Munich & Budapest

[Carlos May]

Travels in Central Europe part 7. Tubingen and Munich
Germany. Budapest Hungary.
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THE SOUTH OF GERMANY


TUBINGEN

From Zurich I take the main German line north through Schaffhausen,
into Germany. At Horb I change to a small commuter train which takes me
to Tubingen. On my way to the town center I walk through a pleasant park
with tall trees, marble statues, and a lake with gliding swans. I find
the tourist office closed, as is the town church's tower that was
recommended for its view. I stroll the half-timbered old town. It's
nice, but by now such an old town is, so to speak, nothing new to me.
Tubingen is a University town. I'd been told it's as nice as famous
Heidelburg, but with out the droves of tourists. Many buildings are
scrawled with graffiti. I pass a street guitar player singing in
English. I walk up a wooded hill; not a bad view with the leaves
changing colors. Overhead is a hot air balloon. To Marketplatz, the
main square. I look at the old Town Hall with centuries old paintings of
human figures recently defaced with splattered green paint. As I wait for
Wolf, I lean against the square's old stone and bronze fountain,
listening to good music provided by a French woman of about 20 years who
sings while playing guitar.
Wolf and a friend from Heidelburg arrive shortly after 4 p.m. We walk
up hill to the town's old palace, a collection of half block long 2 and 3
story rectangular stone buildings. It's undergoing restoration. There
was long debate over which era's style the frequently remodeled structure
should be restored to; Baroque was finally decided on.
We head to a friend's house for coffee and chat. The friend lives on
the 2nd floor of a downtown apartment house from the 1500s. Some (I'm
not sure which) of the half dozen other people hanging around live here
as well. They moved in here to go to college, and a decade after college
are reluctant to give up the good location. The decor is still
collegiate, with illustrations from newspapers and magazines taped to the
walls. In the evening we head to the University for a party at hall
called the Max Plank Haus. There's a good spread of food, and of course
local beer. I talk with Joe, whom I'd met in Albany in 1987-- he was
visiting Wolf and Wolf's ex-wife Linda there at the same time I was. Joe
recently returned from Madagascar, where he'd been working on a science
nature film. He says Madagascar is a fascinating place, newly opened up
to the outside world after getting rid of their dictator. Actually, Joe
adds, the dictator and his palace guard are still holed up in a mountain
fortress, but the rest of the country now ignores him. Madagascar, Joe
tells me, has an interesting culture and unique flora & fauna. After the
party Wolf and I crash over at Joe's place.
Monday 1 November is All Saints' Day, and most of the town is closed
down. We find a downtown breakfast joint that's open, although they have
no fresh baked goods due to the holiday. As part of this region of
Germany's French heritage, cafe au lait is served in a bowl large enough
to dunk a baguette in.
Wolf & I split ways at the train station, as he's returning to Zurich,
and I'm bound for Munich.

MUNCHEN

Munchen, alias Munich, is the New York City of south Germany. Much of
Bavaria's metropolis has been rebuilt since the devastation of the Second
World War. Munchen's big unpleasant main train station has an efficient
tourist information office and a mall extending underground containing
restaurants, bookstores, bakeries, 2 subway stations, a porno theater,
and numerous alcoholic bums. After a few phone calls I find a room in a
Pension Am Markt, centrally located between Munchen's old town hall, the
main pedestrian street, and an out-door food market. I taste the wares
at Schneiders, one of Munchen's famous beer-halls, before retiring.
In the morning I go to the Alte Pinotec, a great gallery of old master
paintings. Its exhibits include: "The Satyr in the Bavarian Barn" by
Jacopb Jordens, 1613-1678. A 1600's farm family of old mother & father,
a girl of 6 years, a boy of 7, and a daughter in her late teens, are
gathered around a table sharing soup and fruit with a nude satyr from
classical mythology. Dog, cat, hen, and cow look on. The satyr is
telling them a story with animated hand gestures. The family looks on
wrapped with interest--the daughter seems interested in more than the story.
Van Dyck's "Susana In Bath" is a wonderful painting of great dramatic
poses. This is unlike most depictions of this scene, which invite us to
oogle Susana before she discovers she's being watched. Here Susana draws
back in clear horror as the two wicked dirty old men approach her.
In a hall I pass a pair of small paintings not listed in the catalog.
They are "marine scenes" of small ships with red white & blue
horizontally striped flags, with background forts and windmills, dark
clouds above. The caption says they are by "Monogramist J H B R", active
around 1710. They remind me much of the seascape hanging on my wall in
New Orleans, signed "H.R.", about which I know only that it was brought
back from Europe by my maternal Great Grandfather.
An undoubted highlight of the Alte Pinotec is the two huge and 2 small
rooms full of Ruebens. Hot damn that boy could paint! Here are a great
collection of his works large and small. One huge canvas is a
"Kindermord", depicting the New Testament massacre of babies. In this
depiction of the scene, Mad King Herod's soldiers do not remain
un-injured as they go about their bloody work. The children's mothers
fight back, tearing the soldier's hair, scratching their eyes, and biting
their arms! In the center stands Rueben's favorite model, his wife
Helen. Tears roll down her cheeks, her arms are expressively spread wide
with grief, her blouse front is conveniently undone.
That evening it's a short walk from my room to the Hofbrauhaus,
Munchen's most famous and touristy beer hall. A lieder-hosen clad umpah
band plays while waiters deliver brew in pitcher sized mugs.

