Western Hungary and Lake Balaton
From Transylvania, the return to Hungary is welcome not least for its material comforts and the absence of daily bartering. A tour of western Hungary reveals many different aspects of Magyar history, from the Turkish minarets of Pecs to the Baroque splendour of the Esterhazy palace at Fertod. Between these two extremes is the magnificent Lake Balaton, with its delightful bathing, popular not least because the summer temperature in this part of Hungary is often the highest to be found in Central Europe. For those in need of a more relaxing sojourn after the bracing challenges of Romania, this part of Hungary is ideal.
Predictably, for a city in which trains going west leave from the eastern railway station, trains going south sometimes depart from the western railway station in Budapest, the picturesque iron-ribbed building constructed by Eiffel. From here, there are trains to Pecs and ether points south.
Kalocsa Hungary
The journey to Pecs, even in an express train, lasts a long afternoon. Though to arrive at this city in the early hours of a balmy summer evening is a delight, it may be better to take a rail or road route to the east of the Danube and break the journey in Kalocsa, an archiepiscopal residence rich in historical associations and an important centre of paprika production. There are few more colourful sights in Hungary today than these red spices drying in the sun at every house.
Adrian Stokes, the English art-historian and writer who spent several summers visiting Hungary before the First World War, observed of Kalocsa that the high street, terminating at one end in the cathedral and in the other in open country, seemed almost a mile long. The vivid market scenes he so ably described in his book on the country can still be seen, although the amount of colourful costume is no longer as great, as the apron is gradually replaced by the trouser-suit. This great thoroughfare, the Istvan Kiraly ut, is lined with cafes and hotels, most of which are worth patronizing. At its climax rises an impressive eighteenth-century ensemble.
The Baroque cathedral, designed by Andreas Mayerhoffer, dates from the 1730s and replaced an earlier Gothic structure which had been destroyed by the Turks. The imposing building in the Baroque style of the 1760s next to it is the Archbishop's Palace, constructed a little later by a Piarist priest called Gaspar Oswald and rich in early manuscripts and books (ring the bell three times). Among these, the visitor will be shown on request a copy of a Bible reputed to have once belonged to Martin Luther. Its walls have some fine frescoes, notably those in the dining room by Maulbertsch.
The nearby folk art museum re-creates the world which must have been a familiar sight to Adrian Stokes and other travellers to Hungary before the last war bright costumes, guarded here by ceaselessly knit¬ting women.
There are several other Baroque buildings of note in the vicinity, most of which would appear, like the Archbishop's Palace, to be the work of Gaspar Oswald.
During the eighteenth century, a number of Baroque buildings were erected in Pecs. Shortly afterwards rich coal deposits found in the immediate surroundings made the city even wealthier, and a porcelain factory was established by the family Zsolnay. Today, however, Pecs is a quiet place, tranquillized by the heat and the fine wines of the nearby Mecsek hills.
Regardless of whether arrival is by train or car, sooner or later we shall come to the Szechenyi ter, which is the heart of the city and to which no fewer than twelve roads lead. It is dominated at the centre by the largest surviving Turkish building in Hungary, the Ghazi Kassim Mosque, which for centuries has served as a Roman Catholic parish church. Its sixteenth-century masonry still exudes Islamic confidence.
Inside, the Turkish mihrab, facing Mecca, has been preserved. The entire building is full of surprises. The Jesuits installed a number of Baroque furnishings which sit unhappily under the remains of a dome constructed at the turn of the last century but removed in the late fifties to reveal a number of Turkish details.
As well as the parish church, the main square also offers a nineteenth¬-century Town Hall and a curious Baroque church whose facade seems to have enjoyed the attentions of some unknown nineteenth-century eclectic architect.
The north-western part of the square is taken up by the Nagy-Lajos grammar school, a competent collection of buildings mainly Baroque. Nearby is an equally pleasing Louis Seize palace housing an arch¬aeological museum containing remains of the 'Quinque Ecclesiae'. Both the Pannonia Hotel and the Nador guest house nearby will supply a refreshing cup of Turkish coffee or some no less pleasing 'Fiz' (mineral water).
