Travel
Budapest – July 1995
I return to Budapest.
The last I visited Budapest was in the summer of 1995. It was a time of change as the Soviet Army had left the country just four years earlier. I arrived by ferry via the Danube from Vienna. My lodgings were in a friend’s “little communist efficiency apartment” surrounded by brutally ugly Soviet architecture and streets filled with Russian Ladas. But even then, I noted the many fast food places from Burger King to Dunkin’ Donuts to Pizza Hut. I diaried my experiences and, out of curiosity, I am interested to learn how Budapest, and this traveler, have changed. (more…)
A day trip in Magyarország (translate as Hungary) takes me east of Budapest to the small town of Zsámbék. Zsámbék has been inhabited since Paleolithic times when stone tools were first used. It has been home to Celtic, Roman and Avar peoples and is an archeologist’s dream. Churches have been built and destroyed in this city since 1180. King Matthias’ son had a fortress here in 1467. Turks and an 1764 earthquake laid the city and buildings to ruins. However, German settlers arrived after the Turks and rebuilt Zsámbék and its churches using the original stones of the ruined settlement. It is less the rebuilt settlement than the strikingly beautiful church ruins that capture my attention. 
Rimetea is located amid a dramatic setting of lush meadows, encircling mountains and rocky escarpments. My simple Transylvanian inn overlooks Székelykő, a sacred peak. It is said that here, the sun rises twice as it crawls across the eastern sky at the edge of the mountains. The birds chirp, the sun rises, a lonely dog howls in the distance, the rooster crows and another idyllic day in Romania begins.