Kecskemét, Hungary

On what appears to the last day of Indian summer here in Hungary, we booked a tour to the plains south and east of Budapest to see a little (a very little) of the town of Kecskemét, known as the Garden of Hungary. This is a town of 100k or so located in the heart of farmland.

As seems to be the case in every Hungarian town, there is a statue of Kossuth Lajos, The Governor-President of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848-49. Do not ask what a Governor-President is, for I do not know.



Of course, we did not ride 1.5 hours from Budapest to make a 45 minute visit to this town, interesting though it may be. We had other items on the agenda, as you will see in the next few days of blogging.

One of the few places we got to see in a bit more detail (more below) was the Franciscan Church. While not on the scale of Szt. Istvan (what is, really?), it is a very nice little church.

As we walked about the very large pedestrian square in the center of town, we came across this interesting Secessionist masterpiece completed in 1902. It has been an art gallery since WWII and holds over 10,000 pieces works.

A series of shops and restaurants had a facade with a nice symmetry.

With the meter running on our short time, we decide to spend the bulk of it in the Church you saw above.

It is delicately decorated in a pinkish purple (mauve?) pastel shade that is quite unlike anything I've seen elsewhere.

With my usual fascination with chandeliers and ceilings, I couldn't resist a shot or two looking up to find symmetry and patterns.

The pulpit was different from what we usually see with the stairs hidden behind the wall and a door. This produces a pulpit that seems to be suspended over the congregants.

From the other side, you can see the decorations and the edge of the door more clearly.

The rear loft houses a pretty sizable organ.

In the next block is the József Katona Theater. Curiously, in front of it is this is the monument to mark the passing of the 1742 outbreak of the plague. That's what I call a long memory. And just so you know, the guy on the left with all the arrows sticking out of him is St. Sebastian. The virtues of having a wife that taught parochial school in a former life are endless.

We scurried back to the van and loaded up for the next, main, portion of our visit to the plains of Pest.