BUDAPEST: MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS

The Grandma in Budapest. It's Christmas time.

The Grandma has arrived to Budapest this morning on The Orient Express and she has done a little tour round the city which is ornamented with Christmas details. The place is very beautiful and plenty of historic places but the most incredible for her has been to remember the last scenes of Music Box of her favourite films near the original place where it was filmed. 

Music Box is a 1989 American crime drama film that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter (Jessica Lange) an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth. The film was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Costa-Gavras.

Now, The Grandma is having dinner in a luxurious hotel in the downtown of the city and she's reading a guide. Here, you have some explanations about this wonderful eastern city.

More information: Budapest City Hall

Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary, one of the largest cities in the European Union and sometimes described as the primate city of Hungary. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the Danube river with the unification of Buda and Óbuda on the west bank, with Pest on the east bank on November 17, 1873.

The origins of the names Buda and Pest are obscure. According to chronicles from the Middle Ages, the name Buda comes from the name of its founder, Bleda (Buda), brother of the Hunnic ruler Attila. The theory that Buda was named after a person is also supported by modern scholars. An alternative explanation suggests that Buda derives from the Slavic word вода, voda (water), a translation of the Latin name Aquincum, which was the main Roman settlement in the region and where it is believed that Marcus Aurelius wrote at least part of his book Meditations.

The Grandma walking on the snow in Budapest

There are also several theories about the origin of the name Pest. One of the theories states that the word Pest comes from the Roman times, since there was a fortress Contra-Aquincum in this region that was referred to as Pession by Ptolemaios. According to another theory, Pest originates from the Slavic word for cave (пещера, peștera), or oven (пещ, peșt), in reference either to a cave where fires burned or to a local limekiln.

More information: Official Budapest Tourist Information

The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia. Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241–42. The re-established town became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture by the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács and nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after its unification in 1873. It also became the co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a great power that dissolved in 1918, following World War I. Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Republic of Councils in 1919, the Battle of Budapest in 1945, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

 If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow but if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris. 

Gyorgy Ligeti