A loser's game

What a great town. Laid-back, safe, lotsa dive bars and bookstores and antique shops and cafes. Temps in the low 70s with some high wispy clouds. I walked eight or nine miles today, just so you don't have to. Be there, or someplace that rhymes with there.

My street, Jokai Utca (OOT-sah), is below. Pest is a neo-classical wonderland. An architecture student could sketch many notebooks-full just wandering around. Jokai Ut. may not look like much from this angle, but there are wine shops, kebab joints, green grocers, corner stores, ATMs and cafes galore all within this frame. And a few bums to keep it real.

A hundred yards to the south is the street's namesake, Mor Jokai.


He was a prolific writer and editor. Lived from 1825 to 1904. Almost got his ass killed during the doomed uprising against the Hapsburg empire. Author of "An Old Man Is Not a Tottery Man," "The Lady With Eyes Like the Sea" and "The Three Marble Heads." The titles alone make me a fan. Hungary's Dickens, if you will.

We take a right onto one of Budapest's most celebrated avenues, Andrassy, where one can do real damage to his billfold. Budapest's public and residential art is astounding. If you don't spend a lot of time looking up, you're missing half the fun.


A few steps away is the opera house, from which, through a side entrance, I could hear rehearsals for tomorrow night's "Don Pasquale."


A film crew was on scene. Maybe it'll show up on Blu-Ray! Hundreds of statues adorn the building inside and out. Mahler was director here for three seasons.

A cool old cobbler's sign on Lazar Utca. I ran into three English-language bookstores today, one on this street.


Outside St. Stephen's Basilica, on busy Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, is the kind of robust bike infrastructure you're looking for, providing you believe bikes and cars should not mix.


Pedestrians are given a clear visual cue to stay out. Budapest is all over the map in this regard. Usually, bike paths are denoted by mere paint. On Andrassy, bikes are invited to ride to the right of parked cars, directly in the passenger-door zone. It's nuts. The messengers ignore all this garbage and ride with traffic, as Jesus intended.

Speaking of St. Stephen's, here it is. Some call it simply the Budapest Cathedral.


Work on the building started in 1851, when Pest was just a village. Stephen is generally thought of as the founder of Hungary, serving as its first king more than a thousand years ago. It's not the cheeriest place, but at the right time of day, sunlight perks things up.


A better overview.


There's a reliquary of St. Stephen here. Meaning, there's a bit of hair or fingernail or a fragment of his skull in a box. Catholics are weird. Outside, an Ionic colonnade holds up the 12 apostles.


Sidewalk chefs dish up steaming bowls of polenta and cottage cheese near the cathedral's entrance.


Veering to the northwest, I run across a statue of an American in Szabadsag Square. He's Harry Hill Bandholtz, and he helped kick out Romanian and Serb occupiers in the early 1900s, all while disarming the Hungarian army. Confusing, I know, and a minor footnote, given all that's transpired since. A statue of Reagan was unveiled earlier this year on the Buda side, FWIW.


The U.S. Embassy adjoins this square. A sign on the fence actually says "No Photography." A row of stanchions protects against truck bombs, and you can't get within 30 yards of the entrance without an appointment. A lot of construction work was going on outside to further harden the place.


It's daylight, granted, but you can't tell me that the Batthyany Eternal Flame is lit. It is supposed to commemorate the execution on this spot of 13 Hungarian generals after the failed insurrection against Hapsburg rule in the mid-1800s. It is all but forgotten now. The flame is out and weeds grow around the memorial's base.


This says something profound about the current state of Hungarian nationalism, but I'm not sure what. My initial impression is that it's a good thing. Sometimes you just need to turn the page.

We're behind the Houses of Parliament now. This is a detail from a statue of Lajos Kossuth, a rabble rouser inspired by the French Revolution. He helped lead the Hungarian Revolution against the Hapsburgs (basically, Austria) in 1848. I like how clutching a hat establishes you as a "peasant." He's looking up at Kossuth.


Here's all you need to know about Hungarians and their military conflicts. They always, always lose. Sure, they came out on top in some skirmishes. But when they go to war, they're 0-100. In the case of the 1848 revolution, they folded the next year. Kossuth died in Turin at 91.

This flame (in the stone's crease at upper left), dedicated to those who died in the 1956 student uprising, won't go out any time soon.


From an American's perspective, it was this spasm of anti-Soviet violence that made us feel like Hungary was an outlier in the Soviet bloc, like a secret pal you knew would do the right thing. Regrettably, we stood by while students got slaughtered on this very square. I'm not sure Eisenhower had many options, however. With so many competing interests in play, the U.S. simply was not going to draw a line in the sand in Magyar-ville.

The back of the Gothic-y Houses of Parliament, which face the Danube.


Parking is restricted to lawmakers only. Hippies and housewives steadily enter and leave the building from a backdoor. They are the MPs. Kind of refreshing!


In keeping with today's statuary theme, I'm going to have some words with Mihaly Karolyi, former prime minister and somewhat of a pacifist at the worst possible time (1918-1919).


I approach the Margaret Bridge (Margit Hid), which will take me to Buda. (Buda is on the west side of the Danube; Pest on the east.)


Once I share this image with my two-wheeled compadres back home, it will go viral. Oh, yes, it will.


My first view of Margaret Island, which lies in the Danube. Must bring the bike here. And no, there is not a serial killer at work here. That's Csepel Island, to the south. (And I named this blog before the first body was unearthed.)


OK, so Buda's not lame for a game, just the Castle District. This is Fo Utca, and it's very Pesty. Found a great antiques store here with lots of 19th-century oils in the $700 range. Not that I'm buying, but recession + Central Europe = savings. Did I mention George Soros is from Budapest? Liberace, too.


At a nasty little roundabout called Clark Adam Ter, trade unionists are holding a rally. In the middle of the afternoon. On a Thursday.


Be careful what you wish for, Hungary. I love Europe and come as often as I'm able, but even my untutored eye tells me the public-service sector is too large everywhere on this continent. On the Margaret Bridge there are men sweeping piles of dirt around. Never scooping them up. Just moving them from place to place, much as the U.S. Treasury does its accounting. As unthreatening as their little blue smocks seem now, they will bring you to woe.