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As a city, Budapest, Hungary’s capital, is relatively young. It came into being in 1873 with the amalgamation of the communities Buda and Obuda on the west and Pest on the east bank of the Danube. Budapest's history, however, is long and marked by many rises and falls in fortune.
View Of Pest from near St Matyas Church
Before they even became a city, Buda, Obuda and Pest had known invasion and occupation. Between the 1st and the 4th century AD the Romans pushed their empire across the Danube and the area was caught into the new state of Pannonia. In 896, the Magyars invaded. In 1241, the marauding Mongols swept through. The Turks came after, in 1541, followed by the Habsburghs in 1686. The invasions continued after the creation of the new city. In 1919 the Rumanians stormed in. During World War II Budapest was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1945 the Russians took charge and the city disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. In 1956 Soviet tanks rolled in to quell a popular uprising and to re-assert their control.
Still, there were times of peace and great prosperity too. In 1001, after the defeat of the Magyars, Istvan I founded the Arpad Dynasty. He centralized royal authority, established Christianity as the official religion and organized Hungary into the administrative counties whose borders still remain today. The entire country flourished. Prosperous and orderly times continued between 1172 and 1196 under Bela III. After the defeat of the Turks by Janos Hunyadi in 1456 and the coronation of his son Matyas as King Corvinus in 1458, Hungary entered a seventy year Golden Age. Corvinus’ Neapolitain wife Beatrix transformed the royal palace at Buda into the greatest renaissance palace in Europe. Meanwhile Matyas extended Hungary’s borders into Moravia, Bohemia and parts of Austria, transforming it into the greatest kingdom in Europe. In 1867 the great compromise established the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy and ushered in a period of stability and prosperity, with a resurgence in Hungarian culture. Buda, as its centre, flourished for almost fifty years. Then in 1989, the Iron Curtain was drawn aside and Budapest entered a new age of optimism.
Today’s Budapest bears the marks of these 2000 years of checkered history. Ill fate and good fortune are etched in its buildings, its bridges, its streets, its public squares and gardens, its monuments and statues and on its people. In spite of and because of its history, Budapest is one of the world’s great cities. Tourists pour in from all over the globe, drawn by its legendary culture. Budapest is also the political, economic and cultural heart of Hungary, drawing people from all over the country, like moths to its glittering lights.
Next post; Budapest, a city of three parts.
In our morning with Cosmo, we had steeped ourselves in the world of the ancients. It was time now to step back into modern Athens.
View over Athens from the Acropolis
Back down in the city Cosmo stopped, waving off blaring horns and impassioned appeals, in Syntagma Square. Here, in 1843, the people of Greece received their first Constitution from the reigning monarch King Otto, hence the name, Syntagma which means Constitution. Today the busy square, with its shops, cafes, restaurants, shops and offices, is the centre of modern, commercial Athens.
Just across the road is the Greek House of Parliament. Completed in 1838, the grand neo-classical building was originally the palace of the first Greek kings. In front lies the tomb of the unknown soldier, watched over by the Presidential Guards or Evzones. Cosmo had timed our visit to catch the spectacular changing of the guards, when the new watch marches in and the old watch marches out, with great pomp and ceremony, in their deep blue jackets and pristine pleated skirts, on stiff high-thrusting white-stockinged legs.
Alongside Parliament, the National Gardens are a lush stretch of nature with lawns, trees, shrubs and flowers dubbed by Athenians “the green lung”. The cool shady paths and the glint of a distant pond beckoned but a stroll in the park was not on Cosmo’s itinerary and we swung away again, deeper into downtown Athens.
