Day 21: 24th June. Istanbul

Our stay in Istanbul was simply too short for what we wanted to do: soak in the city in a week.
We'll be back there soon enough and will make sure we cover the rest of the country too.
I have been in Turkey for a total of 25 days in the past one year, but the rest of the team shares my sentiments: It's so lovely, we'll just have to come back for more!

Great food, great people, and fabulous history and sights.









And, our last view of this great city, once the capital of four different empires in countless different eras.


The end of our trip had drawn to a conclusive but meaningful conclusion. We have traversed the continent of Europe overland from Belgium to the European tip of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Look out for our exhibition coming up in July 2005 at the National Museum, Singapore. Our opening is on the 8th of July, 2005; and the guest-of-honour is the Ambassador of Hungary to Singapore, His Excellency Dr Gyorgy Nanovfszky.

Our upcoming trip next year will cover the south- north axis of the European continent. Hopefully, we'll have more fun, more time, and more photos!

Day 20: 23rd June. Istanbul

We arrived finally in Istanbul and make our way to the heart of the old town centre, Sultanahmet, where the famous blue mosque awaited us just a hundred metres from our hotel. We checked into one of the most charming little hotels in Istanbul, and quite possibly Europe.

One of my favourite portraits during this trip, this man sells walnuts and apricots along the corner of one street in the Spice Bazaar. He proffered a piece of apricot when shown a display of his portrait on my LCD.


People in Istanbul are extremely friendly and always manage to find a way to win their way into your heart and smiles.


This is the library in our luxuriously suited up hotel. Often used by diplomats and ambassadors during their private stays, this is as special as it gets here in Istanbul.


Pigeons taking flight in Beyazit Square frame these two boys as they stroll across the plaza.


This is one of the main means of public transport in Istanbul, a city divided by two bodies of water; the Golden Horn separating old and new towns, and the Bosphorus separating European and Asian sides of the city.


This boy kindly offered to be my model for this great shot, sparing myself the need to use myself *shudder* as one.

Day 19: 22nd June. Bucharest.

Our train was supposed to arrive at 9am in the morning but we managed somehow to be in the right train at the right time - there was a delay of 4 hours because our track was one of those that the rail strikes for today had affected. This more or less crippled the countryside simply for some union to flex their collective muscle. Whatever the case, we proceeded on and arrived at Bucharest Gare du Nord at 1pm, hungry and not too tired, having had more sleep and rest than was usual for us the past 3 weeks.

Bucharest is one of those cities in flux - making that leap from crazy to trendy; and now is the time to jump in for the ride!
You never quite know what you're going to get.
Radu of Tiriac brought us out for dinner that evening and showed us the side of Bucharest that few people see; that extremely urbane, civilised, and even comfortable side.
Part of us wanted to run out and hit the streets and get a little bit rough, but we truly did enjoy the fine food and fine company. The Romanians are excellent cooks, and great hosts. You'd never be let down by that.

Our arrival by the Gare du Nord was easily navigated as I was here just six months ago.


This is the frescoed ceiling of the Stavropoleos Church, and it is quite a refreshing change from all the sculptures in the Western churches. Some of us were actually having too much of Churches and Museums. "Enough Already!"


This lady sold original furs from animals of all sorts, from foxes to witches to mooses.

Day 18: 21st June. Szentendre. Transit into Romania

Our Journey took us today from the little town of Szentendre (St. Andrew) and then by train into the Gare du Nord at Bucharest.
It promised to be a long and eventful journey, and it was.

First Szentendre: This little town north of the Danube from Budapest promised to be one of those little hidden jewels set along the Danube awaiting our discovery. Indeed, right after our exploration of the nearby Open Air Museum, our hunches were proven right.
There, we found entire cottages, churches, monateries, peasant farms, even windmills, which had been properly disassembled from their originla locations and then carefully carried here and painstakingly restored to their natural selves.
What would have taken a week or more for us to explore turned out to be a delightful half-day trip through this little wonder of a museum.

We paid a final visit to the St. Stephen's Basilica just before we left, as we were unable to enter 2 days before due to the huge number of wedding ceremonies on a Saturday.

These neighbours along the street said their afternoon greetings and updated each other on their day.

Day 17: 20th June. Hortobagy, Hungary.

Today, we set out for Hortobagy, another wine growing region, but there is also an open-air historical and cultural museum here.

Day 16: 19th June. Tokaj, Hungary.

Today, we set out east from the Danube to discover the "Wine of Kings, and the King of Wines", as the French King Louis XIV aptly named, the Tokaj Aszu wines.
These wines are made from berries that acquire a "noble rot" which occurs only in a fungus that exists only in this region. The wine region Tokaj itself has been a UNESCO listed World Heritage site since 2002, and the largest estate, the Tokaj Hetszolo, was the one we went to for our special tour and wine tasting.

 We stopped by the little town of Eger on our way to Tokaj.

 Our team doing an impression of faces =)

At the Tokaj-Hetszolo Vineyards.

Rows upon rows of maturing vines, and tiny little berries of grapes emerging. The harvesting season is extremely late, in October.

And this is where we try all the wines! Fabulous ambience! In these natural caverns, the wines are left to mature symbiotically with a fungus that grows naturally in these caves only, and the fungus maintains a constant 9 deg Celsius temperature in these caves using the alcohol evaporating from the maturing wines. Natural "air-conditioning"!

There is nothing to match a Tokaj Aszu for its sweetness and pure flavour. Whereas ice wines have sugar added, the Tokaj Aszu have their sugar content purely from the Aszu berries which are affected by the fungal fermentation. This, together with an extremely difficult yield, results in these wines costing a huge amount per bottle, and are appreciated by wine connoisseurs the world over.

Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication, equated with the Greek Dionysus, celebrates the Tokaj Aszu at the entrance of our Wine Cellar.

Day 15: 18th June. Budapest, Hungary.

The "Jewel of the Danube", "Queen of the Danube", and the other nicknames for this truly dynamic city, are fitting ones for such a vibrant and exciting place Budapest has evolved into.
Steeped with history, romance, culture, the arts, and certainly, nightlife, Budapest is not a city to miss. It's one of our favourite cities and certainly the one we most want to return to.

There is simply so much to see and do along the Danube here, there is barely time enough to cover it all!
The Parliament, one of the biggest in the world with over 700 rooms; the Buda Castle perched atop Buda hill, Gellert Hill just adjacent to it; St. Stephen's Basilica rising high above the rest of the city skyline. All these sights are visible from both Buda and Gellert hills, and certainly most enjoyable from a high vantage point. Our panorama of the city skyline will be available at our exhibition.

This young lady was dressed in traditional Hungarian folk costume for her cousin's wedding. She was posing for all five of us, who went happily snapping away and (she) almost reluctantly gave up her newly found stardom.

This evening, there was a fireworks along the Danube for the occasion of a new Guinness World record. Over 3000 couples kissing on the Szechenyi bridge at the same time.