Getting up as far as I can

Yesterday I did the ultimate tourist thing in Pecs. I took the bus up to the TV tower. I had been promising myself to do this when the weather go warm. First I did a whole group of errands including a stop by my office to see if any of the doctoral students had turned in their necessary work.

I got to the train station at 1:05 only to find out the next bus to the TV tower would be 2:05, so I had a good long wait. The bus trip up the Mescek Hills took 30 minutes. Above is the last bit of the road as seen from the top of the tower. You can see this is good long climb even on a bus.

Here's a view of the tower from the ground. Thankfully one gets to the top by riding an elevator! From where the elevator stops one has to climb another 20 steps or so but that's not too bad.

The view is wonderful, even on a muggy summer day. I thought the parking area for cars made an interesting pattern when seen from the top of the tower. The bus actually stops at just a bit higher level than the parking lots.

To the north one can see some of the smaller towns in the area. The strange area in the middle of the photo is an abandoned coal strip mine. Coal and uranium were both mined out of the hills. Coal was mined for nearly 200 years until it was termed uneconomical in the late 20th century.

To the south one sees Pecs. Perhaps you can see a green done in the middle of the photo somewhat to the right side. That is the top of the Mosque Church in Szechenyi Ter. I live about a 3 minute walk to the left of that. I tried and tried to see the double steeples of the nearby church but was unable do so.

There is a small museum in the tower as well. One intriguing thing is a piece of phonolite stone. When one strikes the stone with the hammer, there is a charming tinkling noise.

Dinosaurs were once in this area too. Coal fossils show some evidence.

The next bus to the tower arrived 2.5 hours later. I had a good long wait for a bus down the hill, but I'm glad I went. Otherwise next winter I would have been "kicking myself" for never going up to the tower.

Perfect Weekend

After about three weeks of rain, Saturday started hopefully. I walked to the bus station and took a bus to Szigetvar. This trip has been on my agenda for several days, but the weather didn't cooperate. The town is about 20 miles west of Pecs and according to the guidebooks has several interesting features.

I arrived about 11 AM. This town has a population of about 11, 000, and since it was approaching noon on Saturday, things were closing. The town was very quiet.

This town is all about Zrinyi. In 1566 his army of about 2000 held off the Ottomann army of 80,000- 100,000 for 22 days. This delayed the army arriving in Vienna and also the Ottoman sulemin died in the battle. When the water ran out the Hungarian army fought their way out of the castle and nearly all were killed.

This drawing in a museum gives a flavor of the battle.

The battle is a deep part of Hungarian history for nearly 300 years later Csontvary did this painting of the event.

Today this site is very peaceful. Above is the Almas Stream that one crosses between the town and the castle area. (The building in the distance are the Szigetvar Thermal Baths. My guidebook  is out of date and I didn't think to check if the baths were over the renovation. It would have been fun to try them out, but alas my swim suit and towel were in Pecs.)

Here is a view of the castle wall from the exterior complete with 20th century sculpture. I enjoyed walking in the grounds and climbing the walls. However, the mosquitoes were quite pesky so one had to keep walking fast. It was surprising how many there were at noon on a sunny day.

When the battle was lost, Szigetvar was ruled by the Ottoman empire for 122 years (less than the Pecs occupation).

A mosque was built in the castle area. It is now combined into one building with a summer home built later by Andrassy in the castle grounds, and the buildings are operated as a museum. It had a small, but interesting collection -- not as gory as the guidebook said.

I was intrigued to find costumes for Zrinyi, a Rock Musical.  This had been performed last September, the anniversary month of the battle. Hungarians remember history but at the same time don't turn it into something reverent and unchangeable. It was wonderful to see children's art objects in the museum as well as contemporary scupltures outdoors.

Other notable buildings in this town include the Town Hall

and the Cultural Center. The architect for the Cultural Center is Imre Makovecz, the same architect I wrote about in March when we visited Pazmany Peter University north of Budapest.

I returned on the 15:37 bus and it was crowded, standing room only for some passengers. I'm sure if we had more frequent public transportation in the States, people would use it just like they do here.

My route back from the bus station to the flat takes me through the Arkade. I had a calzone for lunch in Szigetvar, and so by 17:00 I was a bit hungry again. I stopped at my favorite place and had to work with th menu a bit. They are new and of course, with a new menu, comes higher prices.

This ice cream though was totally necessary for the name of it on the menu is Lorena. That is definitely the closest I'm every going to get to having a menu item with my name. I love cherries and chocolate, too!

By the time I got back to my flat, I was tired. I walked about 4 hours during this day, and a rest was definitely in order.

