A Pinay in Europe

My ideal market……is in Budapest

The vendors still use old-fashioned weighing scales

It has seating areas to sort out your shopping

If you don’t want to use the stairs, you can take the elevator

It is clean and pleasant

It has three levels of market splendour

They sell those cute souvenir items

One eatery uses office desks as dining tables

It has an art gallery

It’s the covered market of Lehel

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I have a feeling this is a “communist-era” doorbell…

My perfect shopping mall…..is in Budapest!
WestEnd City Centre

A refreshing vertical water garden

Banners commemmorating the 1848 revolution against the Hapsburgs

Behind…errr above the scenes..of a bar

The food court

Sofas like these everywhere, in all floors, so that customers and windowshoppers alike can rest and lounge.

but i don’t think i like this

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The Hungarians love their flyers. They even place containers by the door just to accommodate them. In France and the UK, there would be signs saying: “No publicity please!”

This way? where exactly?

Budapest is renowned for its cheap but high quality dental treatment. Walking the street one day, I discovered that they also cater to sculpting butts! (poster on the left)

A ladies’ hairdresser

Walking along Dob Utca (Dob Road), this medieval looking passageway attracted my attention.  It leads to a courtyard where old houses are standing.  Looking at the age-worn walls, I felt I was walking back in time…

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BREIL SUR ROYA
A 17th/18th century mountain town in the Roya Valley.

The fast flowing river of the Roya valley. Adventurous tourists from all over Europe flock here in spring and summer to do kayaking.

“This medieval tower is round but not circular”, as written on a plaque

You will find shrines like this on your way to the top. “Annee Mariale 1949″ (Marian Year 1949)

Signages are installed on footpaths pointing to the direction of nearby hamlets or villages and the amount of time it takes to walk there. For example: Peve…1 hour

The rock formation is astonishing!

Like a cable car, this box transports harvested olives (and probably it’s owner!) from the top of the hill, across the river, and down into the main road.

I traced the cable and this is where it ends on the other side. I highlighted it with a broken line so you can see it. The boxed highlight is their mailbox.
That’s the main road where Italians and the French continuously outrace each other despite it’s being zigzaggy and narrow.

A house with olive plantation.
The hills of Breil are half-covered with terraced olive groves.

An old viaduct

A tree growing horizontally.

Sheeps’ skulls displayed by the gate of the olive grove’s owner’s cottage.

The ramparts that surround the village end at this gate.
For centuries, it was one of the three gates which enclose the village at night. Story goes that wolves would come around and howl in the night.

Chapelle Saint Antoine
This chapel was constructed in the Middle Ages.
Travellers on their way to their destinations would stop on this spot
to pray for protection against bandits who rob and attack passersby.

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We went shopping for food today at a supermarket in Ventimiglia, a seaside market town of Italy just off the French border.  It’s not so much a desire to buy Italian food, it is the nearest biggest supermarket where we live. 
After disposing our shopping in the car, we proceeded to take a walk towards the town center.  It was a beautiful sunny day, the first day of Spring (yes, it’s 21st of March!) and Italian sights and sounds never fail to excite us. 
Walking past an old gigantic wall which we instantly recognized as the cemetery, we decided to go inside and take a glimpse.  Everytime we drive past this place, it always triggers our curiosity  when we see people in their best clothes coming and going through the wide iron gate.  For us, a European cemetery is a place worth visiting as much as the tourist spots for it offers almost the same type of curiosity you would find as in a historic monument or medieval building e.g. the eclectic architecture of the tombs, the writings on the tombstones which tell a story of the dead’s past life, the year of death which oftentimes occurred in the 19th century, photographs of the dead when they were still alive are displayed, and the flowers…a massive profusion of flowers!  Whether they are fresh or artificial, it gives the impression that in this part of the world, the living revers their dead for eternity! 

H:  you don’t see this expanse of flowers in England! 
M:  in the Philippines, you won’t see that much either!  Only around  All Saints Day!

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Empty shoes on the quayside near the Parliament building
Sculpture of shoes commemmorating the sad end of the Hungarian Jews as they were pushed by the Nazis into the Danube then shot to die.

