MID LIFE AT THE OASIS

Well, we split from the coast of Croatia and made a beeline for Hungary. We have been in Budapest for a day now and plan on staying here about a week or so, as it’s a fascinating city with grand architecture, amazing baths, and the energy of a city that is changing and growing by the minute as a crossroads of Central Europe. But first, lets catch up on the past 5 days.

We arrived in Split, Croatia on a catamaran ferry filled with holiday goers and backpackers looking to eek out the last bit of the summer and taking advantage of the cheap, sunny holiday place du jour. We were tired of these people, even though we some of them, too.  I guess we were tired of oursleves then.  We were just feeling a bit weary of eating in decent, but definately ‘tourist’ restaurants and feeling like were marching around the same places with the same people for a week. Maybe if we had bikes, or (gasp) a car we could have gotten off the tourist path easier.  But frankly, we love Croatia, and it makes a perfect holiday destination, but is quite homogeneous as a whole, so with the options of many other places in Central and Eastern Europe, we have decided to make Split our last stop on the magnificent Adriatic coast. 

But we have learned a thing or two in our recent travels.  So after two weeks of getting rooms from touts, we felt like we had a better handle on how to find someone who might have a good place. Yes, we decided that a bit of economic, age, and gender profiling was just the order of the day as we found that we both felt less comfortable with the younger men, or little old ladies, as the first seemed more likely to lead you to a scam and the latter to lead you to a lace filled room with one old lamp in the corner. Now neither of these stereotypes are probably more than 10% accurate, but the apartment pictures that the older ladies were touting did look much less inviting. As a note though, we did not encounter one person trying to mislead or scam us in all of Croatia and our impression was that it is probably one of the safest places to travel in the world, short of Japan.  We’ll let you know next June if we stick to our plans.

So we did find the most intriguing apartment yet of our adventure from a dockside tout who looked trustworthy and prosperous enough to lead us to a good place. She also turned out to quite a character. She was kind of matronly dressed and in her mid 50’s and was missing quite a few front teeth on one side. (a sign that she was born of the old-school Croatia) But she now clearly had it going on, as she walked us quickly to a place we were guaranteed to like ‘in the palace’ for 50 euro a night (which is on the high end of our budget so far but still a great deal considering)

She walked right through the 1500 year old entrances and caverns and we wound our was next to some old mosaics, decaying wall, and the main cathedral. Amazingly, we were suddenly at the apartment and she walked up the 2 NARROW flights. The first room was a cozy kitchen with little reading couch and built in seats at which she immediately pointed and asked me “so which one will you sleep in?” Having known this women for only 5 minutes, I assumed she was serious and said, “Sorry, but no way, I can’t fit in those 5 foot spaces!” and quickly thought to myself that we had our first room tout rejection of the trip. (and that our dockside system of profiling was a bunch of hooey)  Bur of course she was joking and went on to show us the totally adequate bedroom and said that her son was also very tall at close to 2 meters! She was a comedian. We then walked to a cash machine to pay her and listened to her constantly spout information about things to do, speaking a mile a minute. It was English, but neither of us got more than 20% of what she was saying as she was stopping every 20-feet to tout other travellers with luggage or backpacks, as she had two other rooms to fill that night. She was a entrepreneur. Her last statement to us as we exchanged “Hvalas” was “You are both welcome, but remember, I work on the streets, but I won’t do sex!” I’m still not entirely sure if she was joking about the sex. But she clearly had it going on.

The little three room apartment was great with windows that opened to quirky, but unique views in every direction of the old palace. It even had a nice terrace to sit on where you could look up at the sunset on the clouds while listening to the choir practicing next door at the cathedral. So we had free entertainment every night, with singing and chanting mixed with some of the rock eminating from the very popular cafe below our place. It was one of the more captivating places we’ve found ourselves yet and was definitely unforgettable.