On Wednesday Nov.3rd I go to the "Nuer Pinotec", which takes painting
up to the beginning of the century. As other museums and sights beckon me
today, I don't have all day to spend in this gallery, but I do have a few
hours to enjoy a series of huge 19th century realistic scenes of Greece
at the time of Greek Independence, and a nice collection of
Impressionists.
I lunch on some fresh baked cheese-bread while I walk across the
beautifully landscaped Englisher Garden park. The Kunsthalle Museum has
a temporary exhibit of early 20th century Dada, where I see Marcel
Duchamp's most famous work--a small black & white photo of the Mona Lisa
with a moustache painted on. A showing of silent Dada films reveal that
some Dadaists were attempting to achieve with live action about what the
Fleischer Brothers were doing in their "Out of the Inkwell" cartoons at
about the same time. Just up the street from the Kunsthalle is Munchen's
Museum of Erotic Art. The small museum upstairs from a (legitimate)
movie theater displays exhibits ranging from old Chinese painted codices
to naughty 1920's French postcards. A pre-revolutionary French piece of
fine porcelain depicts an innocent lounging kitten; it is displayed a
glass shelf so that we can see that underneath it depicts a couple
copulating. A similarly inclined couple is depicted on an un-Victorian
Swiss watch of the Victorian era; the man's penis throbs to tick off the
seconds. An English newspaper's article on the museum is framed near the
entrance. It reveals that I'm there on a typical day; about 2/3 of its
visitors are women.
In the evening, after the museums close, I stroll wide streets,
several of them blocked off for pedestrians only. Later I go to the
untouristy neighborhood on the other side of the train station to stop at
Augustiner Keller. I agree with the locals who say this place has the
city's best beer. To my taste Augustiner Keller's "Edelstorff" is the
perfectly satisfying epitome of what a beer should be. Now it's time to
return to the Railroad Station to board my train for Budapest.