This is a statue of Stalin’s boots at the Memento Park outside Budapest. Oh yes, it is the real thing! This is the only part left on the platform when they toppled the upper part of the statue to celebrate the end of the Communist regime in 1989. More Communist statues can be seen in the park.

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The route of our Eurolines bus was France-Italy-Austria-Hungary and later to proceed to Poland.

As soon as we entered the Austrian border, I noticed the big difference!

- green, green and green everywhere. The country’s obsession with trees is obvious. On both sides of the motorway, the hilly green landscape is covered by trees! Trees that seem to have been planted not too long ago or I can assume that there is continuous planting of trees so that the older ones can be used as logs for heating.

- like Switzerland, it’s perfection! bales of hay perfectly stacked up, green fields with nary a speck of blemish, houses or buildings painted in greens, yellows, oranges…probably to cover up their plain almost uniform designs which is a sloping roof, a box, and load of windows. I also noticed their non-adherence to terraces! Restaurants or motorway stops designed like disneyland castles, art painted on motorway walls as if to take the passing motorists on an art gallery ride to his destination.

Windmills, hundreds of them, like I’ve never seen so much of these rotating metals in just one country in my whole European life

Our Eurolines bus stopped at Vienna Airport to pick up passengers. I saw this overwhelming structure and took a shot of it from our moving vehicle. Googled it later and learned that it is the Vienna Airport Control Tower.

The new 109-metre tower has been the new landmark of Vienna Airport since October 2007. It is currently one of the tallest airport control towers in Europe.

Above two designs are the back and front of a single Morrison column. They use a lot of these columns for theatre, concert and exhibition advertising.

The courtyard of Erdberg Mall just next to the bus station where I was waiting

The countryside where we drove past has no signs of graffiti that I was starting to venerate the country as the cleanest in Europe, however, as soon as we entered the city of Vienna, they all started to come in sight, one by one, but nicely done!

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It was our plan to be there as early as 10am so that (1) we could catch the opening ceremony of the Fete de l’Olive (2) we could find a parking space as the village is so narrow and expect it to be overflowing with visitors and cars due to the festivities (3) so we could have our lunch on time and leave earl-ish in time for my bus to Budapest.

But as they say, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, and we ended up getting there at 11:30am. No more parking space, of course, but unexpectedly, the gendarme who was tasked to look after traffic and security (yes, every festivity in even the remotest village or hamlet - i just recently found out that they call a place “hamlet” if there is no church! - in France is always secured by one (or more) gendarme/s) instructed us to go park at the tennis court 2 kms away which is in the next hill and wait for a shuttle bus to pick us up. A shuttle bus was indeed organised to pick and drop visitors - how organised they are!

Castellar.
To get there, you have to drive through a zigzaggy road.
This 16th century village of 300 inhabitants (the extra 700 is scattered in neighbouring hills) is perched on a ridge so narrow that the four streets comprising it run parallel, close together, along the top.

the one and only restaurant in the village

The bus stop in the clouds

handpainted pebbles for sale

Truly Menton-aise lemons and oranges for sale. A recipe for orange wine is displayed infront

Are those reproductions of Gustav Klimt and Paul Gauguin paintings?

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Our car sporting the new 06 plate

It’s our second car’s turn to get its plate number changed to 06. Our appointment with the garage in Menton was at 8:10am and we arrived there just on time.

“Come back in an hour!” the Italian mechanic announced. Great! That gives us enough time to have breakfast in a cafe.  We went off and walked by the main road leading to the sea and old town. We are purely and absolutely now getting fond of Menton! It has all what a desirably livable French town should be - the turquoise-blue sea, the mountains as a backdrop, the colours, the gardens, the fascinating architecture, the historic hilltop village, the chic crowd.  Right,  it seems to attract only the well-heeled and the chic type of tourists. We prefer it several times over than Nice which is the favorite  destination of every budding Tom, Mr Dick and Sir Harry. Cannes doesn’t even come that close.  That film festival town is too artificial and overrated.

Menton, in our minds, is definitely one of the most beautiful towns in the French Riviera!

