Art, architecture & music
- One concert and one opera in two excellent venues.
- Accompanied by a native art historian with excellent English; walks and visits with a local guide.
- Includes a visit to the Danube bend.
- Opportunity to see two more operas.
In the heart of Buda a rock outcrop rises abruptly beside the Danube. This was an impregnable citadel around which the city on the right bank developed. Adorning the site is the Royal Palace, now housing a number of museums, the Gothic Matthias Church, the key Hungarian national shrine, and an enclave of picturesque little streets.
Across the river lies Pest, extending with Parisian elegance over less encumbered terrain, a rival and independent city until 1872 when it was formally united with Buda. Now Budapest is the principal metropolis of East-Central Europe, its vitality and splendour emerging again after the post-war period of Soviet domination.
The fortunes of Hungary have been very mixed since the establishment of the country in the tenth century by the Magyars. At the end of the Middle Ages Hungary was one of the most powerful and prosperous kingdoms in Europe, and the most precocious in importing the new Renaissance style of art and architecture. But these achievements were wrecked by a devastating two-hundred-year occupation by the Turks; little survives from before this period.
Much of what was built and created during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries stems from the desire to rival Vienna or to express Hungarian cultural difference and yearnings for independence. Emulation of western models on the one hand, and cultivation of distinctiveness and originality on the other, are in large part responsible for the allure of Budapest.
We have arranged a programme of walks and visits to familiarise participants with the city and its treasures, major and minor and there will be some time left free to explore independently.
Read the itinerary
Comments from participants in 2008:
‘Excellent and interesting. Well-balanced to give adequate time off intervals.’
‘The hotel was very good indeed, excellent location, clean, obliging and excellent breakfasts.’
‘A really nice and interesting group of fellow travellers – one of the good things about travelling with MRT.’
‘I have spent the last ten Christmasses away and this one has been one of the most enjoyable.’