It is all about the light

The glamourous hotel of our Budapest stay sits in a road close to the Danube and walking to it down a narrow street lined with a couple of Michelin starred restaurants, and mysterious buildings which hide fabulous interiors behind huge wooden or steel doors, there is a view of the opposite bank of the river. On this first night in the city, my thought as I see this and the even more spectacular scenery which unfolds as I near the chain link bridge, a Budapest icon, is that it would look spectacular lit up. In that instant the lights come on and it does.  If I wasn`t an imminently sensible woman I would get a goddess complex of the “let there be light “variety.

In the coming days, I am to learn that whilst Pest provides the obvious commercial thrust to the city, Buda has the monuments and the light. The castle and the church as well as several other significant buildings are on the “other “side.  These undoubtably provide the “wow “although the Parliament buildings on the Pest side of the river are not insignificant and there are, as there are all over Europe, fabulous gigantic things on both sides of the river celebrating moments and people which can be epic, heroic and /or nuanced in ways which challenge.

I find that Budapest does challenge and the sense of disconnect I felt on my first day does not abate during the week I spend in the city. From limited conversations had with locals, they reinforce the image of the tourist areas of the city hiding the rest of the city, and rural areas, struggling. Off the beaten tracks, walking from one side of the river to the other and doing a “blocky “between iconic bridges, many buildings are seemingly empty and there is evident need in the people gathering in parks and wandering the streets. Just as there are glimpses of evident wealth in people in designer tracksuits and small dogs, dachshunds are popular, being fed sweet treats on the street. The Buda side of the river, available to tourists on foot, feels particularly in need.

The hop on, hop off bus tour, a staple to begin any city exploration, reveals of course, that Budapest has many sides and the modern, juxtaposed with the ancient gives many contrasts. Just off the hero’s square, the site of several heavily policed demonstrations whilst we were there, is the gorgeously conceived ethnographic museum complete with a stunning roof garden. 

Both these sites are bordered by gardens which include serene water ways, large sheltering trees and picture post card views. The red and white stripped balloon, a tethered ride, is a very recent innovation in what appears to be a somewhat debated overhaul of the city’s parks and gardens.   

 A visit to Rath Villa, the Art Nouveau collection of the first general director of the Museum Of Applied arts in Budapest, which was broken up in the post war years by the communist government highlights the complexity of this country. It was apparently considered by the “proletarian dictatorship …..as potentially harmful to maintain a bourgeois apartment in its original condition, and so they singled out Ráth’s collection for eradication.”  I am glad it was restored. It is a highlight with magical object after magical object showing connections to other arts and crafts movements across Europe at the time. As the far right of politics establishes itself in the framework of the European union, I have commentary where young voters say that if the far right does not deliver for them, they can vote them out. In this gorgeous little museum whose contents were once considered seditious and almost lost, and most poignantly at the “Shoes on the Shore “sculpture on the banks of the Danube, impossible to describe, I am reminded of the risks of giving power to any "Far "anything group who can so easily decide when and if we vote. If this Grand Tour has taught me anything, it is that to assume democracy is naive.

In what seems a rather stark contrast to this collection of fluid lines and breakaway design ideas is a World of Banksy exhibition showing depictions of more than 100 of his famous wall art depictions. There are however similarities as the challenges posed to prevailing political structures by Banksy`s work today have echoes in the challenges posed by Rath`y collection all those years ago. It is a remarkable demonstration of a remarkable mind in a wonderfully restored building which celebrates the structure and the bricks rather than any added decoration. It is the perfect accompaniment to the works.

There is a seductiveness to Budapest hidden behind its huge elaborate wrought gates and heavy doors, glimpses of times past and wealth not readily visible in the day by day.

It is only at the very stylish airport which reveals itself in all its duty-free glory only after I have passed through customs, do I begin to see that the colours of Budapest have been very different to anywhere else on this journey. Even modern advertising is completed in a palette of unusual tones as the posters for the EU elections, upcoming, highlight.

As this photo also shows, vaping and smoking too are more obvious here.  As we end the central European leg of our journey, it is the metaphors of light and shadows which seem apt descriptors of both the past and the present, and undoubtably, the future.  The quality of the light in Budapest and the shadows, thrown unexpectedly, hint at stories of a complex, intriguing city.