Monastiraki, where we came to rest, is a shifting, vibrant mix of tourists with day packs and runners and Atheians in their Sunday best. Architecturally it is that mix of ancient, old, new and newer still, which makes up modern Athens. The Acropolis stands against the distant skyline, so the Golden Age of Greece is part of every Monasteraki vista. The last few columns from Hadrian’s magnificent library mark the time of the Romans. In the centre of Monastiraki Square is a beautiful little 17th century church, where black-clad widows, oblivious to the shuffling tourist crowds, pray and light candles to their icons. Nearby, an 18th century Mosque, from the time of the Turks, is now home to the museum of traditional Greek ceramics. A colourful bazaar, selling everything from reef sandals to amphorae, spills through its streets. Traditional taverna and coffee shops stand alongside pizzeria and fast food joints.
Having delivered us safely into the hands of his friends in the restaurant on the corner of the square, Cosmo disappeared. But just like Cosmo, the friends knew what we would like and what would make us happy; olives, dips and pita bread, a crisp white wine, dolmades, Greek salad, soft, sweet Greek bread, moussaka, souvlakia, a tart red wine, coffee and baklava, according to custom, with the compliments of the house. Under the watchful and encouraging eyes of the waiters and chef we ate to a determined finish. But, then Cosmo reappeared and insisted on marsala for Madame and ouzo for the gentleman with a little halva on the side.
The best way to digest a large Greek lunch, when a siesta is out of the question, is, according to Cosmo, with a good walk. And the only way to explore the fascinating area that sprawls around the Acropolis, is according to any Athenian, on foot. Close by and to the west of Monasteraki Square lies quaint, charming, picture-postcard Psiri. Zorba-esque music flows from the old taverna which line the streets. There’s an aroma of roasting lamb, warm bread, honey and strong coffee. Young Greek gods, in the guise of waiters, smile from the terraces of restaurants and cafes. Nonchalant locals and shutter snapping tourists mill in the streets. On the other side of Monasteraki is Plaka, “the neighbourhood of the Olympian gods”. Hailed as the Hellenic Montmartre, it shares the bohemian ambiance and picturesque appearance of its Parisian counterpart. Close packed houses press into the steep, narrow streets. Ancient ruins rise from the dry earth in fenced-off excavations. In shady squares local characters sit smoking in the sun and old men quarrel over card games. There are tiny shops selling souvenirs, gold, leather, furs and pottery, interspersed with neighbourhood grocers, fruit stalls, bakers and cake shops. There is a bath house. Olive trees and vines overhang bleached stone walls. Miniature gardens are crammed with lush green leafy vegetables and fat tomatoes.
Every evening just before sunset a soft purple light spreads slowly up Mount Hymettus and settles over Athens like violet crown. We watched it fade to indigo from a taverna in a back street of Plaka, high on the rocky slope of the Acropolis. A young singer crooned Demis Roussos’ My Friend the Wind”. Our wonderful day out with Cosmo had come to a close. He had taken us into his Athens, introduced us to its capricious gods, its mighty kings and its great heroes as well its ticket and postcard-sellers, shopkeepers, chefs, baristas and waiters. He had shown us its famous places and its secret corners, shared its smells, tastes, textures and sounds. He had told us its stories. It was a sad, goodbye, with a firm, long grasping of hands, kisses on both cheeks, promises on Cosmos side to visit us down under and on ours to show him our Antipodes, to come back soon to Athens and in the meantime, to drop in on his sister-in-law, the best Greek cook in Australia, at her home in Mount Waverley, Melbourne.
The Acropolis from below
The rosemary and bay leaves, crumbling now, are pressed between pages of my notebook, along Cosmo’s card, the address of his sister in law and scribbled snippets of this story.
Our day out with Cosmo cost 100 euros each. To find your Cosmo, ask the concierge or the doorman at your hotel - he’s sure to have an uncle, a cousin, a brother – Athens is like that.
It became clear, as he whizzed us around, pulling in under monuments while the traffic banked up honking around us, parking in clearways, seizing spaces from tourists coaches and idling with impunity on pavements, that Cosmo belonged to Athens and Athens belonged to Cosmo.