The National Theatre
Past the Pannonia Hotel in Kossuth Lajos lit, near the square, are the National Theatre and the Baroque Lyceum church, which has a stuffy empire interior. Returning along one of the many narrow side streets to Szechenyi ter, the Janus Pannonius lit, named after a Hungarian Renaissance poet, leads from the north-western corner of the square to a part of the city which was once surrounded by fortified walls. Eventually this leads to the religious heart of the city, the Dom ter. The promenade, with its wooded paths and delightful old pavilion cafes, is a welcome shelter from the midday sun in the summer. Little seems to have changed here since the days before the First World War. Children play with hoops, cars are rare, and the ice cream is rich and sugary.
Suddenly, in the middle of the promenade, the trees part and a lawn leading to the cathedral opens up. There are several worthy buildings on the cathedral square, but our attention is immediately seized by the four¬towered cathedral which, like a ship at anchor, rests on the northern part of the square. The building's history is complex. The present sanctuary undercroft and the two sixty-metre-high western towers date from the eleventh century.
The undercroft reliefs and the two eastern towers, however, are from the twelfth century, though in appearance they are not dissimilar. Inside, the chapels in the north and south aisles are fourteenth-century, while the Gothic vaulting of the nave is supposed to date from the last years of the sixteenth. The so-called Szarhmary pulpit, with its Re¬naissance detailing, is from 1506. During the nineteenth century, the cathedral underwent a number of restorations, first in a Gothic style and then towards the end of the century in a Lombard Romanesque style.
The interior is high and spacious and rich in colours from the second of these nineteenth-century restorations.Opposite the cathedral is a collection of statues and a lapidarium with objects dating from the Roman period. On the western side of the square is the Bishop's Palace, which, though of medieval origins, was rebuilt in the Baroque style between 1780 and 1800. The fine Louis Seize archives palace to the east of the square dates from a decade later. By contrast, opposite the south-western tower of the cathedral stands a funerary chapel of the fourth century with stone mosaics from the third century. Adjoining the eastern obelisk in the square is an entrance to another curiosity, an early Christian painted burial vault, a rare thing outside Italy.
The city walls of Pecs Hungary
To the west of the cathedral stands the only surviving round stone bastion of the former city walls of Pecs. It has a battered drawbridge gate and insane crenellations. To the east stands the oldest house in the city, Kaptalan lit, constructed in the fourteenth century, but rebuilt several times since. Today it houses part of the art collection of the Janus Pannonius Museum as well as the Zsolnay collection of porcelain.
In the nearby Rakoczi lit stands one of the monuments to the city's oriental past, the Jakovali Hassan Mosque, the only Turkish building erected for religious purposes to have survived more or less intact. It has retained its very oriental minaret, which was usually the first feature of these buildings to be destroyed after the Turks had been routed. Its square hall is crowned by an octagonal dome, while the minaret above is dodecagonal in section, with iron railings on its balcony. The dark in¬terior, unspoilt by the Jesuits, still seems to whisper the Koran.
At the end of the promenade in front of the cathedral, a hill rises to the west on which a number of chapels marking the stations of the cross lead to a Calvary church, rather forlorn but none the less giving an impressive view of the old town.
Another hill to the north-west has the impressive funerary chapel of the Pasha Idris Baba, constructed in 1591. After the Turks were driven from Hungary, this octagonal building became first a Jesuit church and then a hospital chapel before being finally converted in 1961 into a museum of Mohammedan funeral customs. The original masonry is still almost entirely intact.
From here, several lanes lead to leafy paths which eventually wind their way up into more hills which offer plenty of opportunity for walking in the shade.
Excursions from Pecs Hungary In Cheap Car Hire
From Pecs, a short excursion can be made to the town of Moiiacs, which contains some notable buildings as well as, nearby, the battlefield on which in 1526 the Hungarian army was destroyed by the infidel. The memory of this sanguinary exchange still imparts a hint of sadness to what is otherwise a peaceful landscape. In Mohacs there are some fine Turkish baths and an eccentric memorial church pompously com¬memorating the 400th anniversary of the battle, erected in 1926.
