Stanford Tour Begins

We started the day slowly, sleeping late.  Larry decided to take it easy in the morning, but I went out for a walk in Budapest, following the Danube to the Parliament Buildings and then making my way back through city streets to the Basilica.  I detoured to the opera house, which unfortunately is covered with scaffolding.  Budapest is full of tourists, big groups, families, couples, all taking pictures and posing everywhere you go.  It wasn’t always like this, was it?  The constant picture-taking with cameras of all sorts, selfies, selfie sticks.  So many people seem to be aspiring models for  the cover of a fashion magazine.  It’s got to be the Facebook or Instagram effect.

Budapest is magnificent though.  When I got back to the hotel, I persuaded Larry to come out with me to see the Parliament Buildings and we shared a lunch on the patio of a little cafe near there.  When we got back, we were able to check in with the Stanford tour guides, and collect our luggage tags and audio devices (the little speakers that allow you to hear the tour guide even when she’s far away).  We left on a couple of buses for a tour of the Pest part of the city (tomorrow we will tour the Buda part).  The highlight was a trip to the big Budapest market, a maze of shops selling all sorts of Hungarian products and produce.

It’s really huge.

We drove past the beautiful bridges.  Here’s one:

We even had a little tasting of Hungarian goodies with little glasses of brandies and wine.

We were happy.  (Talking about selfies, we’re no better than the rest of them...)

After the excursion, there was a reception with a surprise:  a Hungarian brass band playing the Star Spangled Banner and other favorites.  Stanford trips are always full of surprises...but, a brass band?  The reception was followed by an elaborate dinner, one of those interminable Stanford dinners.  How dare I complain?  It’s just that there are too many courses and too much time between every course.

I met the musicologist from Stanford, Stephen Hinton (I think that’s right).  He has played with Condoleeza Rice and Paul Brest, former dean of the Stanford Law School.   I played quartets with him and Ron Joseph years and years ago.  He’s going to give us lectures about the string quartets we’re going to hear, but I kind o doubt that they will be as interesting as David Clampitt’s lectures at the MSQ Seattle workshop.  We’ll see!  There is also a historian on the trip, who will lecture about the Habsburgx.

Tomorrow, it’s Buda, and then embarking on the Royal Crown.

On the Road to Budapest

Today we were picked up at our hotel by Marek, a Slovakian who drives for the company MYROADTRIP.COM.  After our experience today, I can strongly recommend them.  Marek spoke perfect English, was a great driver, friendly and well informed, patient and flexible.  The only wrinkle in our trip was waiting at the border between Serbia and Hungary for almost an hour.  I guess it could have been worse.  Serbia is not in the European Union, and Hungary is.  Also Hungary is phobic about immigrants, odd because none of the immigrants ever imagined staying put in Hungary; they mostly wanted to move out to countries more marginally welcoming like Germany.  When we did get to the border controls and our passports were checked, we were waved through quickly.  Marek said some nationalities (Indians, for example) are given much more grief.

The scenery between Belgrade and Budapest is not dramatic, but beautiful in its own way.  Rolling hills, farmland, fields of sunflowers.  We stopped in Subotica, the second biggest Serbian city after Belgrade.  We had salads in the interior garden of a small restaurant the Tourist Office recommended and saw a synagogue, that looks newly renovated.   We unfortunately couldn’t go inside.

The second stop was a big park of Hungarian history at a place called Opusztaszer, with the highlight a vast panorama painting of the Arrival of the Hungarians, quite bloody and violent but impressive, with a large spiral walkway and sound effects.

The park featured old Hungarian living quarters.
And weird statues.

We arrived in Budapest at our truly magnificent hotel, the Four Seasons Gresham Palace, and terrified by the price of drinks at the bar ($30 martinis) went out for a walk and a more modest dinner.

We walked down this street to the restaurant, just next to St. Stephen’s Basilica.  I had Chestnut Purée for dessert, a traditional treat that Hungarians have when they’re children, and never seem to forget.

We’ll start the official Stanford tour tomorrow.  Larry thinks he needs a day off.  Travel is strenuous, no matter how many coffee breaks you take.

