies between London and Budapest only on weekends, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so on Thursday, April 19, after five lively, cheerful and rather expensive days in England, we took oH for Budapest. During the lunchtime flight we chatted with an English businessman sitting behind us, making his first journey to Hungary to give that country’s canning industry some technological pointers on meat processing. He was booked at the Duna Intercontinental Hotel, near the city’s “Fifth Avenue”, Váci utca. We exchanged goodbyes at the Budapest airport and said that perhaps we’d meet again in the lobby of the Duna, a sort of rendezvous for foreign visitors. Incidentally, we did meet in the Duna lobby: we’d come there, on Saturday afternoon, to take a breather in one of the big leathery chairs. He’d just bought a ticket to a “Goulash Party”, a sightseeing-dining-wining-dan- cing-and* socializing evening for visitors to the city.

We ourselves had no hotel reservations; our travel agent hadn’t received a reply from the three or four hotels he’d telexed. The young woman at the airport desk of IBUSZ, the major Hungarian tourist agency, was also unsuccessful in securing us a room; apparently there were several conventions in the city at the time. So we took the airport bus - modem, low cost - to the downtown IBUSZ office. On the ride we got a diversified view of parts of the city: a few old, shabby looking buildings, a number of post-war highrise housing complexes, some decorated in bright, almost gaudy colors; soccer players in after-school sports; traffic tie-ups and construction sites.

The hotel the downtown IBUSZ office found for us, with a minimum of hassle or delay,was in hilly Buda, across the Danube River from bustling Pest. Although we would have preferred to stay nearer the center of town, we quickly realized that our hotel was accessible by a moderately priced, 20 minute taxi ride /the man who took care of us in the IBUSZ office, summoned our first taxi/. The hotel, the “SZAMOK” was astonishing: it is actually a computer-training center and student hotel, combining, in one mammoth, contemporary building, dormitory space, cafeterias, student lounges, class

rooms, and computer facilities. Dormitory rooms not occupied by students are open to other visitors, at reasonable prices /we paid $ 20. a night for two people, including full breakfasts, but were permitted to stav only two nights, because students were returning from Easter vacation/. The rooms were small, well-lit and comfortably furnished, the only off-note was the telephone, which did not always work quite as efficiently as we’ve become accustomed to.

About two blocks from our hotel was a railroad station. Hungry for chocolate, / as we often are, especially when awav from home and thoughts of weight control and dentists/, we strolled there after supper on our first full day. We noticed a small post office at the station; the woman behind the counter cheerfully sold us stamps and taking care not to cover any of our message with the label, pasted a par avion sticker on the postcards we had handed her. We felt most welcome in the city.

How did we spend our time during the day? We met some friends, their three-year old grandson, Akos, in tow, at an amusement park some fifteen minutes from Váci utca. /Ákos headed almost immediately for the electric kiddie-car; the cars may have been made in England, since the steering wheel was on the right./ Across the street from the amusement park is another recreational facility: behind the massive walls of a truly old-world structure is a complex of swimming pools, spas, saunas. Budapest whose Roman name was Aquincum, is built on mineral springs; and over the centuries the Hungarians have created palaces of both warm-water and cold- water luxury. We followed our friend’s advice and went first into the warm-water pool, which is perhaps 100 "F and meant not for swimming but for lolling, socializing / a few locals even play chess on waterproof boards/ - for enjoying the feel on one’s body of the almost-hot water. A quick sauna, then into the cold-water pool /maybe 75-80“ F/ for a real swim. Relaxation, stimulation, exercise - all within splashing distance of one another!

Margaret Island, which we visited the next day, is surely Budapest’s gem. A strip of land in the middle of the river, between Buda and Pest, and accessible by bus or footbridge from the mainland, it is an island park with plaving fields, tulip-hlooming gardens, a small zoo /where fawns, dogs, and jaded peacocks live in cageless harmony/, and another of the city’s spa facilities. The island has, as well, two hotels: one, well established and expensive, is the Grand; the other, just opened, is the Thermal, where guests have the convenience and luxury of the baths right under their hotel roof. We didn’t visit the Thermal, but oür seatmate on the Malév return flight to London, a Scandinavian botanist attending a scientific conference in Budapest, had stayed there. The rate he paid sounded reasonable. As the hotel gains publicity and popularity, however its prices may increase.

I

Our visit, just over two days long, provided us with several memorable pleasures: the sensuous enjoyment of the baths, the gleaming tulips on Margaret Island; the congenial, though necessarily limited exchanges with a few of the people of Budapest and, especially, a feeling of life, of activity, and of growth.

CULTURAL FÉST1UALS IN HUNGARY

BUDAPEST FESTIVALS July 1- Oct. 24.

Among outdoor opera and concert performances on Margaret Island during the summer will be Verdi’s “II Trovatore”, Puccini’s “Turandot” and a Yugoslav rock opera. Other musical activity in the city will consist of an International Musical Competition from Sept. 15 to <30, a contemporary music program from Sept.29 to Oct. 9. and the Budapest Musical Weeks from Sept. 23 to Oct. 24. Participants will be the State Concert Orchestra, the Budapest Symphony, the Cleveland Symphony and the Dresden Staatskapelle under conductors Ferencsik Janos Guiseppe Patene, Jurij Simonov and Herbert Kegel, with soloists Leonid Kogan, Nikita Magaloff, Helen Donath and Schiff András. Tickets f 1.50 to I 5.•

SZEGED OPEN-AIR STAGE July 21 to Aug.21.

The International Folk Dance Festival will share the open-air stage of Szeged with Verdi’s “La forza del destino”, performed in Italian, the Hungarian opera “János Vitéz”, ballet performances from Aug. 18 to 20 and Sophocles’s “Antigone” Aug. 10 through the 14. Tickets S 1. to $ 4.50.

SZOMBATHELY FESTIVAL Aug. 4 to Aug. 17.

In addition to orchestral concerts, Mozart’s “The Magic Flut” will be a part of this year’s festival.

For further information contact IBUSZ Hungarian Travel Bureau, 630 Fifth Ave.New York.N.Y. 10020, (212) 582-7412.'

HORTOBÁGY NATIONAL PARK

Including a number of detached areas, the Hortobágy National Park covers an area of 63.000 ha — larger than Lake Balaton. It was set up as the country’s first full-scale national park in 1973.

The park aims to protect and enhance the typical national environment of the puszta, to preserve its way of life, culture, historical heritage, scenery, etc.

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