BUDAPEST

In Munchen HBF (the main train station) I wander towards my car, past
cars bound for Bucharest, Roumania. The Roumania bound cars as a rule
seem to have 2 people seated in each 6 person compartment, which is
otherwise filled to the ceiling with refrigerators, television sets, and
crates boxes & bags of western goods. I find my Budapest bound car. My
couchette compartment is shared by a stout old man with a German passport
who lives in Budapest, and a mixed gender pair of 20ish American
students. The Yanks are studying in France, and between classes are
seeing such distant European sights as they can. After the train starts
out the female announces she's heading out for a drink of water and to
brush her teeth. I remind her not to use the train tap water. She's
startled. I say that the sign and logo above the bathroom tap say it's
not to be drunk, and I'd take their word for it. She asks conductor, who
confirms this.
After lights out, I need to ask them to go out in the hall if they must
keep chatting.
I sleep well. In to Budapest K.Pu. main station. Several hucksters
offer rooms as we exit the train. Prices go down as I walk further away.
I think I'll check out place of sincere late 20's man who speaks a bit of
English, $10 first night, $8 if more than one night. A female couple
who had room asking $20 tease him and me as we walk away--You don't like
women, you prefer to go with a man? I tell the room agent that before
leaving the station I must stow a bag and find info on a train to Praha.
Can I meet him back somewhere? He accompanies me while I stow my big
bag, get some (incomplete) info on trains to Praha. He changes a bit of
$ for me at 100 forint to the dollar so I can make advance payment for
luggage deposit. The man asks me if I speak German. I say I can already
tell his English is better than my German. His name is Kover Mihaly.
Family names come first in Hungary. I can call him Michael. Michael
leads me to the crowded subway. It's about 8:30 a.m., I assume the
morning rush hour. (I later find out that the Budapest Metro is always
packed like this.) Out at Kossuth station, we take a tram one block
past Parliament and the Ethnography museum, walk a block & 1/2 to a 10 or
so story apartment block. There are cracked & missing tiles in the dusty
foyer. Up 3 floors, through a locked gate to his apartment. The rental
room is nice, with a large bed, chandelier, table, chairs, and a potted
plant-- one must pass through the shower & tub room to get to it. The
apartment has a separate kitchen, toilet, and Michael has the big room to
the left of the entrance. An other guest room is across from the
kitchen. Michael tells me that the other tenant is "beautiful young
lady". After bringing up some yogurt and bottled water from the small
grocer downstairs, I head out. I tram along river front. I wander
Budapest's downtown and the area along its main tourist street, Vaci u.
There are a variety of exchange places offering a wide variety of rates,
the best just below Michael's. They nestle amidst a hodge-podge of pizza
parlors, electronics shops, German and Hungarian restaurants, hotels,
strip joints, fashionable clothing stores, and Mc. Donalds.
Thus far I've been in the flatter, more modern Pest side of Budapest,
on the east bank of the Danube. I head out of Pest, walking across the
fog shrouded 150 year old emblem of Budapest, the "Szechenyi Lanchid", or
Chain Bridge, spanning the wide Danube (or Duna as the river is known
locally). Soon after arriving on the Buda side, the topography rises
steeply. I take the turn of the century funicular tram up Buda Castle
Hill. I wander the winding streets of the Metropolis's historic hilltop
heart. I enjoy a snack at a bakery/coffee shop that has been in
operation since the 1820s. I look at the delicate decorative walls and
towers from the turn of the century which superceded the defensive
fortifications facing the Danube. I enter Castle Hill's most prominent
building, the 13th century St. Matthias Church. While I've seen dozens of
great churches on this trip, this one succeeds in impressing me, mainly
in its enthusiastic use of color. Pillars and walls are made of
multicolored stones, decorated with bright paint.
As dusk approaches, I take a mini-bus down to a metro stop. The
Budapest Metro is swift and efficient, if crowded and noisy, and is
entered and exited via the fastest moving escalators I've ever
encountered. Back at my room I meet Michael's other tenant, Frances, a
petit blonde New Zealand woman of 28 years who works on one of Scotland's
offshore oil rigs. She's spent several days in Prague, then came to
Budapest the day before I did. Yesterday she asked Michael for
recommendations for a rainy day, and had spent much of that day in one of
the city's Turkish baths. Locals go there to socialize. She enjoyed
seeing the Hungarians lounging in the hot water playing chess. Today she
enjoyed the museums on Castle Hill. Tonight she's about to head out to
the national opera. She got an excellent seat for $6. The opera sounds
interesting to me--but one needs to get a ticket by the morning of the
day before.
I take the metro to the railroad station to get a night train ticket
to Prague for the next day. I think one more day in Budapest should do
me, and I'm eager to see Prague. Earlier in the day I had been told that
I must buy my ticket in hard currency. Now at the office they say I must
pay in Hungarian forints. I don't have enough with me; they tell me I can
buy the ticket tomorrow. I head back downtown for an evening snack. I
look around an 1890's Galleria Mall. At night Vaci U is teeming with
hookers. One approaches me: "Ahoy...Gruzi...Hello...Speak English? You
vant have sex vit rreal Hongarian voman? Is verrry goood!" No thanks. I
head back to my room.

In the morning Frances told me she enjoyed the 3 act opera, the middle
act of which was a ballet, which helped compensate for the fact that she
couldn't understand a word of the Hungarian it was sung in. We both
leave Michael's. On our way out we tell our energetic Hungarian host
that if we come back to Budapest in a few years, he'll be manager of a
great hotel. He's already been out meeting trains trying to find tenants
to replace us.



Frances & I go to main station. I teach her the trick of checking
one's bag in at the station--she hadn't known she could do that, and is
glad not to have to carry it around the rest of the day. She's going to
go souvenir and gift shopping today. We agree to meet back at the
station in the evening, and go spend our remaining forints on a good dinner.