A Mentonaise house

A commercial building in rue Albini

Palatial hotels, wealthy villas, huge traditional houses built along the craggy hills interspersed with the now blooming mimosas, cypress trees, palm trees.  Frame the scenery with a  blue sky and a blue sea and voila! you are in French paradise! 

We were walking past an avenue of neatly trimmed orange trees,  their plump orange fruits despite looking overripe for the picking, are just hanging there, nary a sign that they will ever be harvested.   They are just purely decorative.  They are there to form part of Menton’s garden landscape, to bolster what the town is known for:  the citrus capital of France. 

The orange trees that ornate Menton.  The orange sculptor towering above the trees is part of the Fete du Citron (Lemon and Orange Festival) display that takes place every February, however, due to the vast amounts of citrons required for the festival which the town cannot possibly supply, they have to import the fruits from Spain.

The “orange” entrance to the lemon festival park.  Too bad that the festivity was over when we got there!

 We found a cafe some few hundred meters from the garage.  The cafe crème and  pain au chocolat were awesome!  Just perfect to clinch our admiration of Menton,  but it came with a price - 7.50euros! Oh well, nothing is cheap in France anymore!

The daily morning market beneath the railway bridge was on. It is not the typical open air market since we didn’t notice any cheese nor charcuterie kiosk, just the usual stalls of plants-in-season, fruits and vegetables plus a fish stand.  Looking at the prices, we would pay more for a kilo of sole than an Easyjet flight from Nice to Paris!  But seafoods always cost an arm and a leg in France so that doesn’t surprise us.

We walked back to the garage. We were excitedly looking forward to seeing the plate 06 already fitted in the car. Getting back to using the Alpes-Maritimes plate gives us a certain pride…a confirmation of our Cote d’Azur sense of belonging!    

The mechanic was interestingly chatty but he is one heck of a car engine expert. He knows cars like the back of his hands.  Take it from the Italians who live and breathe cars (unless they are busy flirting and extolling their macho virtues).  H echoes the famous saying, “the car symbolizes their (Italians’) p&nis!”.  

And just when we are already contemplating giving our Renault Safrane a ceremonial trip to the junkyard in less than 2 years’ time  for approaching the 300,000 km mark comes this engine virtuoso’s timely advice that this car could easily run tens of thousands of kilometers more, and if we task him to sell it for us, it will get snapped up quickly!  It is a car model known for its road durability and efficiency hence a most-sought after!  The cars of today, even if you buy them brand new,  after 40,000 km on the road, will start manifesting engine troubles that you will find yourself taking it for repair every six months on end!  

“No, don’t give up your car yet.  It will still give you more years of reliable service.  Just keep driving them at a regular rotating speed, that will allow the engine to self-clean and thus extend its life.”  (or something to that effect…  I am as a car moron as the next person but I am trying my best to relate what was said by Mr Italian mechanic).  “And driving in the autoroute at long distances is the best way to do it.” That, incidentally, is what we are already doing because of H’s constant job relocation and, between his work travels, come our holiday travelling to different cities of Europe, a part of our life that will remain constant, so we do need a truly reliable car.

Gosh, how he talks with authority!  That even though the bill came to a whooping 100euros (new plates at 42euros and oil change at58euros), I wanted with utmost sense of gratitude dab his grease and soot-tempered hands with kisses and joyful tears for waking us up over an aging and erroneous judgment against the Safrane.  If not for this dear Italian p&nis err…car mechanic,  we would definitely be waving goodbye to our old baby, our mobile home, our Jack-of-all-uses!  But we have all the more a reason to celebrate today…it is now sporting a 06!

(Note: 06 refers to the Department of the Alpes-Maritimes or Cote d’Azur.  Our previous car plate ends in 83 which is the Department of the Var.  Owing to the sale of our house in the Var and our consequent relocation to the Cote d’Azur, our car plates have to be changed accordingly.  Just as soon as the change of address is effected at the Motor Section of the Prefecture, we have two days to get new car plates fitted in the car.)

Menton, the garden town, the pearl of France. It borders Italy, Monaco and Nice. It is situated at the edge of the Mediterranean sea on one side and the foot of the Alps on the other. Warm and lively colours, subtropical vegetation, the sun shines more than 300 days a year. Famous for its annual lemon parade (February)

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