Lake Balaton Hungary
The Danube here, is very wide and impressive. Between Pecs and the centre of Hungary is Central Europe's largest lake, Balaton. It is fifty-one miles long and two to nine miles wide, and abounds with fish. The south shore is flat, while that on the north side is bounded by a chain of hills and volcanic peaks which yield the esteemed Somlauer wine. Since the war the area has been extensively developed for tourism and bathing, so that at the height of the summer there is a holiday atmosphere rather reminiscent of the English south coast.
The road which runs along the southern shore is crossed by a series of smaller roads which lead to some picturesque villages. A railway line from Budapest follows a similar route to that of the main road and makes frequent halts. The first of these worth briefly exploring is Balatonszaboi, which contains several old churches, although of late tourist development has resulted in some of this village's charm being lost.
Siofok Hungary
About ten kilometres further along is the most important settlement on the southern shores: Siofok. As official Hungarian tourist guides proudly relate, SiOfok has the largest concentration of modern hotels on the lake. This does not sound promising, but the town is an old settlement which was first seriously developed as a resort in the late nineteenth century, so that there is still a feeling of 'last year in Marienbad' about it. A lot of building was done between the wars, which was Siofok's heyday as a renowned resort for the whole of Central Europe.
The town is divided into two halves by the railway. That towards the lake is dominated by the jetties and piers from which many of the lake's ships sail, for this is the centre of Balaton shipping and the headquarters of the half-dozen grey gunboats which make up what is proudly referred to as the Hungarian Navy. Despite their size, they are well armed. The long jetty here is a favoured promenade and leads to a rose garden, fragrant and informal.
There are dozens of picturesque villas, several of which provide private rooms (apply to the tourist office in Szabadsag ter). The half of the town on the other side of the railway line is notable for the Beszedes Jozsef Museum (signposted), which recaptures the atmosphere of the resort before the end of the Habsburg empire in an exhibition of photo¬graphs and furniture depicting the development of the lake. But of all this veranda wistaria, few traces remain.
From Siofok, a boat regularly plies across the lake to the northern shore resort of Balatonfiired, the oldest spa on the northern side. Balatonfiired is protected by a range of hills which not only give the town a picturesque setting but also prevent the climate becoming too hot in summer or too ravaged by cold winds in winter.
Predictably, for a city in which trains going west leave from the eastern railway station, trains going south sometimes depart from the western railway station in Budapest, the picturesque iron-ribbed building constructed by Eiffel. From here, there are trains to Pecs and ether points south.
Kalocsa Hungary
The journey to Pecs, even in an express train, lasts a long afternoon. Though to arrive at this city in the early hours of a balmy summer evening is a delight, it may be better to take a rail or road route to the east of the Danube and break the journey in Kalocsa, an archiepiscopal residence rich in historical associations and an important centre of paprika production. There are few more colourful sights in Hungary today than these red spices drying in the sun at every house.
Adrian Stokes, the English art-historian and writer who spent several summers visiting Hungary before the First World War, observed of Kalocsa that the high street, terminating at one end in the cathedral and in the other in open country, seemed almost a mile long. The vivid market scenes he so ably described in his book on the country can still be seen, although the amount of colourful costume is no longer as great, as the apron is gradually replaced by the trouser-suit. This great thoroughfare, the Istvan Kiraly ut, is lined with cafes and hotels, most of which are worth patronizing. At its climax rises an impressive eighteenth-century ensemble.
The Baroque cathedral, designed by Andreas Mayerhoffer, dates from the 1730s and replaced an earlier Gothic structure which had been destroyed by the Turks. The imposing building in the Baroque style of the 1760s next to it is the Archbishop's Palace, constructed a little later by a Piarist priest called Gaspar Oswald and rich in early manuscripts and books (ring the bell three times). Among these, the visitor will be shown on request a copy of a Bible reputed to have once belonged to Martin Luther. Its walls have some fine frescoes, notably those in the dining room by Maulbertsch.