We swept across the city, past the Hospital Evangelissmos (the best in the world, according to Cosmo, where his friend, was diagnosed, treated and cured of a condition which had baffled doctors across three continents) We cruised through elegant up market Kolonaki, where trendy young Atheneians flock to hip cafes (drinking coffee which, according to Cosmo, disgraces the name) We idled in traffic outside an avant garde gallery (filled with sculptures which, according to Cosmo, would have had the ancients turning in their graves) We sped away again past a row of chic international fashion boutiques (charging a fortune for clothes, according to Cosmo, which are out-dated in one season) We climbed steadily upwards and the town fell away behind us
Kaisseriani Monastery
High in the folds of Mount Hymettus, Cosmo turned into a rough driveway, pulled his secret “parking rock” from under a bush and wedged it behind the back wheel of his car. We followed him up through the overhanging trees to Kaisseriani, the Sanctuary of Aphrodite in ancient times and site of Athens earliest Byzantine Monastery, hidden like a secret treasure among the cypresses and olives. The name Kaissierani, meaning healing waters, comes from the spring, tapped here by the goddess of love, before mortals walked these hills, and famed for its curative powers (especially for afflictions of desire, potency and infertility) In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, the Romans channeled water from the spring to supply the city of Athens below. When the monks established their monastery in the 11th century AD, they funneled Kasiseriani water through a Ram’s head in their courtyard.
While the monks have long since abandoned Kassierani, the monastery is still imbued with their austere, disciplined and deeply religious presence. Plain crucifixes hang on the walls of the small, dim cells. A bare, scrubbed table runs the length of the refectory. Business-like earthenware urns and pots stand neatly next to the stone oven in the kitchen. There’s a lingering smell of yeast, with an overlay of dust and ashes. But if the monks living quarters are Spartan, their places of worship are most certainly not. There’s a rich scent of beeswax and incense. Light beams in from high arched windows. The main chapel, dedicated to the presentation of Virgin Mary at the temple is strikingly and lavishly painted with images dating back to the 16th century, of the Holy Trinity, Christ, the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus, on black backgrounds. Next to the main church stands the exquisite, intimate Chapel of St Antonios.
The chapel at Kaisseriani Monastery
Although the era of the gods is long gone, the spirit of Aphrodite is still strong in Kaisserani’s highly romantic and deeply sensual setting. Outside, in the secluded courtyard the air was still, heavy and scented with pine, rosemary and bay. Heat shimmered on the flagstones. Low, mid-morning shadows softened the sun-whitened edges of the buildings. Bees droned from bush to bush, dry leaves rustled to the ground and birds called from tree to tree. Water trickled from the ram’s head pump.
Buried in the back seat of Cosmo's taxi under the bunches of rosemary and branches of bay leaves which he had generously picked for us, we set off, higher up the mountain for the best coffee in Greece.
Cosmo’s friends’ (or were they family?) café was a tiny wooden cabin in a clearing among the pines. In a minute kitchen a constantly shifting and uncountable crowd danced around one another from stove to oven. As time allowed, they came to the counter to smile and shake our hands. With a coffee that smelt like a thousand years of accumulated grinding, growing and brewing expertise in one hand and a honey-soaked cake that looked like a mortal sin in the other, we settled at a table under the pines. Around us old men played cards and argued vehemently while families, on Sunday outings, seemingly with every branch and extension, laughed and shouted at the children playing in the thick carpet of pine-needles in the red, hard-packed earth.
Higher again, on Hymettus we stopped and looked out from a bluff at the other mountains of Attica; Philopappas Hill, home of the muses to the ancients, with its monument to Philopappas, benefactor of Athens and Lycabettus, Athens highest hill, with the chapel of St George at its summit.
Behind us the hills rolled away, rocky, wild and without shelter. We thought of our fathers and uncles, their cousins and friends, wandering country like this, during the disastrous World War II campaigns of Greece and Crete. This bare foreign soil seems so far in every way, from the lush, green, bush-cloaked hills of their New Zealand homeland. How did they survive? The truth is that many perished. Many were taken as prisoners too. But many somehow survived and many were saved by courageous and generous ordinary Greek people, probably like Cosmo.
