Szentendre's Skanzen - Ethnography on Display

As Don recounted earlier, Szentendre is a lovely artist’s colony about 8 kilometers outside of Budapest. In addition to its lovely “antique town” district, the area also houses the largest outdoor ethnographic museum in Europe called Skanzen about 3 kilometers outside Szentendre. Since we had to be in Latky, Slovakia that afternoon to visit Reni’s parents and pick up our luggage, we only had a few hours to spend there. The place is fascinating; the museum curators have arranged for old houses to be brought to this place and displays set up to give museum-goers the chance to observe how Hungarians actually lived from 1700 to 1900.

In this instance, a picture (and a good caption) is worth a thousand words. Another charming feature of this museum is that an old railroad car transports people in between the various points of the museum—and the conductor is dressed in period uniform—and his colleague has to jump out of the car and place the switch on the tracks. You get a sense of how glorious train travel was—and also how very slow!

The early 20th century Hungarians were very conscious of keeping their carbon footprint at a minimum

 A thatched-roof barn to hold thatch (and hay). The space in the middle was used as a garage - they drove their wagons in and pitched the hay into the mows on either side. This one was from about 1910.

The buildings were essentially log cabins with clay daub plastered between the chinks.

This is one of two rooms in the house - set here for a banquet to celebrate the marriage of the family's daughter.

Cooking and heating all in one - in this setting surrounded by the paraphernalia to squeeze grapes.

Guides and interpreters dressed in the clothing of the day tell the story of each cluster of buildings.

In many homes the men and women slept separately - this is where the men slept. Pat called it the 19th century man cave.

 We turned the car in with nary a scratch—which is pretty amazing when I tell you that Don drove 7, 515 MILES—that’s across the United States back and forth and more. We were very careful to observe the drinking and driving laws (zero tolerance especially in Hungary) and did our best to observe the speed limits. Now I’ll let Don tell you his story of bonding with the Slovakian Police (not to worry Mom, Dad, and Genny, we lived to tell the tale!) I am writing this in the airport at Frankfurt, Germany (our 13^th county but who’s counting) while waiting for our connection to Malta.

"Bonding?"

After successfully negotiating speed traps in 11 countries, I got nailed in Slovakia in what I consider to be a particularly underhanded fashion. Stash and Hans (I mean no disrespect - lol - they did not identify their names), the finest of a town whose name we can’t even remember (or pronounce) set up a radar gun on the outskirts of town – where there really is no town. The rule in Slovakia and Bulgaria, and Serbia is, 50 km/hour from the instant the car crosses the village line. That’s 90 km/hr to 50 in nothing flat. The penalty (in this case) is two weeks in the slammer unless I pay 30 euro on the spot. I was going a mere 64 km/hr – that’s about 40 mph. But Hans (or was it Stash) stuck his stick with a red circle out and waved me into a side street. I tried to give him 50 Kuna (Croatian money worth about $8), but he wouldn’t take it. He wanted 30 euro. So, luckily I had a 50 euro tucked in my passport case. He took it, had me sign a document saying I would be a good boy, and took out his wallet to make change. The 50 went right where the 20 had been. A good night for Stash and Hans. Not a good night for road warrior. Not only was I 30 euro poorer, I was doomed to admit that Pat was absolutely right. Double – no triple the pain. Maybe two weeks in the Slovak slammer might have been preferable. Note that this was the day before we turned in the car….