Story and Photos by Ashok Khanna.
In Part Two of my Eastern European tour, the story continues with our final explorations as we cross the border from Croatia to Slovenia and our grand finale in Hungary.
Feature image: Hungarian Parliament at night.
Link to Part One: Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina
Slovenia: The drive from Opatija in Croatia to Ljubljana in Slovenia is 109km ( 68 miles), or about an hour and a half. On the way to Ljubljana, our group stopped at the Postojna caves, which are considered a masterpiece of nature. The exploration began with an amazing underground journey in a miniature train to reach the fantastic limestone formations, some huge stalagmites, and even an underground concert hall. Lingering as long as possible to take in the scene, we appreciated the opportunity to photograph the site.
Reaching Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, just after 4 p.m., we jumped right into a guided walking tour of the old town. The main square, situated by the Ljubljanica River, had beautiful old buildings and statues. The river was lined with inviting restaurants and cafes on both banks. Castle Hill rose behind the square, topped with historic Ljubljana Castle, dating from the 11th-12th century but with Roman archeological ruins from 11-14AD. The castle can be reached by walking ancient stairs or riding a funicular railway.
Arriving in the city on a Friday, we explored a regularly scheduled food fair with stalls offering cuisine from all over the world and local wine. I tried some Spanish paella, which was not great, but the local Slovenian wine was good. Later, I learned that the Podravje wine-growing region in eastern Slovenia has some of the best viticultural areas in Europe and perhaps the world. Because of the city’s large university, Ljubljana has a visibly young population, which contributes nicely to its liveliness.
The next morning, we drove to Lake Bled, 55 km (34 mi) from Ljubljana. Surrounded by mountains and forests, with beautiful clear blue water boasting an island in its middle, it is a popular tourist destination now and in the past for the Austrian court and the Romans. We enjoyed a gondola ride to the island, where we rang the church bell, which legend says helps fulfill your wishes. According to Greek legend, after taking the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts found a large lake surrounded by a marsh between the present-day towns of Vrhnika and Ljubljana. Jason killed a monster there, but unfortunately, it transformed into a dragon. Today, the city boasts a dragon on its coat of arms and flag. After our homeward gondola ride, we visited the Bled Castle. Dating from the 11th century, the castle was home to the Bishops of Brixin for eight centuries. Its museum contains some interesting historical Lkae Bled artifacts, but the view of the lake and its surrounding landscape was spectacular. We lunched at Avgustin Restaurant in the lovely small village of Radovljica, on the south slope of the Karawanks mountain range, about 6 km (3.7 mi) from Lake Bled.
In Ljubljana, I took a circle tour of the town on a small trolley train that went by the castle, residential neighborhoods, botanical gardens, past parliament, the national museums and galleries, and many adjacent parks. It is a very graceful town, especially for a capital city. I mentioned this to a former colleague who has retired there, and he concurred. He added that it is close to many other European cities if he felt the urge for a cosmopolitan experience. Later, I drank some respectable wine with my tour’s wine couple, Steve and Barbara, at Wine Bar Suklje, a good Sauvignon Blanc to wash down plump, silky oysters, the best I have ever tasted.
The next morning’s boat ride along the Ljubljanica River was pleasant, especially with a refreshing morning glass of Prosecco. After we docked, I walked to the Ethnographic Museum, a modern building displaying Balkans ethnic and cultural artifacts from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The adjacent Contemporary Art Museum featured Slovenian works with displays, media, and artwork that were a bit far out for me. The National Gallery, a Hapsburg-style building dating from the 18th century with a modern annex, seemed to have paintings and sculptures depicting either war or religion. The annex had more interesting paintings with modern influences. The nearby Modern Art Museum featured especially appealing and creative Slovenian abstract art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
At about 6 pm, the group met for a farewell drink and a jolly, amiable dinner at a nearby restaurant. The experienced tour members thought our small group was among the best they had traveled with, congenial and flexible. Our tour leader was enthusiastic, empathetic, and well-informed, making the trip even more interesting. Would I join a tour again? Probably, but as usual, there are pluses and minuses to tours. All the arrangements for our transport and lodging were really great, and the tour company’s literature and the guided walking tours in every city were helpful. I certainly saw and did more than I would have on my own. However, I feel that tours tend to be too programmed, with little time left to just amble and fully experience the places visited. As an overview, it was satisfactory, but even when we had free time, we tended to join other tour group members to wander around, which diminished the chance of meeting and talking to locals. In the past, I’ve found that wandering on my own is a good way to get a flavor of life in a city, and probably better than the formal meetings arranged by a tour.
Hungary: To escape the searing heat, passengers and I scrambled onto the air-conditioned Flix bus in Ljubljana. It was a six-hour ride to Budapest (hilly Buda on the west side of the Danube River and flat Pest on the east).
The landscape, as far as I could see, was flat, with fields planted mainly with corn, some vines, sunflowers, and other vegetables. We passed small villages along the way and occasionally a small town identified by a church spire. We hugged Lake Balaton for a bit as well. The bus ride from Ljubljana to Budapest (462km/ 287 miles) was a long five hours. Arrival in Budapest was satisfying. My hotel in Pest, not too far from the Danube River, was about a mile from the striking Hungarian Parliament building. The wonderful immediate neighborhood had coffee shops, restaurants with food from around the world, and good transport connections.
The next morning, I met Diana, (an old friend, whom I knew well in the early 1960s), at her boutique hotel near the top of the hill and Buda Castle. Although she lives in Brussels, she has a residence near Budapest, where she spends the summer months. She had kindly agreed to meet me in the city and show me around it for a few days. We had lunch at her hotel: I tried the Goulash soup, but it was thinner and less spicy than I imagined, but the red Bikaver wine paired well.
After lunch. we walked up the hill to Matthias’s Church, reconstructed in the 14th Century in the Gothic style, past Trinity Square to Fisherman’s Bastion for a view of the magnificent Parliament building in Pest. We walked around the majestic Buda Castle and visited the National Art Gallery and an Art Deco show in the castle complex. The National Gallery’s collection was mainly of Hungarian artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. Several were influenced by European artists of their time, and there were some contemporary post-World War II works as well. The Hungarian Art Deco exhibit emphasized art and the urban lifestyle between the two world wars, including posters, furniture, fashion garments, films, and other new forms of entertainment. After many hours of walking, we found a tourist restaurant nearby where I had a hearty fish goulash soup with some light white wine.
The next morning, I walked down to the Parliament to meet Diana, but we had to wait an hour for a parliament tour. To while away the time, we walked along the Danube across from the castle. On the way back, we chanced upon a memorial, a row of iron shoes at the bank of the river, to commemorate the 3,500 people, including 800 Jews, shot there in 1944-45 by the Arrow Cross, a Hungarian ultra-right-wing party. A gathering of Jews was singing in payer as we passed.
The tour of parliament, a striking 19th-century Neo-Gothic exterior and beautifully decorated interior, was well organized and informative and lasted about an hour. Afterwards, we ambled down small streets lined by restaurants and shops to Gerbaud Cafe, a restaurant Diana remembered. The food was good although the service was slow.
We took a metro ride to the Square of Heroes and lined up for an hour to get into the Museum of Fine Arts. Once in, we walked through exhibitions of Matisse’s and Hieronymus Bosch’s work. About a hundred of Matisse’s colorful paintings, graphic sheets, prints and sculptures were on display, on loan from the Centre Pompidou. Hieronymus Bosch’s unusual and original artwork treats difficult subjects such as virtue and vice, faith and truth, and spirituality.
In search of New York Café that Diana remembered, we walked down Andrassy, a main boulevard with many stately mansions on both sides, each adorned with decorative facades. After many twists and turns, we found New York Café a pleasant place for a drink and reprieve to review our art experiences. The café is housed in a stately building, in the Belle Epoch style, that was once the European Headquarters of New York Life Insurance Company and is now a posh hotel. The café’s vaulted ceilings are ornately painted, befitting a palace, and the piano music and service staff dressed in black gave it an appropriate formality. We enjoyed a glass of wine and chatted for an hour or more, some of it with a couple from Switzerland at the next table. The wife, an American, had attended New York University where I had been a professor a lifetime ago.
The next day, Diana and I convened at Gerbaud Café and walked down a long, narrow street with restricted traffic that was lined by cafes on both sides. Being fairly early, dining was not active, but the stroll was interesting because of the views and the glimpse of what nightlife might be like. We reached a large covered market that supposedly offered Hungarian products, probably true for the ground floor where shops had food products, but probably not for the upper floor where textiles were on sale. Knowing that they were likely made in China, I nevertheless bought gifts for my daughter and her fiance. We walked downtown near the National Museum and farther along to the city’s historic Great Synagogue, also known as Tabakgasse Synagogue, the largest in the world outside New York, and an architecturally unique 1850s Moorish Revival influence. A nice evening cruise on the Danube rounded out a wonderful day. The cruise lasted about an hour and a quarter to below the final city river bridge and around Margarite Island, which has been made into a park and sports facility.
I was on my own for the final day in Budapest and decided to do an overview of the city with a ride on the “get on/get off” bus with 20 stops around the city. I was impressed that Diana had given me a thorough tour of Budapest, but I stopped at the Parisi Café, an elegant building, and the Gellert Hotel to look at the art nouveau thermal baths. In the evening, I thought to reprise my spirits with a nice glass of wine at New York Café, but instead decided to be adventurous and walked to a wine bar named “Wine Not?” that I had noticed during an earlier walk. Here, I found a shop and wine bar with a knowledgeable owner and some elegant, dry, white Tokays with tongue-twisting names. I had been searching Budapest for such a Tokay wine tasting, and felt satisfied.
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