We stood on the steps of the hotel and took in the panorama of blue and white – the sun-bleached stone houses rising in thick layers across the slopes of the low, rocky hills and above them, against a flawless, early morning sky, the pale cliffs of the Acropolis, crowned by the towering columns of the Parthenon. We had one day, one frustratingly, almost insultingly, inadequate day to explore Athens. How could we cram thousands of years of civilization, history and culture into twenty four hours, less if we planned to sleep? Where should we start? How should we start? As luck would have it, the doorman had an uncle, who had a taxi…
The Acropolis
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Clean, green, well-behaved and law-abiding it may be, but Singapore is far from lifeless and Singaporeans are far from dull. The city has a plethora of bars, clubs, pubs and party places where its people love to let their hair down and live it up.
Most famous of Singapore’s watering holes is the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel. It is a slice of old Singapore; all polished teak tables, green lamps, wooden beams, heavy ceiling fans and worn brass, with narrow French doors opening onto wide verandahs and with the long curved bar which gives it its name, as its focal point. Steeped in a century and half of history, it whispers with stories of times past and of old colonial characters long gone. The traditions of the Long Bar, however, are very much alive and dutifully observed today by the steady stream of visitors who flock to it, like pilgrims to a shrine. The Singapore Sling, invented here almost a century ago by barman Ngiam Tong Boon and whipped up now by the fridge full, is almost a holy obligation. The potent pink pineapple-coconut-cream-tasti ng concoction is ritually sipped accompanied by peanuts in their shells, which are, according to custom, dropped on the floor and crunched underfoot
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Colonial mansions, Hindu Temples, Middle Eastern and Moorish Saracenic Mosques, Gothic and Neo-classical churches, Georgian and Victorian public buildings, modern high rise towers, twenty-first century creations that, as yet, defy classification and, of course, its very own native sons, those exquisite shop houses, architecturally, Singapore has them all. Among this panoply of great buildings, there are, however, some absolute stand-outs.
Raffles, Beach Road
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The Colonial mansion, the Gothic and Neo-classical church, the Georgian and Victorian public building, the functional modern high rise tower, the twenty-first century creation which, as yet, defies classification and, of course, that native son, the exquisite shop house - Singapore has them all. Among this panoply of great architecture, there are, however, some absolute stand-outs
The Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator
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Singaporeans often joke that shopping is their national sport. With more malls and stalls than pitches and courts and with shops and stores a popular playground for Singaporeans during every tiny window of leisure time, this is easy to believe.
Singapore from the River
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In 1925, the British brought a contingent of Indian convicts to Singapore to work as construction labourers on the rapidly expanding settlement. For the duration of their sentences they were confined in coolie lines between Stamford and Bras Basah Roads. Once freed, they were given buffalos and land, in the city’s North West, and dispatched to begin new lives in their own India away from India. Today Singapore’s Little India is a flourishing centre, alive with colour, noise and constant activity, where ancient traditions fit harmoniously into ultra-modern life, where diverse cultures blend and different religions sit comfortably side by side. It is unmistakably India but uniquely Singapore.
The ornate facade of a Hindu Temple
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There is a great deal of the Middle East in Singapore’s Kampong Glam. Like others all over the new world, its street names reflect the early settlers’ nostalgia for their homelands; there is a Muscat Street, a Baghdad Street, a Kandahar Street, a Bussorah Street, an Arab Street and a Bali Lane. Tiny Haji Lane recalls the pilgrims, who, for centuries, have stopped here on their way to Mecca for the Haj. Shop names, too, recall the old Arab world – names like Aladdin’s Cave, Baladi, Islamic and Café Le Caire. And in the long narrow verandahs, cluttered with colourful merchandise, which front the shops and border Kampong Glam’s narrow streets, there is something of the Arabian Souk. But above the shops and verandahs, the brightly painted facades of the shop houses, with their intricate blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab architectural designs, are uniquely Singapore.
A shop verandah in Kampong Glam
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142 Posts dating from July 2007
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