The nearby folk art museum re-creates the world which must have been a familiar sight to Adrian Stokes and other travellers to Hungary before the last war bright costumes, guarded here by ceaselessly knit¬ting women.
There are several other Baroque buildings of note in the vicinity, most of which would appear, like the Archbishop's Palace, to be the work of Gaspar Oswald.
During the eighteenth century, a number of Baroque buildings were erected in Pecs. Shortly afterwards rich coal deposits found in the immediate surroundings made the city even wealthier, and a porcelain factory was established by the family Zsolnay. Today, however, Pecs is a quiet place, tranquillized by the heat and the fine wines of the nearby Mecsek hills.
Regardless of whether arrival is by train or car, sooner or later we shall come to the Szechenyi ter, which is the heart of the city and to which no fewer than twelve roads lead. It is dominated at the centre by the largest surviving Turkish building in Hungary, the Ghazi Kassim Mosque, which for centuries has served as a Roman Catholic parish church. Its sixteenth-century masonry still exudes Islamic confidence.
Inside, the Turkish mihrab, facing Mecca, has been preserved. The entire building is full of surprises. The Jesuits installed a number of Baroque furnishings which sit unhappily under the remains of a dome constructed at the turn of the last century but removed in the late fifties to reveal a number of Turkish details.
As well as the parish church, the main square also offers a nineteenth¬-century Town Hall and a curious Baroque church whose facade seems to have enjoyed the attentions of some unknown nineteenth-century eclectic architect.
The north-western part of the square is taken up by the Nagy-Lajos grammar school, a competent collection of buildings mainly Baroque. Nearby is an equally pleasing Louis Seize palace housing an arch¬aeological museum containing remains of the 'Quinque Ecclesiae'. Both the Pannonia Hotel and the Nador guest house nearby will supply a refreshing cup of Turkish coffee or some no less pleasing 'Fiz' (mineral water).
The National Theatre
Past the Pannonia Hotel in Kossuth Lajos lit, near the square, are the National Theatre and the Baroque Lyceum church, which has a stuffy empire interior. Returning along one of the many narrow side streets to Szechenyi ter, the Janus Pannonius lit, named after a Hungarian Renaissance poet, leads from the north-western corner of the square to a part of the city which was once surrounded by fortified walls. Eventually this leads to the religious heart of the city, the Dom ter. The promenade, with its wooded paths and delightful old pavilion cafes, is a welcome shelter from the midday sun in the summer. Little seems to have changed here since the days before the First World War. Children play with hoops, cars are rare, and the ice cream is rich and sugary.
Suddenly, in the middle of the promenade, the trees part and a lawn leading to the cathedral opens up. There are several worthy buildings on the cathedral square, but our attention is immediately seized by the four¬towered cathedral which, like a ship at anchor, rests on the northern part of the square. The building's history is complex. The present sanctuary undercroft and the two sixty-metre-high western towers date from the eleventh century.
The undercroft reliefs and the two eastern towers, however, are from the twelfth century, though in appearance they are not dissimilar. Inside, the chapels in the north and south aisles are fourteenth-century, while the Gothic vaulting of the nave is supposed to date from the last years of the sixteenth. The so-called Szarhmary pulpit, with its Re¬naissance detailing, is from 1506. During the nineteenth century, the cathedral underwent a number of restorations, first in a Gothic style and then towards the end of the century in a Lombard Romanesque style.
The interior is high and spacious and rich in colours from the second of these nineteenth-century restorations.Opposite the cathedral is a collection of statues and a lapidarium with objects dating from the Roman period. On the western side of the square is the Bishop's Palace, which, though of medieval origins, was rebuilt in the Baroque style between 1780 and 1800. The fine Louis Seize archives palace to the east of the square dates from a decade later. By contrast, opposite the south-western tower of the cathedral stands a funerary chapel of the fourth century with stone mosaics from the third century. Adjoining the eastern obelisk in the square is an entrance to another curiosity, an early Christian painted burial vault, a rare thing outside Italy.
