Hungary [antikvár]

1\ 8 top left An cxtvaordivary view of the lar/je river and its wooded surroundings is seen from Visé^rad, the heart of the Danube Beírd and the ancient royal residence of Hungary. 8 top riLht The lar^e Sumeg Castle in the quiet town of Transdanubia was built in the thirteenth century by the bishops of Veszprém but fell into abandon in 1700 followinjj a fire. 8-9 The riverbank in Pest, on the left side of the Danube, is lined with palaces from the early 1900s. The political, economic and cultural center of the capital, this part of the city stretches into the plain. 9 bottom A column raised in 1763 by the Association of Serb Merchants as an offering for having survived the plague stands in the main square of Szentendre, on the Danube Bend. E fa survey were held in western Europe on Hungary, almost certainly, most people would be able to name Budapest as its capital; over the centuries, famous visitors to the city have called it 'the pearl of Europe', 'as lovely a river view as London on the Thames or Paris on the Seine', 'a dream city' and 'the queen of the Danube'. The 'disproportionate head' of a small state measuring just 36,000 square miles and with a population of 10 million people, Budapest has always had the ambitions of a capital of a vast kingdom. It has Its own fascination that. In the collective Imagination, almost overshadows its rather uniform nation, however, considering the history of Hungary, Its capital has always been 'peripatetic', as the following cities have all held that honor at some time: Székesfehérvár (the Roman city of Alba Regia), Pozsony (today Bratislava) and even Vienna. The kings of Hungary lived and were buried in the first, the legislative assembly used to meet in the second and the Hapsburgs dominated the entire region of the rivers Danube and Tisza from the third. The territory of the country has also undergone large changes over the centuries: three seas have bathed its borders at one time or another, but invasions, wars and peace treaties have 'amputated' entire regions from its body, and later perhaps reattached them, each time to form a new political entity. What has marked this fiery, combat- ive people has been their capaclt>' to survive despite the catastrophes and invasions they have suffered, to maintain their sense of identity intact and to preserve their musical language, Magyar (an idiom that originated in ancient Asia) in the midst of the deluge of German, Latin and Slav languages that engulfed them. For some, the heart of Hungary is Lake Balaton, a vast freshwater inland sea that appears, on the map, to be the country's point of reference. This Important water basin, the largest one in Central Europe, does not He exacdy at the center of the country but many Hungarians consider that it is around it that the nation revolves. Lake Balaton is the epitome of the country, with its variety' of landscapes and stj'les of architecture and the almost marine sense of freedom given by this vast and placid body of water-though It is sometimes marked by dramatic storms.