Are you into wine? Well then from September 9th to 13th Budapest is definitely the place to be. But in case you’re not there is so much going on at the Festival that your guaranteed to have a great time.
Let’s start from the location: the stunning Buda Castle, since 1987 a UNESCO world heritage site. In the Castle terraces there are also two stages, where you can enjoy musical performances, men’s choir, folk dancing, jazz music, and more. On top of that there are also other events in various locations; at the Skanzen Museum in Szentendre you can find events like grape harvest parade, churching champagne knights, grape hunting crowd, while in the Palace of Arts in Budapest there are charity wine auction and classical music concerts. Even children will be easily entertained by the puppet theatre, the medieval playhouse, and by the childcare, where qualified attendants have the to draw, listen to stories and have delicious grapes.
Gastronomy is course strictly related to wine, so at the Festival you can spoil yourself at the Corner grill, the Potluck Farm, and the Open Air Kitchen with Mediterranean and Hungarian delicacies, including fried and grilled meats, sausages, stuffed cabbage, but also lighter snacks like scones baked on site, töki pompos (a flat bread-like pastry baked in oven), and a wide selection of sheep, goat and cow cheeses.
When it comes to the main guest of the Festival, wine, there are 170 wine distributors from Hungarian and foreign wine regions. With the entrance ticket you also get your very own crystal tasting glass, and a convenient, easy to use glass holding bag. Before the whole event there is a two days Wine University, where you can learn about traditional wine making, wine market, historical and cultural wine issues.
Whether you’re a wine aficionado or not, the Wine and Champagne Festival in Budapest guarantees to have something for you.
One of the things I love most about Budapest is that to take in some culture or history you don’t necessarily have to go to a museum. Often just a simple walk will show you the past of the country and the cultural heritage.
One of the best places to take one of those walks is Budapest VII district. When I first visited it, just a tourist wandering around, I was struck by how old, bare and run down some of the streets in this district appeared to be.
There was something in the air though, a smell of past grandeur, of sufferance, of history, with all the good and bad aspects of it. I research the subject a bit and discovered that my impressions were right. Budapest VII district has indeed seen a lot of personal and national stories and events developing on its streets.
The area was home to the Jewish ghetto. According to Greatsynagogue.hu since November 1944. 55 000 people crowded into almost 300 houses with around 4500 apartments. By January 1945 this number grew to 70 000. Due to the extreme weather conditions, lack of supplies of food and medicine and the perpetrators’ terror many people lost their lives on the territory of the ghetto. Their bodies were left unburied on the streets and in the courtyard of the Dohany synagogue. Some very strong and moving pictures can be found here.
Today in the VII district you find several synagogues, including the Great Synagogue, which the second largest in the world. But as the area has developed further, you also find a large number of restaurants, bars, clubs and music venues. The contrast between old and new, history and modernity is really unique.
Whether you’re visiting in cold months, when the dark wintery streets have an atmosphere of their own, or in hot months, when you rather spend some time outdoor, make sure you visit this special district, wander around its streets and take in some history.
The heat is on for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Quite literally, as the thermometer bar is going up and up these last days, and the temperature of the air and track can make a difference in the race results.
According to the Formula One Official Website if it is going to be relatively cool the Red Bull team can have some advantages, like they did in Britain and Germany, ending up winning the races. If instead it is going to be very warm the Brawn GP team have a better chance of winning. And with the 30C forecasted for Sunday that seems to be the case. It is not a coincidence that at the moment, before the practice sessions, odds are all in favor of Jenson Button from Brawn GP. According to TheSpread.com odds are: Jenson Button at 2/1, Sebastien Vettel at 9/4, Mark Webber at 9/2.
The Formula One heat is on in the city of Budapest as well. Today the first fans arrived, with groups of Ferrari fans appearing to be a majority, clearly recognizable from their red t-shirts and caps. Formula One teams promoters walking around on the streets stand out from the crowd too, thanks to their colorful gear.
The most original promotion seen so far is the one by the Toyota team. They put a huge stand in front of the West End Shopping Center where you can take the Pistop Challange and measure how long it will take you to replace a tire of a real Formula one car. Definitely a nice chance to get normal people closer to those cars normally seen only on TV.
Meanwhile on the Internet all Formula One news are about how the weather is going to be, while locally there’s an abundance of last minute offers for accommodations in town, apartments especially.
And I also found a cute Hungarian Grand Prix Simulator; not only it uses features from the real track, but it also has info about Hungary and some funny pre-race intros as well. My favorite one is the farmers fueling the car with wine.
You can play the Hungarian Grand Prix here, or on your mobile phone here.
Posted by Andrea 1 year, 1 month ago at 6:26 pm. Comments