Later in the evening I went out for a bit of a walk, just to see what was happening. I found music in Jokai Ter. This group played something between pop rock and jazz -- very good. Szecheny Ter looked lovely too in the twilight. People were just out celebrating the end of the rain - nothing much special going on here, just enjoying finally getting out of the house without an umbrella.

This morning I took it easy, enjoying breakfast and cappucino. Then I wandered into the Csontvary Museum to take some photos. Stories from there will come later this week.

The Ditto train was just pulling up when I got out of the museum, so I went for a ride, doing a very touristy thing. Its route covers places I've walked many times, but one gets a bit of different perspective when sitting down and being a just a bit higher. Going up one street I've walked many times, I spied something on top of the bluff -- oh, that's where those restaurants are -- and that was my destination after the train ride.

As promised the view is spectacular. I decided to do this today because while the temperature was in the low 80s the humidity was low and I knew for sure today I'd be able to get a view that might nnot be possible on a muggy summer day.

After lunch up on the hillside, I went back to Szinhaz Ter for the Sunday afternoon concert. Through the rest of my stay there is a concert every Sunday afternoon and folk dancing every Wednesday evening. It does take a calendar to keep track of it all.

Really enjoyed this summer weekend.

Surprise

Sometimes I think I should have chosen surprise of the day as the title for my blog.

Here's the surprise from yesterday.

Did some touring today and walked for at least 4 hours. More news tomorrow. I'm knocked out!

Teaching at High Schools

The universities in Hungary are now in the "exam" phase. Higher education is done so much differently here. Students come to class or rather most don't for many weeks, and then show up to take the "exam" during the exam period. I'm waiting patiently for the doctoral students in my classes to give me the required products from those classes. They are due tomorrow and Monday. I'll be interested to see if anything shows up!

Meanwhile I've been doing presentations in high schools at the request of American Corner Pecs. Staff there asked me to talk about blogging, as this is uncommon in Hungary.

The first presentation was Monday. Reka, one of the AC staff, took me by cab to a school complex in Kertvaros area of Pecs. The high school was in a large education complex. This may sound horrible, but is quite wonderful. There are primary, middle, and high schools all in one location. They are somewhat smaller buildings that we build. The landscaping is very beautiful and somewhat restful. This area also includes a dormitory for students who come to school from villages too far for daily commuting.

My second school was the one near the Cathedral. I walked there and met Reka by the St. Istvan's fountain, both of us in torrential pouring rain. I'm so glad we didn't have a long trip on that day.

One thing I found in the school is this display of all their partnerships with other schools in Europe.

The classroom area is so very beautiful.

Today the nearby Szent Mor School was having a language day. My felllow Fulbrighter, Bruce, came down for Budapest to speak about creative writing and read some of this short stories. I enjoyed this session very much and the students laughed themselves silly over a story he wrote and read in Hungarian.

While walking in the hallway I noticed students leaving a classroom and couldn't believe my eyes.

Did any classroom you had in high school have a ceiling like this?

We were presented with a wonderful gift. The calendar is an academic one for the coming year and the pictures are paintings done by students in the school. The wine is from the Bishop's Winery, now a very private winery.  I had learned about this the very first day I was in Pecs, but the first time I've had a bottle of wine from there. I will look forward to sharing this with fellow Fulbrighters when they return from a trip in Germany.

And I must note we don't need a thank you gift. It was a wonderful treat to meet the high school students and learn a bit about their school life.

Update: On Friday, June 4 I did another presentation -- this time at a high school for students from a German background. This school is also part of a large complex, but the area is simply charming. The school teaches some classes in German. But I forgot to mention that the first one I went to earlier this week teaches some of its classes in English -- students don't just take an English class, they study other subjects using English as the medium of instruction, too. In the States we call this immersion.

Making Lemonade from Lemons

When I awoke I did not hear rain pouring down, but it was still raining.

I didn't want to be this kind of tourist today. I had planned to take the bus to a nearby city to see some sights, but changed my mind. I did some work around my flat and then walked down Kiraly for a cappucino. About 10:30 I walked across Szechenyi Ter to the Nady Lajos School where the Munkacsy Trilogy is on display.

Munkacsy is an acclaimed Hungarian painter. In fact there is a street very near my flat named after him. His work is scattered all over the world and much is often not available to Hungarians.

This trilogy is very special. Munkacsy, himself, never saw the three paintings together in the same place. And they will not be together again for a very long time -- if ever -- because one of the painting is owned by a museum in Canada and will be moved there when this exhibition closes.

The trilogy in English are Christ Before Pilate (1881), Golgotha (1884), and Ecce Homo (1896).

Photography was not permitted at the showing. Above is an image of Christ before Pilate found on the Internet.