Last Afternoon in Belgrade

Les took us all around Belgrade today in his Mercedes.  He is a wonderful driver, which you’ve got to be in this city, because the streets are narrow and mostly lined with parked cars, and parking is a gymnastic exercise.  Intersections seem a little chaotic too.  But Les drove with aplomb and skill and only occasionally losing his cool.  Belgrade is far greener and prettier than I expected, with a lot of new buildings like this one:
This is the modern art museum, where the Serbian surrealists, constructionalists and so on are exhibited.  It is very interesting to see the crazy imaginations of all of these artists at work, and the museum on this Monday afternoon was almost empty.  It is very beautifully designed and I am surprised there weren’t lots of people there.  

We saw the six units of studio apartments that Les owns in a neighborhood of Belgrade.  He manages these apartments himself, but is unfortunately embroiled in some futile law suits against the dishonest person who sold them to Les.  A long story...These apartments rent for about 250 euros a month, which is about as much as anyone can afford, since salaries are often not much more than 600 euros a month.  Actually, everything in Belgrade (except for gas, I guess) seems very cheap to anyone coming from the San Francisco Bay Area.  A nice glass of wine is 2 or 3 dollars.  The only really bad deal was the hotel breakfast, but even that I suppose didn’t cost much compared to prices elsewhere.  

We’ll go out to dinner with Tijana, Les and Marko tonight.  And that’ll be it for Belgrade, as we leave tomorrow for our drive across Northern Serbia and Hungary to Budapest to check into the fancy hotel we’re staying at for a couple of nights.

Carol eats a Serbian sausage

I must be closing my eyes in sheer delight.

Second Day in Belgrade

We just got up, it’s about 9, sleeping late, staying up late.  Once we’re with the Stanford tour, we’ll have to start setting the alarm clock.  Today Les has promised us a driving tour of the outer areas of Belgrade.  Yesterday, Les took us by his apartment which is about a ten minute walk from our hotel.  Our hotel is in the center of town, so his apartment is pretty much in the heart of Belgrade.  It’s on a tree lined street, unfortunately a little graffiti spoiled, with cars lined up on the roadside (just like in San Francisco).  He’s on the second floor, in a partially renovated 1200 or so square foot apartment with a nice kitchen he barely uses, new furniture, his office where he works his tax magic, great lighting and some nice custom closets, a couple of extra bedrooms.  It’s a comfortable place, but on the fourth floor up a long winding and uneven staircase.  Les and Tijana just got back from a trip to some Croatian island, where they brought back samples of a nice Croatian white wine, which we got to taste.   Les and Larry and I then went back to the hotel where we had a little late supper at the hotel restaurant, which serves quite elegant food, a pleasant change from the meat and French fries we’ve been consuming.  I had asparagus soup and fruit salad.

Tijana lives in her own apartment, with her two young daughters.  Jelena, Les’s ex-wife, is also in the neighborhood.  (Marko lives with her.). It’s a complicated life, but it seems to work out pretty well for them all.

Did I mention that Marko, Les’ son, is going in August to study computer science in a program in the Netherlands, in Delft?  Larry and I have visited Delft.  It was a charming city, and most of the Netherlands is charming too, full of bicycles and bridges and canals.

Well, Larry’s getting up and dressed, so I can get some breakfast.  I think we’ll skip the hotel breakfast today, and find some coffee out in the city.

Quick Update

Watching the sunset on the Danube with Les, Marko and Larry
The Three Guys

The Sunset

Some Adventures in Belgrade

Les took us on a tour of Belgrade this afternoon.  We walked down the pedestrian shopping street and into the old fortress area, really a big park with exterior and interior brick walls leading to the center of the complex behind REALLY thick walls and gates with a beautiful view of the Saba River and the Danube, where the rivers flow together.  You can see the clear water mixing with the browner siltier water.  

We met Tijana Les’s significant other and had drinks and lunch.

She is really nice.  Les is lucky to know her.  Then Marko, Les’ 19 year old son, came, but I forgot to take a picture of him.  I will tonight because we are all going to meet up again to see the waterfront of the Danube and have dinner.  He is going to study computer science in Delft in the Netherlands, starting in August.

Les speaks Serbian really well, it is so cute to listen to him having long conversations in Serbian.  He seems to know a lot of people in Serbia, too.  At the cafe next to the tennis courts where Les used to play, the owner greeted him and us warmly and brought over some sausages and pita bread to go with the drinks.  Larry is continuing to sample brandies.  

Now we are back at the hotel, and Larry has fallen asleep.  We will soon go out again!