Friday, July 17, 2009

Skanzen

Just north of Budapest there is a gorgeous little city on the bank of the Duna, called Szentendre.
Just outside of it there is an open air museum called Skanzen, where they take old houses from different areas of the country, take apart and reassemble it, fill it with appropriate furniture and other household items, and the visitors can see how our ancestors lived.
When Chris had been there with his class in their outing the school wanted no parents there, but once in a while I enjoy seeing all that beauty. Also wanted to spend some real quality time with my boy (who spent his weekdays with his father, and I missed him terribly).
The place is really pretty, but unfortunately despite what they say on their website there was no organized program even on a Saturday afternoon. The site promised spinning, weaving, candle making beading and such, but there was none of that. In fact though they also say there is a bakery on the site, they had NOTHING by 2 PM...
But the place IS pretty with houses like this:


That has interiors like this:

You can see the old fashioned ovens they used to bake bread in:


And the open hearth where they cooked for centuries

Windmill of time...

More gorgeous houses and yards, gardens:

With their wells:

And houses from an other are of the country, just north of the lake Balaton (Can you see how I love those houses with those deep, covered verandas?)

And underground wine cellars:

And even though there were the special breed of sheep called raczka:

We had a hard time to find a working weaving frame... It was a huge favor from the lady (who specifically asked not to have his picture on the net) to show Chris how it works.

But the spindle and the wheel was only decoration.


They had an "eco-playground" with wood toys and such and this bowling with water filled plastic bottles:

We were pretty tired from all that walking around, but still a walk in the city itself was worth going for a bit longer.

All in all I declared the day a lovely outing.

2 comments:

Brussels Chronicles said...

I'm glad you had such a nice day. It's the kind of outing I would like a lot too...

peony said...

All you have to do to come to Hungary and I would take you there...