The city walls of Pecs Hungary
To the west of the cathedral stands the only surviving round stone bastion of the former city walls of Pecs. It has a battered drawbridge gate and insane crenellations. To the east stands the oldest house in the city, Kaptalan lit, constructed in the fourteenth century, but rebuilt several times since. Today it houses part of the art collection of the Janus Pannonius Museum as well as the Zsolnay collection of porcelain.
In the nearby Rakoczi lit stands one of the monuments to the city's oriental past, the Jakovali Hassan Mosque, the only Turkish building erected for religious purposes to have survived more or less intact. It has retained its very oriental minaret, which was usually the first feature of these buildings to be destroyed after the Turks had been routed. Its square hall is crowned by an octagonal dome, while the minaret above is dodecagonal in section, with iron railings on its balcony. The dark in¬terior, unspoilt by the Jesuits, still seems to whisper the Koran.
At the end of the promenade in front of the cathedral, a hill rises to the west on which a number of chapels marking the stations of the cross lead to a Calvary church, rather forlorn but none the less giving an impressive view of the old town.
Another hill to the north-west has the impressive funerary chapel of the Pasha Idris Baba, constructed in 1591. After the Turks were driven from Hungary, this octagonal building became first a Jesuit church and then a hospital chapel before being finally converted in 1961 into a museum of Mohammedan funeral customs. The original masonry is still almost entirely intact.
From here, several lanes lead to leafy paths which eventually wind their way up into more hills which offer plenty of opportunity for walking in the shade.
Excursions from Pecs Hungary In Cheap Car Hire
From Pecs, a short excursion can be made to the town of Moiiacs, which contains some notable buildings as well as, nearby, the battlefield on which in 1526 the Hungarian army was destroyed by the infidel. The memory of this sanguinary exchange still imparts a hint of sadness to what is otherwise a peaceful landscape. In Mohacs there are some fine Turkish baths and an eccentric memorial church pompously com¬memorating the 400th anniversary of the battle, erected in 1926.
Lake Balaton Hungary
The Danube here, is very wide and impressive. Between Pecs and the centre of Hungary is Central Europe's largest lake, Balaton. It is fifty-one miles long and two to nine miles wide, and abounds with fish. The south shore is flat, while that on the north side is bounded by a chain of hills and volcanic peaks which yield the esteemed Somlauer wine. Since the war the area has been extensively developed for tourism and bathing, so that at the height of the summer there is a holiday atmosphere rather reminiscent of the English south coast.
The road which runs along the southern shore is crossed by a series of smaller roads which lead to some picturesque villages. A railway line from Budapest follows a similar route to that of the main road and makes frequent halts. The first of these worth briefly exploring is Balatonszaboi, which contains several old churches, although of late tourist development has resulted in some of this village's charm being lost.
Siofok Hungary
About ten kilometres further along is the most important settlement on the southern shores: Siofok. As official Hungarian tourist guides proudly relate, SiOfok has the largest concentration of modern hotels on the lake. This does not sound promising, but the town is an old settlement which was first seriously developed as a resort in the late nineteenth century, so that there is still a feeling of 'last year in Marienbad' about it. A lot of building was done between the wars, which was Siofok's heyday as a renowned resort for the whole of Central Europe.
The town is divided into two halves by the railway. That towards the lake is dominated by the jetties and piers from which many of the lake's ships sail, for this is the centre of Balaton shipping and the headquarters of the half-dozen grey gunboats which make up what is proudly referred to as the Hungarian Navy. Despite their size, they are well armed. The long jetty here is a favoured promenade and leads to a rose garden, fragrant and informal.
There are dozens of picturesque villas, several of which provide private rooms (apply to the tourist office in Szabadsag ter). The half of the town on the other side of the railway line is notable for the Beszedes Jozsef Museum (signposted), which recaptures the atmosphere of the resort before the end of the Habsburg empire in an exhibition of photo¬graphs and furniture depicting the development of the lake. But of all this veranda wistaria, few traces remain.
From Siofok, a boat regularly plies across the lake to the northern shore resort of Balatonfiired, the oldest spa on the northern side. Balatonfiired is protected by a range of hills which not only give the town a picturesque setting but also prevent the climate becoming too hot in summer or too ravaged by cold winds in winter.
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