Budapest to Belgrade in Photographs

A garden scene in the Czech Countryside

I've finally found a place and time once again to jot down some thoughts and to capture in words some of the experiences from the past month. In the interest of brevity, this post will be a photo essay more than a narrative.

It requires all the senses to take in these foreign places and so it can feel all wrong to interrupt such precious time to frame the experience through the lens of a camera. But I have also found that the camera can provide an entirely different way to see the space and light and the people that I encounter along the way. It is impossible to visit the cities of Europe without confronting the vast body of artwork at every bend in the road. From the churches and monasteries, to the castles and palaces, paintings and sculptures and gardens and music. The art quickly outgrows any frames and flows right out into the streets.

Sometimes the art you encounter is frozen in time, like a window into the past. But just as often, it is part of the present: it is alive and changing right up to the moment of the day when the sun and wind and passers by have arrived perfectly at that place to make it what it is and there you are amidst it.

You can only last so long in this environment before you begin to create your own art, before you seek out a way to capture the confluence of history and religion and physical landscape that is waiting around every corner. And of course this experience would not be at all the same without the joy of sharing such time with a loving sister. Photography is just one way to capture all these things and so this is a sampling of my own efforts.

With a couple hours to kill in Prague before our bus ride to

 

Budapest we stumbled upon this wonderful antique store.

At the Basilica in Budapest

Crossing the Danube river from  the Buda side of the city to the Pest side

A square just outside of the indoor market, Budapests version of Pike Place Market in Seattle 

The Parliament building after one of the many afternoon thunderstorms

The view from the balcony of our hostel

The scene at the Szechenyi thermal baths, a Hungarian tradition

Hot bath and a game of chess

These onion-like domes were all around the city

Heading out for the day

Waiting to catch a train to Belgrade, Serbia

Heading south out of the EU

Our train path was marked by vast swaths of agricultual land

Arriving in Belgrade in the late afternoon

An enormous unfinished church many years in the making

Neighborhood market down the street from our hostel

Marah standing on the wall of the Kalamegdan fortress at the highest point in Belgrade

A tribute to the Cyrillic alphabet which made navigating the streets of Belgrade much more difficult