Did you know that the Museum of Ethnography formerly gave home to the Palace of Justice? After that it gave home to the National Gallery, and then in 1974 the Museum of Ethnography moved into the building. In this exhibition named “Metamorphoses: From Palace of Justice to Museum” you can see the building and its development, changes and beautiful architecture.
From Palace of Justice to Museum
Museum of Ethnography
September 30, 2010 – June 30th, 2011
We have just published our brand new Budapest slideshow. The pictures featured are not extraordinary, but by taking a look at it you will for sure get a feeling of what Budapest is like. The slideshow lasts for appx. seven minutes, and you will for sure recognize many famous Budapest attractions as you enjoy it. For more pictures, videos and slideshow, check out our multimedia-page.
The Worlds of Széchenyi
Hungarian National Museum
October 8, 2010 – March 6, 2011
XIX. Art and Nation: Image and Self-Image
Hungarian National Gallery
November 5th, 2010 – April 3rd, 2011
This article is a part in our “Best of Budapest“-series, currently searching for the “best confectionary in Budapest“.
Cool Cafe
1052 Budapest, Petőfi Sándor utca 12
Cool Fagylalt & Kávé (Cool icecream & coffee) is a quite new cafe in the centre of Budapest, in Petöfi Sandor utca. It was opened August 2010, and here you can get good ice cream, and of course nice cakes at quite okay prices. The interior is very modern, so this is not the „old-fashioned confectionary” style, like for example Gerbeaud or Alexandra Bookcafe. We found it quite enjoyable, though this place seems to be empty most of the day, meaning not enough guests. Some of us have been there several times, and the jam in the Ischler is „fresher” than most other places, so that gives the Ischler a high score at Cool Cafe!
While most confectionaries in Budapest close around 18.00 or 19.00 Cool Cafe keeps open until 21.00 and 22.00, which gives this place a plus point in our books!
Cool Cafe score
| Cakequality: | 8/10 |
| Drinks: | 7/10 |
| Atmosphere: | 7/10 |
| Price vs. quality: | 8/10 |
| Total average: | 30/40 |
Comments from the jury:
“Best Ischler in town”
“Easy to find a seat, always empty…”
“Very modern interior, and open until late in the evening”
“Delicious icecream in addition to the good cakes”
Some Cool Cafe pictures:
Pictures and videos from the disaster spread around the world within hours, and most people have heard of it, at least those watching news and reading newspapers.
Now visitors to the Hungarian National Museum can get more insight into the disaster by visiting the exhibition “Relief exhibition – Red Sludge Catastrophe 2010“. Here you can see photos, videos, childrens’s drawings of the catastrophe, and protective clothing and accessories of the volunteers. The entrance fee is 500 Ft, which goes directly to helping the victims in Devecser.
Relief exhibition – Red Sludge Catastrophe 2010
Hungarian National Museum
November 10 – December 12
The name of the newest temporary exhibition in the Hungarian National Gallery is named: “Munkácsy: The Christ Trilogy”. This is a brilliant exhibition showing some of the best known and most beautiful paintings made by any Hungarian painter throughout history. During the preparations for the exhibtion there were some problems getting the giant paintings into the National Gallery, and one of the paintings was almost destroyed when the crane carrying it into the gallery fell over and destroyed a car as it tried to lift the painting into the museum. Fortunately the painting survived without a scrath!
This exhibtion will for sure be a big hit, and one we can warmly recommend everyone. Check it out!
Munkácsy: The Christ Trilogy
National Gallery
November 23, 2010 – April 30, 2011
Press release:
Mihály Munkácsy undoubtedly reached the pinnacle of his career with The Christ Trilogy, even though the three paintings were only exhibited for the first time together almost 100 years after his death. When Munkácsy started to paint Christ before Pilate (Krisztus Pilátus előtt), in the summer of 1880, he was already working with one of the most successful art-dealers in Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer.
Sedelmeyer’s ambition to make Munkácsy known worldwide proved to be successful. It was he who regularly organised international exhibitions for Munkácsy’s newest works, and negotiated the sale of both commercial and reproductive rights of the paintings. Therefore the big Christ painting became thecentre of the international attention even before its completion. After showing in Paris, England and Vienna, it was exhibited in Budapest at the beginning of 1882 when over 80 thousand people went to see it.
