A DAY IN BUDAPEST

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 – BECOMING BUDAPEST

Unlike Prague or Vienna, Budapest seems more like a city in the process of defining itself. This is hardly surprising, since it has been at the center of so many storms of war over the centuries. During the Second World War, it was badly damaged by allied bombers, and for years afterward, it languished under Soviet occupation. 

On our long—too long—walk today from our hotel to the city's major fine arts museum (which was open!), we saw many buildings that must have survived the ravages of war, but there were many more being restored. There were others that our shipboard friends, Will and Linda, would

have loved to have acquired as fixer-uppers—but that so far, others have shunned as impossible to repair. The main boulevard was as wide as those in Barcelona, but the trees were mere saplings in comparison.

The museum was what I'd expected—a reasonably sized building right by Hero's Square—that housed a mediocre collection. Oh sure, there was one modest Raphael, a collection of 17^th Century Dutch paintings, and several early El Grecos, but nothing to draw me back. It was partly my problem, I suspect, because by then we were both worn out by our long trek to the museum and by the pilgrimage through all of its the galleries. We opted to take the metro back to the hotel, but even that was in need of repair and upgrading to come anywhere near the modern ones in Prague and Vienna.

Still, the city has lots of charm, and its streets are full of young and energetic people ready to create the future that it deserves—if only the rest of the world would leave it alone long enough.