Seeing these for real is an incredible experience. First, they are simply immense. Each painting is probably 18x20 feet, if not larger. Notice in the above picture how the area behind Pilate really looks like wood. It is even more stunning when seen in person. What also amazed me is how the pictures go together as a unit, amazing because they were done over a 15 year period. Pilate appears in Ecce Homo and looks exactly the same. The man on the lower right side of the above painting appears in Golgotha carrying a ladder away from the cross. I learned also that Munkacsy died shortly after completing the third painting. To have done such a huge painting and kept in great detail with the other two while in ill health is a great achievement.

After some lunch I spent a bit of frustrating time at my office trying to do some printing of article related to a new course that I'm designing for my home university. That rather chewed up the afternoon and suddenly is was too late to go to any other museum here in Pecs.

I have inquired about the weather and was told May is always a rainy month in Pecs, but what is happening this year is most unusual. Let's hope for sunshine soon!

Challenging Weather

This is the image map from Meterological Hungary this evening. For two days we have been receiving heavy rains. This is on top of the heavy rain that occurred about two weeks ago.

Pecs is in the lower red area about on the border of the red and yellow areas near the bottom of Hungary. As you may think, red signifies an area of severe weather. Meterological Hungary calls the weather a "dual cyclone." Sounds right to me, for not only is there heavy rain, but it is very windy. One difference from the Minnesota forecast is the weather forecast includes the warning that the weather will cause headaches, lethargy, and fatigue. My time in Hungary is quickly coming to an end and I hate having days like this. There are many things I really want to do before leaving Hungary and this weather is getting to be beyond a challenge.

Visting Churches

Today, May 31, is a cold rainy day in Pecs. Saturday the rain was gentle, but today it is just plain annoying and one can almost imagine there should be a windchill attached to the weather report!

So it seems like a good day to talk about other days.

During May I've been in several churches.

When returning from Transylvania, I checked into my hotel. I called other Fulbrighters in Budapest and soon made a plan to meet Richard and Wendy on Castle Hill. Among other things that afternoon, Wendy and I visited the inside of Matthias Church.

On Saturday, after our Danube Cruise the previous evening, I left the hotel at 8:30 and headed for St. Stephen's Basilica. This is truly an amazing and beautiful church. It is difficult to get a photo that truly shows the huge size of this church.

Here is the front door. Not only is the church open, but there is no fee charged to visit it. Visitors are asked to be very quiet and respect any worshipers.

Here is a view of some of the very many frescos in the church.

This is a view of the altar.

There is a side chapel that holds a hand of St. Stephen. I must confess I was more interested in the way the sunlight came through the windows and made a pattern on the pew cushions.

This Saturday was turning out to be a splendid spring/summer day. Here's the view I saw when I walked out of the church. I had originally planned to go to an art museum, but the day was simply too wonderful to go inside, so I took off walking to the Danube. Near Roosevelt Ter I found the #16 bus and took it over the river to Castle Hill.

There I happened upon the Evangelical (usually in the States we would say Lutheran) Church. One can easily a very different viewpoint on church construction and decoration.

A couple of days later I did a tour of St. Peter's Cathdral/Basilica here. I think it is now a basilica, but it was the Cathedral for so long, that is commonly called the Cathedral by many.

I had been here before to concerts and also did a tour here during International Week earlier in May. This, however, was my first time to have the opportunity to take photos.

When approaching over the Dom Ter, the first thing one sees is the outer gate. From the recent tour I learned this gate is quite new, put up in 2009 to honor the 1000 years of Christianity in Hungary.

Here is a view of some of the detail on the gate. It shows St. Stephan giving authority to build a cathedral in Pecs.

One next comes to the wooden doors with brass reliefs on them. Most every church I have found in Hungary has three sets of doors at the entrance in a U-shape. One never enters the door straight ahead, but rather turns to either the right or left and enters a side door. Perhaps this is a scheme to keep cold and unpleasant air from blowing directly into the church.

This present church is at least 3rd if not the 4th building on this site. This one is highly decorated. Above is an image of the side walls and the decoration on the pillars.

This church is built unlike any other I have seen. The main altar sets above 1/3 the distance from the rear wall of the nave. I hope you can see in the photo that there is a lot of church beyond the altar. During the tour here with others on the International Week I learned the reason. The area from the back of the church to the altar is considered to be the place for "unbelievers" and those studying to be Christian. The area beyond the altar is for "believers."  And if you think the left side of the church looks a bit strange, yes there is scaffolding there for some type of repair.

The ceiling in this church also intrigues me.

So there you have it, a view of several churches in Hungary, each one unique.