Another day of wearing out a new pair of shoes pounding the pavement of Budapest. Something on the order of 11 km walking so far today (6.5 or so miles.) Started heading to a photo gallery and came across a recently built monument to the occupation of Hungary during the Second World War. Turns out that its controversial - for the reasons you can read in the photo I took of the flyer that explains the incredibly powerful additions to the memorial that have arisen.Though there has been some concern expressed at the successes at the polls of far right parties here, it is worth noting that no one in the government has made any effort to take away or forbid the protests at the memorial. For that matter they even posted policemen there to make sure the additions are left undisturbed. So long as controversy and the right to express opinions are permitted, celebrated even, a country cannot be in all that much danger. Anyhow, from there I walked past the Parliament building and then took a tram a ways down the waterfront, walked the rest of the way to the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art - one of the truly finest, most interesting contemporary art collections I have seen. Besides the permanent collection - mostly Eastern European artists I hadnt heard of but was wowed by, there were two extremely well put together and thought-provoking temporary exhibits. One was a retrospective of the Italian Dada / Political artist Cavellini, the other of art informed or inspired by the Holocaust. Next door is the National Theatre Building which is beautiful - though sadly the fountains werent working. I then walked through a bunch of working class apartment block neighborhoods, slowly but surely back to the center of town. Along the way I came across some sort of Star Wars promotion and a troupe of stilt walkers, as well as a well-deserved and tasty stop for sausage and beer. Soon it is back out into the evening and nighttime world of Budapest.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 16:38:14 +0000
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