Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a unique blend of east and west, China and Britain, a very modern, complex society, secret beaches, double decker trams, excellent museums, and a lot of light. Here is my cinematographic take on the region. Note the high percentage of dancing, that happened on the Hong Kong Airport at about 2 am, and I have later learnt that it was practice for the next Friday, in celebration of an Airline's 20th or 30th anniversary. Have fun.

London- fent, ahol csak a madár jár

Egyre divatosabb Londonban magaslatokat létrehozni. A helyi üvegpaloták egymással versenyezve törnek az ég felé, furábbnál furább alakzatokkal dúsítva a világváros sziluettjét. Itt van például a Shard, a szilánk, ami, ha jól tudom, jelenleg a legmagasabb épület a városban.

 

Engem őszintén szólva inkább a mordori Sauron toronyra emlékeztet a Gyűrűk Urából. Már csak az izzó Szem hiányzik... 

A Shard tetejére egy vagyon fölmenni, de a Sky Gardens-be ingyen is be tud férkőzni az ember, ha kedve támad. Bár oda kell figyelni, mert online kell jegyet foglalni, és bizony hamar elfogynak a belépti időpontok... Több teázó-kávézó is várja a kilátáson kívül a bámészkodót, elég kellemes választékkal. No meg a nevében található kert, persze. Egy egész minidzsungel...

 

És persze a Temzétől a Szent Pál katedrálisig minden fölött ellátni :)

Grúzia. Szakartvelo. Georgia

Georgia, the country is a singularly unique place. The food is amazing, the scenery various, from snowy mountains through bare flatland to seaside, the people inviting, the traditional dance insanely complicated and almost ballett-likely graceful, the writing beautifully curvy, the wine famous, the music uplifting. Here are some of the highlights of my Easter Week trip in 2017, including small clips of the Holy Saturday service beginning at 11 or 12 pm, with packed churches, full of choirs singing, "Halleluia" exclamations, and not ending till at least 3 or 4 am. The clips are from Batumi, Tbilisi, Kutaisi, the Azerbaijani border region, and many places in between.

Skopje 2018 January

Skopje from Budapest is just a short plane ride, quite cheap too. I went there for a long weekend in January, and had so much fun! Macedonian people are very friendly very quickly, music is awesome, traditional dresses varied and colourful (white red and black hues mostly, Beautiful weaving, interesting metal coin-like decoration galore, very unique). The city is full of bright white gigantic statues of historical figures. Sometimes you feel like you are in a monument park. There are great views from plces like the castle, and the canyon nearby. Museums contain treasure trove of ancient pottery and metalwork, even though most places make foreigners pay double for the entrance ticket. Food is great too, especially the pastry things, and, of course, my big find, salep. :)

Instead of a bunch of pictures, I made a short film of my experiences. So, here you go, contemporary Skopje:

Rimini utcái

Utcák és szentekről szóló templomfali mozaikok.

31 May-1 June, Mond-Tues

Now it is time for Zurich!!
Ah, sorry, not yet, it's Shaffhausen first. Pretty town, lots of medieval-looking buildings and a castle-like building on a hill surrounded by grapes, which was built with the labour of slaves. Fascinating!
4 or so km of Shaffhausen is one of the biggest waterfalls in Europe, over the Rhein. You have to pay for practicly everything here, even the view...
Now we can go to Zurich!!
The first thing I've noticed about it is, that it's big. And full of people who go in and out and about... Not like the silent and friendly Lugano. Although, I have to tell you, Zurich is a pleasant surprise to all who expest a trading center or bank town. There is green too! And historical buildings and churches and water...


And the best secondhand bookshop ever!!!
So, after a little bit of phone number mixup and travelling (my bad!!) I could spend the night at Remo's, in one of these brand new beauties:
And took off early to... ST GALLEN!!!
Where GAllus, the travelling Irish monk stumbled upon a treeroot and established the abbey. And where one of civilisation's cornerstone is, the library!!!
Sadly, I could not take pictures inside...
:(:(:(:(:(
But it's gorgeous!!!!
:):):):):):):):):):)
There I met with a nice old American lady, who searched for her ancestors. (that's not her in the next pic....)
Well, after St Gallen I felt I'd like to visit a different country, and made a detour to Liechtenstein. By bus.
It's not that different after all... Both modern and old, and has a national library which looks like our district Szabó Ervin... :P
And finally, Vaduz, where the princ lives.
(sorry guys, no prince at the window... :( )

29-39 May, Sat-Sun

Let's go to Brig!! Through Italy non other!!!

The famous Matterhorn from Zermatt.
And the delicious fondu!!!!
Next day we went to French Switzerland. It was raining.
Sion


And this beautiful church, or rather a snippet of it, secretly photographed.
Lausanne




The underground is great!! There is noone driving it, it's totally elechtronic!!! You can even stand at the front, see?...

28 May, Friday

Now Bellinzona's got to see me after all :):)

It all began with terrible rain. And the conviction that I have to make it up to Bellinzona today. So I went to that fine city, the center of Ticino, where you must at least pass through every time you come to Lugano from the North. Famous for its 3 castles, UNESCO World Heritage sights or what. Well, then I went to search for some nice old churches a little bit out of town by a map I got from the Turist office. Circled around a bit, one of them was an interesting graveyard church,

And the rain began to fall even more strongly, so I took a train to Locrno, beside the Lago Maggiore, hoping to get a bit of sunshine. Nice place, very secretive with it's sights, not very good icecream, and a monastery on the hill, Mary...something... de Sacco. I climed up,
They were renovating the whole place, women painted frescoes all over, I could not even enter the church! But I saw the statue of Mary, and the view was really spectacular!!
Then I saw the castle, got lost a bit cursing the Eyewittness guides in several languages, and took a bus into the general direction of Ascona...
Tourist place, the lady from the Lucern train yesterday mentioned to have a summer home here. Many people have one. This little town got it all. Lake, sun, trees, nice library... Gorgeous! And a German second hand bookshop with spectacular armchairs!!
Well, after a while I decided to go back to Bellinzona (was on the way anyway), to have a bit of sun there too. The bus and the one-way street pretty much fooled me than, but I managed to arrive and climb a castle.
It's really hard to get all 3 of them to one picture, but here I managed. Forefront: the castle I'm at. Background: No 2 and 3.
Well, and the fun on that ay, it was day 3 of the annual Bellinzona Beatles Days!!! Free concert in the middle of the Sun Square. Beer, people, black T-shirts!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!

27 March, Thursday

Well, When I woke up I thought I`ll go to Bellinzona, but for some reason I ended up in Luzern with a trainpass thing... That 3 hours by train. On the way I had a pleasant conversation with a woman, who just had her yearly vacasion in Ascona, and have been in Budapest. Nice lady !
One of Luzerns most famous construction is this wooden bridge. Built in the 14th c, burnt down and reconstructed. Inside there are pictures about Swiss historical events, stories.
There is another, a bit less famous wooden bridge, its filled with Dance with the Death pictures...
Two big churches, the Jesuitkirche, 1st Baroque church is town,
and the Franciscan`s church. Here the organist practiced for next weekss mass, and sometimes got lost in his or her mind, improvising whatever came. And he or she played really well! A little Dvorzak, a little gragorian, whatever :):):):)
The monastery (used to be at least...)
And of course the famous Lion statue. It is the commemoration of Swiss soldiers defending a king and dying a heroic death!!
On the train I tryed really hard to make pictures, the mountains were absolutely brilliant!!!