St. Stephen's Interior _______________________The Holy Right Hand
August 23, 2001 – The Basilica of the Holy Right Hand
After a short 2 1/2 hour flight Rena, Bernadette and I land at Ferency Airport in Hungary. Our captain, Nigel, is a bit eccentric. “We are now entering our final approach. I’ll just dangle the Dunlops. There we go. Now we’ll just put out the cat, land the plane and we’re there. You’re certain you want to go to Budapest are you?” This expostulation is accompanied by angry cat noises from the overhead speakers.
Our luggage arrives safely and we change our dollars for forints at the airport. Our cab driver, a reliable looking older Magyar with the unlikely name of Barney Farkas, gets us to the Hotel K + K Opera by noon. Unfortunately the room won’t be ready until 3 PM so we decide to take a hike round the town.
We walk just one block from the Opera to St. Stephen’s Basilica. Ol’ Steve was the first Christian King of Hungary and his actual hand is on display inside the basilica! On special days they parade it around town. This isn’t one of them so we are forced to go inside the cathedral. Generally, I am not big on going inside cathedrals. ‘You’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all,’ sort of thing. But since my first name is Steven and therefore he is my patron saint, I figure it’s a must see. We enter the cathedral.
The interior is your usual – high ornate ceilings, bad heat and lots of gilt (spelled without the ‘u’ between the ‘g’ and the ‘i’). Being the first Christian king of the Magyars qualified Stephen for Sainthood in the year 1083 CE. That was a long time ago and most of St. Stephen’s saintly remains have disappeared during succeeding centuries due to high demand from the ever-popular market in stolen Saint body-parts. (The sacred relics market has quieted down recently but during Medieval times it was bigger than Ebay.) Anyway, all that’s left of St. Stephen is his severed and pickled right hand which is preserved in the Basilica. Amazingly you don’t pay a single forint to see the famous fist! It has It’s own little gold dollhouse covered with frescoes, naked babies with wings and other catholic chazerai. Inside is the hallowed hand, which is shriveled, brown and rather small. I figure good King Stephen’s hat size couldn’t have been much either.
I will now write 100 times – “ I will not go into another cathedral again”. Sorry not my thing.
After shaking the dust of centuries from our Reebok’s, we exit St. Stephen’s and stroll through a small plaza. Here a visiting oompah band from Poland is playing polka’s while an authentic Hungarian mental patient beats time on the garbage cans with a couple of sticks.
Nearby we encounter the statue of “Anonymous”. He was the famous Hungarian philosopher and advisor to King Stephen (his left-hand man so-to-speak). “Anonymous” remained anonymous his whole life. Consequently he has no cathedral, basilica, chapel, boat-dock or other significant edifice to his memory anywhere in Hungary except the appropriately nondescript and obscure statue to him near St. Stephen’s church. What a find! We hurry back to the hotel through smallish spritzles of rain to take possession of our cozy hotel room for a nap and a shower.
For dinner we go to a restaurant in Pest which features a gypsy band playing violins, accordions, hammer dulcimer, a musical saw and other implements of the gypsy armamentarium. While they saw away at Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2, we saw away at paprika chicken, spatzles, and wild forest mushrooms. Yumm!. My favorite is the strudel sampler for dessert. We eat so much we decide to walk home, only to be caught in a Magyar downpour. The three of us escape to the shelter of the subway and are pleasantly surprised to find that music is indeed ubiquitous in Budapest. Gypsies again - only this time they are playing old Country and Western hits under the city streets. “The Tennessee Waltz” and “I Walk the Line” arranged for violin and accordion - most unusual. We catch a passing cab back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.
After a short 2 1/2 hour flight Rena, Bernadette and I land at Ferency Airport in Hungary. Our captain, Nigel, is a bit eccentric. “We are now entering our final approach. I’ll just dangle the Dunlops. There we go. Now we’ll just put out the cat, land the plane and we’re there. You’re certain you want to go to Budapest are you?” This expostulation is accompanied by angry cat noises from the overhead speakers.
Our luggage arrives safely and we change our dollars for forints at the airport. Our cab driver, a reliable looking older Magyar with the unlikely name of Barney Farkas, gets us to the Hotel K + K Opera by noon. Unfortunately the room won’t be ready until 3 PM so we decide to take a hike round the town.
We walk just one block from the Opera to St. Stephen’s Basilica. Ol’ Steve was the first Christian King of Hungary and his actual hand is on display inside the basilica! On special days they parade it around town. This isn’t one of them so we are forced to go inside the cathedral. Generally, I am not big on going inside cathedrals. ‘You’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all,’ sort of thing. But since my first name is Steven and therefore he is my patron saint, I figure it’s a must see. We enter the cathedral.
The interior is your usual – high ornate ceilings, bad heat and lots of gilt (spelled without the ‘u’ between the ‘g’ and the ‘i’). Being the first Christian king of the Magyars qualified Stephen for Sainthood in the year 1083 CE. That was a long time ago and most of St. Stephen’s saintly remains have disappeared during succeeding centuries due to high demand from the ever-popular market in stolen Saint body-parts. (The sacred relics market has quieted down recently but during Medieval times it was bigger than Ebay.) Anyway, all that’s left of St. Stephen is his severed and pickled right hand which is preserved in the Basilica. Amazingly you don’t pay a single forint to see the famous fist! It has It’s own little gold dollhouse covered with frescoes, naked babies with wings and other catholic chazerai. Inside is the hallowed hand, which is shriveled, brown and rather small. I figure good King Stephen’s hat size couldn’t have been much either.
I will now write 100 times – “ I will not go into another cathedral again”. Sorry not my thing.
After shaking the dust of centuries from our Reebok’s, we exit St. Stephen’s and stroll through a small plaza. Here a visiting oompah band from Poland is playing polka’s while an authentic Hungarian mental patient beats time on the garbage cans with a couple of sticks.
Nearby we encounter the statue of “Anonymous”. He was the famous Hungarian philosopher and advisor to King Stephen (his left-hand man so-to-speak). “Anonymous” remained anonymous his whole life. Consequently he has no cathedral, basilica, chapel, boat-dock or other significant edifice to his memory anywhere in Hungary except the appropriately nondescript and obscure statue to him near St. Stephen’s church. What a find! We hurry back to the hotel through smallish spritzles of rain to take possession of our cozy hotel room for a nap and a shower.
For dinner we go to a restaurant in Pest which features a gypsy band playing violins, accordions, hammer dulcimer, a musical saw and other implements of the gypsy armamentarium. While they saw away at Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2, we saw away at paprika chicken, spatzles, and wild forest mushrooms. Yumm!. My favorite is the strudel sampler for dessert. We eat so much we decide to walk home, only to be caught in a Magyar downpour. The three of us escape to the shelter of the subway and are pleasantly surprised to find that music is indeed ubiquitous in Budapest. Gypsies again - only this time they are playing old Country and Western hits under the city streets. “The Tennessee Waltz” and “I Walk the Line” arranged for violin and accordion - most unusual. We catch a passing cab back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.
Daktari
1 comment:
Hi,
I stumbled on your blog by chance, and I am happy to have learned that the art of playing music on a saw thrives in Hungary. I am also glad to learn that they have a subway there, with musicians playing - now I really want to go there myself.
All the best,
'Saw Lady'
www.SawLady.com/blog
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