Diocletian’s Palace is an AD 3rd to 6th Century UNESCO world heritage site that consists of stone walls, caverns, mosaics, and other remnants of the Romans all interspersed with a medieval old city and now embedded with modern shops and cafes. Strange combination, but somehow it kind of works. Split also had a lot more going on in terms of people and culture, so we felt more at home and could wander without feeling like we were only looking at other tourists. Interesting little neighborhoods, and a big park that extends out on a peninsula.  We rented bikes on the second day and had an extremely pleasant ride around the city and ended up at a beach park called ‘Bene’ which was like a little azure paradise swimming cove, but with the addition of a beer garden and cafe. Proabaly a bit of a nightmare in peak season, but just perfect in late September.  The water had a bit more of a nip and you could just feel that unique end of season feeling in the air. We suspected the cafe would be closed up for winter in a week or two. It was a very nice way to spend our last full day on the Adriatic, as we knew we were heading to Varazdin the next day and that we wouldn’t be swimming in an ocean agin until Thailand in December.  Poor us.

The new ICN train from Split to Zagreb was a modern banking train that they had just started last year and made the journey in about 5 and half hours. We even got a free coffee and sandwhich at our seat (even in 2nd class) as they seem to really trying to promote this new service. However, the little two car train was only about 10% full, so the new motorway to Split might be getting more than its fair share of use, as the Croatians have certainly jumped on the car culture bandwagon that has almost always accompanied. ‘development’ in the past 50 years. However, the Croatian train system, as is everything in Croatia, is becoming modern, efficient, and comfortable and was a joy compared to Amtrak. Croatia is cleary not the “Italy of the 1960’s” anymore and certainly seems to be worthy of joining the EU.

Varazdin was a shock after coast, as we were just about the only foreign tourists in town, although there were lots of people in town for the 2-week Baroqoue evening festival that was at its peak. It’s a lovely little town with loads of well-kept Baraqoue buildings arranged around an on old town grid of car free streets and small plazas. We took in the town at a nice slow pace and felt ready to head on over the border and on to Budapest.

For the first time on our trip, we actually arrived in Budapest with a reservation for an apartment that we had made from the internet at thr public librabry in Varazdin.   We still had to negotiate the ususal trio of getting cash, a phone card, and then figure out how to use the phone. and then find our way on the Metro.  But we lucked out, as we found another nice apartment in Pest which is our home for 4 days, and is about two blocks from the Danube river and close to everything in the historic portions of the city. We hope to find another place for another 4 days in ‘Buda’ and make Budapest our base for some nice day trips, in addition to exploring the cities many, many interesting sights. Of couse last night, we took the first opportunity in 4 weeks to get some more exotic food on our taste buds and took a chance on he only Thai restaurants in town. Well, it was some of the worst Thai food I’ve had, but it was still passable enough to satisfy our craving for some of the familiar diversity of tastes that we have become SPOILED by in San Francisco. I beleive my direct quote was “Well, good for them, the worst cooks in Thailand found thier way to Budapest and opened a reataurant!” It is likley the case that they just can’t get the right or good ingredients here. Tonight I think we’ll stick to some fine Hungarian cuisine and wine.

Today was stellar, as we rented bikes and took advantage of the lighter Sunday traffic to explore the river, Margeret Island, and some of the Pest sights, such as the parliament building and great synagogue. In the afternoon we took in our first Turkish bath called Rudas, which is just a short walk across the river from our neighborhood. Today was ‘mixed’ day at the baths, as this one is mostly men only during the week. The baths were just renovated and reopend last December, so the insides of the various pools, saunas, and steam rooms were all immaculate, while maintaining the stunning old building and mosque like-domed structure in the center that houses the primary octagoganal bath. Many of the original 16th century fittings are still in use, which gives it timeless feel.  The dozens of baths here are an integral part of the residents lives, and it provides both healthful relaxation, and a great social scene across generations, although there didn’t appear to be any kids and I’m not sure if they are even allowed? (Apparently the men only late nights at these baths are quite the scene).

The scale of Budapest is huge, and the river, bridges, buildings, and roads mimic this scale, which has given me the first impression that it is somewhat difficult to get around by foot, and is certainly not very bike friendly yet. Cars blast through the city at high speed and there of tons of bad examples of auto-centric planning in areas that should be for people and transit. But the bones of the city are fine, and they just need to rethink things about access and land use. There are wonderful pedestrian only zones, but as soon as you get out of them, the sidewalks turn into somewhat unpleasant to marginal spaces. I haven’t explored the greener Buda yet in detail, so I imagine my impressions will change. But it is a magnificent city that clearly has the right combination of attributes to thrive, change, and prosper in the near future. Ah, it’s nice to be back in a real city! I definately feel more at home.