Chapter 7

I. District.

I have a confession to make. Although I did visit the Vár (Castle) a.k.a. 1st district as a child I had only some vague and blurry memories about the Fisherman’s Bastion. I thought that it was a few streets with churches, ruins, and museums. Thus, I was greatly surprised when I had to visit the area a few weeks earlier due to business. “There are actually people living here” I gasped. In my defense, when looking at the Castle from the Pest side you can only se the spectacular panorama provided by the Matthias Church, the Buda Castle and the like; one wouldn’t guess that residents do actually live there. Nevertheless, when I learned this I instantly decided to take a few pictures.

How could I describe the atmosphere? Majestic. If we leave the crowd of tourists behind and walk into the smaller streets (not that there were that many) we can sneak a peek of the citizens’ everyday life. Only a little bit of peeking is possible; the houses are designed to conceal the owners’ properties and ward off any attempt that would jeopardize their privacy. Did this sound pompous? No wonder, the air of the district affected me as well. Nonetheless, this is a section where people live so the basic utilities are present. If it weren’t for a couple of garbage bins and the locals using them one would wonder if they just evaporate their upper class litter. Fortunately they are humans as well with earthly needs. This gave me an idea. I decided to ride to the peripheral areas of the Vár. It is always the ends that are the messiest. Needless to say, this wasn’t my brightest idea. Instead of dirt or at least some suspicious looking fellows I found beautiful view.

Of course, for poverty one needs to look on lower grounds, not in the cultural headquarters of Hungary. Be it, but is this viable? The whole district is a bubble. A shiny, colorful bubble that is fragile and prone to debacle. It has huge walls on each side, cannons are watching the landscape; though the cannons don’t work anymore, we get the message: everyone else, stay out. Were they to close the gates, they wouldn’t last. They are the light, but without anybody holding the torch high they are useless.

The view is pretty sweet, though.