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.
No Hungarian side has appeared in the UEFA Champions League for the last 14 years, since the days of Ferencvárosi TC in 1995/96. This year is different though, as Debreceni VSC managed to get there, first beating PFC Levski Sofia 2-1 in Bulgaria and beating them at home 2-0 last Tuesday; an aggregate 4-1 that allows the team to enter the Group Stage of the Champions League.
It is a very memorable and joyous moment for the team and for Hungarian soccer in general. András Herczeg, Debrecen coach, summarize it well: “We’re proud to have brought so much joy to so many people and to be the first Hungarian team since Ferencváros in 1995 to qualify for the Champions League,” he said. “Levski are ranked 100 places above us so we are delighted to get past them. Each game in the group stage will be a wonderful memory for us all. Whoever we meet will be a great team with great players.”
A nice bonus on the side: Debreceni VSC has secured itself €7.1 million by qualifying for the Champions League, and that equals several years of the club’s budget. As all the future home Champions League matches will be held in Budapest and not in Debrecen city the hope is that the city itself will gain some exposure and advantages.
While waiting for the draw that will decide which team Debreceni VSC will have to face (and in the group there are teams of the caliber of Barcelona, AC Milan, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, just to mention a few) we wish the team flying the flag for Hungary the very best of luck.
Following fate similar to that of many other artists, Márta Pán is not widely known in the country that gave her birth (Hungary, although from 1952 she became a French national) but her sculptures are displayed in public spaces all over the world. Her works are erected in Ottawa, Amsterdam, Paris and in Japan, where there are around 30 of her works, she was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize by the Emperor. The award is an equivalent of a Japanese Nobel Prize.
Just one year after her death, Budapest Museum visitors are able to see ten of the artist’s monumental steel sculptures, displayed one after the other in the impressive Renaissance and Baroque Hall on the ground floor, and on the first floor, displayed among the paintings of German and Flemish masters.
Culture.hu defines walking among Páns works “like being in a dream city where gravity does not pull one downward, but lifts one up. Her sculptures radiate perfection, like survivors of the loss of the sense of beauty”. Indeed an exhibition not to miss, considering also the numerous other collections to see once in the Museum of Fine Arts.
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.