I go into the rail office to buy my ticket to Prague, sixty plus
dollars worth of forints in my pocket. The woman at the counter tells me
that I can't buy a ticket for tonight's train; tickets must be bought at
least a day in advance. I put my hand--with a stack of forints under
it-- on the counter and say that I was assured yesterday that I could get
my ticket today. "Who told you that?" I was asked. Someone at this very
counter, I reply. She rolls her chair back, picks up a thick book of
timetables and leafs through it for half a minute, sliding her eyeglasses
down her nose and scanning the book in concentration. She looks up and
says, well, yes, she can sell me the ticket now, but in another 20
minutes she couldn't. It's a good thing I hadn't come there any later,
she says. I buy my ticket. (That evening I found the train carriage
almost empty. Why do they discourage passengers?)
I look around the river front of lower Pest, including a Renaissance
church and Roman ruins. Back downtown on Vorosmarty Square I enjoy rolls
and a chocolate torte at Cafe Gerbeaud, an elegant cafe founded in 1858
and still in the old French style with marble tables and mirrored and
decorative stuccoed walls. Across the square, I board the Metro at the
1890s Victorian first station of its oldest line. Budapest's first
subway line (from 1896) is exceeded in age only by the oldest portions of
London's underground. I'm soon at Budapest's largest church, the 19th
century St. Steven (Szt Istavan), which commemorates Medieval Hungary's
first Christian king. I don't get to climb the steeple, as I'm told it's
closed for the winter. I do, however, get to go into the rooms behind the
altar. There the guard points to the Cathedral's prize possession and
tries to explain it to me in very broken English. He needn't, as I
already know what it is from having read my guidebook. Inside the
Baroque silver and glass case is the right hand of St. Stephen himself.
I put a coin in a slot and the desiccated fist is suddenly brightly lit.
The guard was glad to have me write out an English phrase to add under
the Hungarian and German: "20 forint coin for 3 minutes illumination of
Relic".
I Metro across to Buda's old river town. I slowly wander up Castle
Hill. Atop the decorative walls a musician is playing the flute
beautifully. The fog of yesterday has cleared, and I take photos of the
area and the Neo-Gothic Parliament across the river. One of my guidebooks
recommends the ancient catacombs beneath the hill. I go to the entrance
only to find it's closed today due to a power failure--one can't go
underground without lights.
I stop for a Hungarian beer (their wine is better) at an outdoor table
with a fine view of the hills and valleys to the west of Castle Hill (the
opposite side from the river).

I go under a monumental archway to enter the complex of imposing
buildings making up Buda Castle Palace. Passing monumental statues of
Hungarian and Mythological figures, I enter the most famous of several
Museums in the Castle complex, the Hungarian National Museum. 3 large
floors are all devoted to Hungarian artists. These are some of the
things which impressed me there:
This area had a flourishing art in the late Gothic era, with many
icons in diverse styles, gradually absorbing influences of the
Renaissance.
One Elias Mogel painted interesting still lives in the 1700s;
realistic paintings of rough textured wooden walls with items on them,
such as a tattered religious engraving nailed on the wall, or a folk
drawing stuck on the wall with 4 gobs of wax, a Rosary by its side
hanging from a nail.
Jeno Gyarfas painted the powerful "Ordeal of the Bier" in 1881; In the
foreground people are holding a wake with food and drink, beyond, the
body of the deceased is just dimly perceived through a doorway. A woman
is coming out of the doorway with a look of horror on her face verging on
insanity. (No postcards of this. The museum shop did, however, sell some
representative reproductions of the fine 19th century Hungarian School of
Painting Nekkid Ladies.)
A canvas draft of the mural on the ceiling of Vienna's Art Museum shows
Renaissance Personified much more modestly draped than the final
product.
The museum closes at dusk. I take the funicular tram down the hill,
and walk back across Chain Bridge to Pest on this nice clear night with
the city's monuments attractively lit. Just after I get out of the Metro
at the train station, the strong wind of the departing subway train sucks
my London Fog cap off my head; it disappears down the tunnel with the
train.
I meet Frances. I'd circled listings of restaurants in my guidebook
that sounded tasty, reasonably priced and easy to find. We head out to my
first choice. According to my guide book, "Csendes Etterem, 'The Quiet
Restaurant', is a local favorite and a great place to enjoy fine wines
and hold intimate conversations". There's no English menu, but the
waiter speaks German--I ask him to speak slowly as he explains the
dishes. We enjoy a good hearty meal of beef filets and vegetables and
split a very good bottle of local red wine. Decade old quality local
cabernet costs perhaps 2 or 3 dollars--in a fancy restaurant.
Frances says she met an English woman who works as a nanny for a
British Embassy employee here. The nanny told about living in Budapest.
Many prices seem quite low to us, but the vast majority of the locals
can't afford most of what we see in the stores. All imported goods are
quite expensive (I had noticed that). A small local class with money is
living well, but most Budapesters subsist mostly on bread, and shop at
insect filled stores selling food of too low quality to be sold at
quality stores or exported.



Back at the station Frances & I spend most of our remaining forints on
bottled water and juice drink boxes, and give our last handfuls of
Hungarian coins to a pleased beggar in a hand-cranked wheelchair before
boarding the train for Prague.