...great city...
by alirom
Szeged is most famous for its culture, including its various institutions of higher education. The city has a museum of history which attracts about 350 thousand visitors each year, art galleries, movie theaters, dancing clubs, discos, a recently remodeled theater where outstanding performances are presented. During the summer the open air theater in front of the Cathedral attracts over 4000 spectators each night to special opera and musical performances. The Szeged Opera and Ballet Company and its Symphony Orchestra provide a full season of productions. The program for the summer performances can be viewed here. Adjacent to these performances folk festivals, exhibitions, sports events (including speedboat races and regattas on the world class rowing course) and the hospitable swimming pools and beaches make Szeged a desired holiday spot. Szeged has a very extensive library (Municipal Somogyi Library), with about 1 million volumes of books and periodicals, many of them in English, German and French. The universities in Szeged also have specialized libraries. The Central Medical Library contains 138.000 books and periodicals and has a direct medline connection with the European medical data-banks.
Szeged Tip
by Milan
Szeged is most famous for its culture, including its various institutions of higher education. The city has a museum of history which attracts about 350 thousand visitors each year, art galleries, movie theaters, dancing clubs, discos, a recently remodeled theater where outstanding performances are presented. During the summer the open air theater in front of the Cathedral attracts over 4000 spectators each night to special opera and musical performances. The Szeged Opera and Ballet Company and its Symphony Orchestra provide a full season of productions. The program for the summer performances can be viewed here. Adjacent to these performances folk festivals, exhibitions, sports events (including speedboat races and regattas on the world class rowing course) and the hospitable swimming pools and beaches make Szeged a desired holiday spot.
Szeged provides a full-season cultural program, the 'Collegium Artium,' which is a wide-ranging series of lectures on various topics of art, literature and music.
Szeged has a very extensive library (Municipal Somogyi Library), with about 1 million volumes of books and periodicals, many of them in English, German and French. The universities in Szeged also have specialized libraries. The Central Medical Library contains 138.000 books and periodicals and has a direct medline connection with the European medical data-banks.
Among others Szeged has produced many world class swimmers, great chess players, powerful weightlifters. The list virtually goes on and on. The city is also host to many world class races. In 1998 for example Szeged was host to the Kayak-Canoe World Championships!
Opusztaszer - remarkable open air park
by GillianMcLaughlin
No more than 1 hour from Szeged is the Opusztaszer National History Memorial Park. It is a park that has existed only since 1995, and was created as a national memorial to the history and culture of Hungary in general and to the people and traditions of the great southern plains, the Puszta, in particular.
The park can easily absorb a full day in summer, when the traditional homesteads, the yurts (traditional tents), play host to traditional artists, demonstrating their crafts and selling their wares. Indeed there is a full programme of events throughout the year which take place in the park.
The park celebrates the establishment of the Hungarian nation some 1100 years ago. Monuments and a massive cylindrical painting assist the visitor to understand how this great nation was formed from disparate and nomadic tribes. There is also an open-air village museum with some 18 buildings restored to reflect village life in the Szeged area in the 19th century. The buildings include a fisherman's house, a school, a forge, an onion-grower's, a traditional sun-ray house, a grocery and bakery, a windmill, a pub and a narrow gauge railway.
In the 2 hours allowed for our visit we saw the monuments from afar, spent time viewing the panorama painting and the replica street scenes that are exhibited in the same building and visited the school in the restored village. I could easily imagine though spending much longer in this 55 acre park, that has been exquisitely conceived and beautifully built.
There is some conflicting information about opening times. The official website says it's open all year round from 9 to 5, November to March, and from 9 to 7, April to October. The leaflet I was given though said that it is open from 9 to 4 all year round and 9 to 6 during the summer (March to October). Best to phone maybe! Tickets can be reserved in advance.
HUF 1350 adults (around €5.30)
HUF 900 children
HUF 680 entrance to park only
An incredible interior and a spooky crucifix
by GillianMcLaughlin
One evening, the party I was with were treated to an evening of music and lecture in the Cathedral. Many features of the interior artwork and installations were pointed out to us (but not the odd ones I had spotted, like the zodiac signs mentioned above). In the way of these things much of the considerable detailed information whooshed elegantly over my head as dates and numbers of bricks blended into details about the lives of artists.
Two details that did manage to lodge in my brain however are worth passing on to the casual armchair traveller. The organ (which we heard during the concert part of the evening) is HUGE... and I mean GINORMOUS. I am not an expert on these things, but even I was impressed. It is in fact Europe's third largest church organ. I am reliably informed that it has 9,040 pipes ranging in size from 1.5cm to 5m. That sounds pretty impressive to me!
The other fascinating installation that was drawn to our attention is the crucifix you'll find in the photo. It was sculpted by Janos Fadrusz, who pledged it to the city to be hung in the, at the time, non-existent Votive Church. We were told that Janos had difficulty in finding a model willing to hang himself, scantilly-clothed for long enough for the work to be completed. So, not to be daunted, he arranged for himself to be bound to a wooden cross and for a photographer to take shots from all round. These photos were used as the basis of the sculpture, and therefore the face of Jesus is none other than the face of the artist himself.
A rather strange self-portrait methinks!
Cathedral Square Arcades - most colourful plaque
by GillianMcLaughlin
Most of the artwork decorating the arcades round Cathedral square is relatively dull in form. One or two pieces stand out however.
This one depicts Vitos Janos, one-time archbishop of Esztergom. I wins my prize for the most colourful contribution to the square!
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The Church at night.
In front of the Sing Sing
Park
Gate of Heroes
