If you've read Now You See It, Now You Don't you'll know it's divided into 5 parts - one for each of the flats we lived in during the first seven years of our stay, 1982-1989, before communism ended. I also taught in a number of towns around the country.
Here, if you like, are the missing illustrations of those places with short quotes from my book....
On the hot August afternoon when we arrived in our VW Beetle from England in 1982, we headed straight for the flat of our oldest Hungarian friend. From there he took us to the tiny flat where we spent the first few months of our stay.
Here, if you like, are the missing illustrations of those places with short quotes from my book....
On the hot August afternoon when we arrived in our VW Beetle from England in 1982, we headed straight for the flat of our oldest Hungarian friend. From there he took us to the tiny flat where we spent the first few months of our stay.
Budapest VIII: Rákóczi tér |
Budapest XI: Vántus Károly utca |
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"We had arrived. Rákóczi tér: a square with a huge covered market and stalls spilling on to the pavement, grubby children playing in a fenced-off area, old men engrossed in chess under straggling trees and, on the corner, two girls loitering and smoking - the regulars, who have made the name of Rákóczi tér synonymous with prostitution.
...The huge stained-glass windows overlooking the square formed an extraordinary mural of parrots and palm trees..." Click here to see reviews of my book on Amazon and here for details of how to buy my book on Amazon Kindle, or from Stanfords in London and Bestsellers in Budapest. |
"We crossed the river from Pest to Buda and passed the many buildings of the University of Technology, then into a quiet street: Vántus Károly utca, a street of trees and small blocks of four-storey flats, with larger, ten-storey blocks not far away.
‘Where's the nearest shop?’ I asked Péter. ‘Well, there are a couple of small ones in the next street: a butcher, a greengrocer and grocer, but if you walk a bit further there's an enormous shopping centre called the Skála. You can buy everything there from food to furniture. By the way, if you see any washing powder you should buy it. There's been a shortage, and though we've left you some, you'll soon need more.’ Whether it was the washing powder itself that was in short supply or the card used to make the boxes became the subject of a short debate, but whatever the reason, I made a mental note to buy some as soon as I found it." |