The Beauty Wander in Budapest: My Method for City Exploration
“Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
On Monday, I finally had a clear head for the first time since arriving in Europe. I suffered from food poisoning, jet lag, and a monster cold the first month of my travels.
A clear head felt like such a relief! My work tasks had been piling up and I was able to tackle a good portion of them, relieving some stress and overwhelm.
After completing my work day, I decided to do my favorite thing when exploring a new city: take a “Beauty Wander”. This is where I wander around with curiosity, awe, and a soft heart and admire beauty, slowly and aimlessly. When I get to an intersection, I decide which way looks the most interesting from there based on feel, and walk that way.
I typically bring my DSLR camera and try to capture some of what is beautiful. Having the camera is a lot like writing for helping us distill and solidify our thoughts—it helps me appreciate even more what makes something beautiful as I try to find the best way to capture it. And both are just a practice. They’re not for keeps. No one is keeping the score.
So in this way, The Beauty Wander becomes a meditation.
My beloved late friend and mentor, who passed away from cancer a year ago, Cissy White, had this term she invented: Joy Stalking. The Beauty Wander is similar to Joy Stalking I think.
Cissy White had a horrific start to life. The American author and blogger at Heal Write Now was sexually and physically abused as a child and developed post-traumatic stress disorder. As a result, she experienced flashbacks as an adult in which she felt “stalked by fear”.
Seven years ago, she was also stalked by an ex-boyfriend. Terrified, Cissy longed for a way to counter the fear that engulfed her. That’s when she was struck by an idea: she wanted to be as “ferocious and fierce” as her stalker – but in a quest for joy. So she became a self-proclaimed “joy stalker”.
Read the full piece here.
While I’m not outrunning terror per se, I can certainly relate to often feeling stalked by flashbacks, ruminations, and regrets. I love this idea of transforming the intensity of something negative into a force for good—something deliberate.
A Particularly Magical Beauty Wander in Budapest
Monday night I thought, “I’ll just wander around until I find something interesting.”
I ended up finding the most enchanting and magical thing! It was a complete surprise!
Here are some of the small beautiful things I captured on this wander.
First, The Jewish Quarter.
“People used to live here” says a nondescript plaque placed on the outside of the busiest of all Jewish Quarter attractions, Szimpla Kert.
And it’s easy to forget that people, did, and still do, call this district home. Gentrification over the last 20 years has turned what was once a dilapidated district into one of the most popular in Europe, if not the world.
The 7th District of Budapest (or Erzsébetváros) became the centre point for Jewish culture in the late 1800s, and over the next 150 years, the community grew rapidly.
By 1930 there were around 200,000 jews living in Budapest, mostly in this district. It was a successful community filled with business owners, doctors, lawyers, musicians and journalists, yet this large minority group slowly became the target for Hungarian leaders during the mid-late years of WW2, eager to appease the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi Germany.
Following the German occupation of 1944, the ghetto was created, encircling many parts of the old Jewish Quarter including the two main synagogues, Dohany and Kazinczy. Cut off from the outside world, with little food, the community began to suffer - many were sent to their deaths in the concentration camps, while the rest were left for dead in the very streets, from starvation, disease or hypothermia.
Within just 56 Days of German occupation, over 400,000 jews were deported from Hungary to the death camps in Poland. In addition, the local Arrow Cross party murdered over 10,000 Jews, many shot by the Danube river so they fell into the water and were washed away.
Read the whole blog from The Common Wanderer here.
I especially love to admire the ornate stone work on buildings in Europe. We don’t have this in very many places in the Unites States. I wish we still did this in new buildings.
Next, the Opera House.
I especially loved the sunset hitting the building across the street from the grand Opera House with a warm reddish-pink hue. This building houses a W Hotel.
The Hungarian State Opera House (Hungarian: Magyar Állami Operaház) is a historic opera house located in central Budapest, on Andrássy út. Originally known as the Hungarian Royal Opera House, it was designed by Miklós Ybl, a major figure of 19th-century Hungarian architecture. Construction began in 1875, funded by the city of Budapest and by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, and the new house opened to the public on the 27 September 1884.
I got this ice cream at Erdei Fagyizó Opera, behind the Opera House. I am obsessed with POPPY SEED EVERYTHING, and so far, from what I can see, so is Budapest, so I’m in heaven. I’ve been getting poppy seed ice cream almost every day. The pink flavor is strawberry and let me tell you…it tasted exactly like a strawberry! It wasn’t overly sweet like something you’d get in the US. An actual strawberry. I felt sad thinking about the terrible quality of US food—often too sweet, too salty, bland, devoid of nutrients…sigh. One of many reasons I find myself in Europe.
Admiring their well-run public transit.
And wishing we had well-run public transit in the US.
The Most Beautiful Cafe in the World
Then I happened upon New York Café. Lettering on the window panes claimed this is “The Most Beautiful Cafe in the World.” Peering through the window, it certainly seemed like a contender! But I haven’t seen every cafe in the world, so I wouldn’t be able to say for sure.
For more images and history, visit their website.
I loved the ornate winged devils holding up the light orbs!
So now, the best part!
I circled back to the Jewish Quarter where I was staying and admired the beauty of the grittiness of this particular street. I love the van covered in graffiti and scribbles.
I wasn’t planning on going inside anywhere. I was really thinking about getting back to my place and getting ready for bed. It was about 8:30 PM. But when I walked by this building pictured, with a frenzy of people outside, my curiosity was piqued. I could see lights just beyond the door.
I had to check it out.
I gave the door guy side eye as I walked past and he gave me a blank, smile-less side eye back, one I’ve found to be typical in Eastern (or Central, as people here might prefer to be called) Europe. What was behind this door?
I was floored by what awaited me! Neon lights every which way, disco balls, scribbles everywhere upon every surface. It was as if some disco freaks commandeered a punk squatters’ den.
I later came to find out that it was part of a network of “Ruin Bars”.
Budapest’s post-communist streets were once littered with abandoned factories and warehouses left to crumble into the ground. But now, come dark, life throbs from inside the brick walls where thousands flock to party. These eerie sites of these parties, each with its own idiosyncratic design and unique character, have been transformed into dynamic hotspots pumping a fresh energy and vitality through Hungary’s capital city.
Read the full description on The Culture Trip website.
It was so glorious! There were maybe 10 separate bars inside and each room opened up into 3 more. I wandered around in complete awe, taking photos and soaking in the chaos, lights, and people. I went upstairs once I got to the back and made my way back to the front of the building, thinking I would then head back downstairs and head home.
But the room at the very front upstairs held exactly the kind of magic I was looking for!
The large room had sitting cushions all over the wood floor. At the front was a man making electronic music live with projected graphic images behind him. The music was downtempo, sometimes ambient, sometimes discordant.
Although many heads popped into the room to check out where the music was coming from, the cushions remained empty. I looked around and thought, “Well, what the heck, I’ll start!” I sat down on a cushion on the floor.
I remained there for over an hour, using the music to guide me into a trance. I let myself surrender completely to the music and sound vibrations, following the feelings where they took me. Images, memories, and people appeared and I welcomed them.
I remembered a rainy day in San Francisco in my 20s—it was 2011. I was visiting my friends’ co-live-and-work art gallery space called The Merchants of Reality in SOMA. We put on the trippy film Synecdoche, New York and all sat on various cushions with blankets on the floor. I think there was popcorn. It was the coziest of moments and I felt so happy surrounded by my friends and that they let me pretend to be cool with them for one weekend (they were and still are very cool).
I remembered as a kid in the mid-90s, dancing on a bed, lights out, with my cousin Daniel to the few minimalist electronic songs they had on their family’s computer—one of the first families I knew to have a computer in their home. “We’re meditating!” we would say as we let the music regulate us. We were probably 10 years old.
I remembered an early date with Kevin, a former boyfriend who tragically passed away too young. This was 2017. We attended an ecstatic dance event together in San Diego—a friend was DJing. “You sure you’re down for this?” I asked him as we parked and walked toward the venue, a cafe with a yoga studio in the back. I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was consenting to. Ecstatic dance events don’t include alcohol. Sober dancing—awkward, especially for those newly dating! We walked in, saw all the weird yoga hippies being their weirdest, most authentic selves dancing in the yoga room, and froze, looking at each other.
“Are we really going to do this?" our eyes said to each other, eyebrows raised.
And we seemed to agree that we could. A breath and then…we went all in, dancing for hours, letting the self-consciousness fade into the semi-dark space. I wanted more moments from that relationship to feel free, joyful, brave, and connected like that one, but those moments were heart-breakingly rare.
As I sat in the Ruin Bar, “meditating,” I thought, “Still, I’m grateful for you, even amid all the grief.” And something I was holding onto melted a little bit—became easier to carry.
I introduced Daniel and Kevin to each other and invited them to sit with me and enjoy the music. They got along well and stayed for a while but eventually said goodbye. At this point, the song being played had reached a dramatic crescendo and tears streamed down my face. It was dark so I let them.
Afterward, I journaled in my notes app: “feeling centered. At peace. Whole. Connected. With all my loved ones, past and present, all the love around me. Every good vibe. Every delightful memory. Every joyous moment. And the grief.”
As I sat there, various people joined and left the cushions all around me. When I got back to my bed I felt lighter.
I had set the intention of “I’ll just walk around until I find something cool” and I found the coolest, most healing, most magical thing. I felt profound gratitude.