Munkácsy had already made drafts for a new Christ painting in 1881. The interesting thing about Golgotha was that it was finished by 1884, and the artist modelled the crucified Saviour after himself. We know this from contemporary photos, where the Marquis de Susa took a snap shot of the ‘crucified’ Munkácsy. The exhibition of Golgotha in Paris, Budapest and England attracted hundreds of thousands of people, just like the exhibition of the first Christ painting. The third picture of the trilogy was expected by most people to be a Resurrection scene, however Munkácsy was too busy with new orders throughout the 1880s.In 1895 he painted the altarpiece of the Andrássy Mausoleum in Tőketerebes (in current day Slovakia), on the basis of the central motif of Golgotha, but by this time his creative power had become very weak. Fighting illness, the artist completed the third part of the trilogy, Ecce Homo.
Despite the religious nature of Munkácsy’s Christ paintings, it would be difficult to imagine them as altarpieces, and instead they should be considered as socio-cultural genre compositions. The public was mesmerized by the enormous size, the hype surrounding their exhibition and the nature of the biblical events depicted. The secret to the works’ religious radiance is that Munkácsy brought the Saviour within touching distance, and drew the public into Christ’s story of suffering. He created a modern picture of Christ, that was tailored to the demands of the modern man searching for new forms of stimulation. Munkácsy provided bothreligious experience and mental pleasure. Even today, when competing with all sorts of multimedia, the paintings still have a strong effect on the onlooker.
The first two parts of the trilogy were bought by John Wanamaker during Munkácsy’s 1886-87 trip to the United States, and the paintings were almost permanently exhibited in his department store in Philadelphia. The works left the Wanamaker family’s ownership in 1988 and are now owned by a Canadian and an American-Hungarian. Ecce Homo was bought by Frigyes Déri in 1914, who then donated it to the Déri Museum of Debrecen in 1930, which he founded himself. The three paintings were exhibited together for the first time in 1995 when the first two parts of the trilogy came to the museum on loan. While the Déri Museum is being renovated, the National Gallery is giving a home to the trilogy where for the first time the main compositions are accompanied by drafts,studies and smaller sized versions.
All Christmas markets in Vienna have opened now, and we were in Vienna last weekend to check out that everything is okay. It is! If you come to Budapest before Christmas and would like bigger Christmas markets and better Christmas atmosphere than in Budapest, then a daytrip to Vienna might be the thing.
You can read more about this possibility and offer at our page: Daytrip to Vienna Christmas markets.
Below you can see some pictures from the Vienna Christmas markets.
More information about Vienna Christmas markets from Vienna Guide
Vienna Christmas market pictures
This article is a part in our “Best of Budapest“-series, currently searching for the “best confectionary in Budapest“.
1126 Budapest, MOM Park-Alkotás út 53.
Located on the Buda side of Budapest, along the busy Alkotás street, in the shoppingcenter MOM Park, this is a popular café and confectionary for young and old in the area. The place is normally quite packed, and you can find a big selection of cakes here. The quality of the cakes we found to be average, while the drinks were good. The biggest minus was the fact that smoking was allowed inside, and even though a “no-smoking” area could be found, nothing divided this from the smoking area, so leaving Angelo all our clothes smelled as if we had been sitting in the smoking area.
| Cakequality: | 6/10 |
| Drinks: | 8/10 |
| Atmosphere: | 6/10 |
| Price vs. quality: | 5/10 |
| Total average: | 25/40 |
Comments from the jury:
“Big selection of cakes, fine quality, but annoying cigarette smell everywhere”
“Good place for relaxing, though the background music was annoying”
“Nothing dividing smoking from no-smkoing except from an invisible wall”
“Good hot-chocolate and limonade”
Some Angelo cukrászat pictures:
This article is a part in our “Best of Budapest“-series, currently searching for the “best confectionary in Budapest“.
1092 Budapest, Ráday utca 53.
Nándori Cukrászda (cukrászda meaning confectionary) is not a typical confectionary in Budapest. It is more like a place people drop by to buy some cakes for their party at home, and not many people eat their cakes in the confectionary, as there are only six chairs available in the entire confectionary for guests to use. That is a big minus, which makes it quite uninteresting for most people, but when it comes to the quality of the cakes and the price level, we were very impressed and enjoyed our time in Nándori Cukrászda a whole lot!
The confectionary is located in the Ráday Utca, a popular restaurant street.
| Cakequality: | 9,5/10 |
| Drinks: | 8,5/10 |
| Atmosphere: | 3,5/10 |
| Price vs. quality: | 10/10 |
| Total average: | 31,5/40 |
Comments from the jury:
“Very good, but not enough chairs, therefore it is hard to recommend this place”
“Rather a take-away confectionary”
“Wonderful cakes and good drinks, nice atmosphere… if you find a chair”
Some Nándori Cukrászda pictures:
