A leafy suburb in Budapest

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The Garden City and Garden Suburb movements flourished in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first couple of decades of the twentieth. I was brought up in London’s Hampstead Garden Suburb, whose construction began in 1907. My family home was built in 1908. I have written about the Suburb in my book “GOLDERS GREEN & HAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB: VISIONS OF ARCADIA”. Because of my interest in garden suburbs, I decided to visit the Wekerle Estate in Budapest.

The leafy Wekerle Estate – Wekelertelep in Hungarian – was named after a former Prime Minister Sándor Wekerle, who who favoured the idea of building comfortable, human-scale housing estates for government employees. The estate was inspired by the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, the ‘father’ of the idea of Garden Cities.

Construction of the Wekelertelep began in 1908 and continued until 1925. The estate is built around a large central square, which contains a park, and roads radiate out from it in 8 directions. The buildings in the estate range from one to four or five storeys. Many trees and garden plots give the estate a leafy, open feeling. The architecture of the buildings is picturesque. It includes many features of Transylvanian vernacular styles. The buildings surrounding the central square are the ‘stars’ of the show. They include two gateways that differ in design. These and the edifices around the square, which vary in appearance, were designed by Károly Kós (1883-1977), who was born in what is now Romanian territory. He was not only an architect, but also a writer, a politician both in Hungary and Romania, and an ethnologist.

The Wekelertelep has 4 schools. By chance, we chatted briefly with the great-grandaughter of the first principal of one of them. She told us that 4 generations of his family have lived on the estate.

Another person whom we met was a sweet old lady – the caretaker of the Wekerle Worker’s St. Joseph Church. Very kindly, she unlocked the large neo-Romanesque Roman Catholic church for us. Designed by Bela Heintz, it was constructed between 1926 and 1930. Its spacious interior is decorated with many frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The caretaker – a tiny lady – guided us around inside the church, carefully explaining the numerous religious paintings, sculptures, and stainedglass windows to us in Hungarian, a language I barely understand. She was thorough. She did not want us to miss a thing. At the end of the tour, she sweetly hugged and kissed each of us.

This church, like the two main churches in Hampstead Garden Suburb, is next to the central square. However, unlike Hampstead Garden Suburb in which its founder Henrietta Barnett forbade the presence of shops, restaurants, pubs, and so on, the square in Wekelertelep has shops, cafés, and restaurants. The absence of such communal facilities renders Hampstead Garden Suburb’s central square a rather desolate, soulless place. In contrast, the square in Wekelertelep with its pleasant park and commercial establishments adds to the liveliness and vibrancy of this pleasant suburb.

I am very glad we trekked out of the centre of Budapest to view Wekelertelep not only because I wanted to see how it compares with Hampstead Garden Suburb but also it turned out to be one of Budapest’s delightful surprises.

It is amazing whom you meet by chance on a train in Hungary

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Today, 24 September 2026, we visited the picturesque town of Szentendre, which is about 10 miles north of Budapest. While returning from there by train we met a couple, and began chatting with them …

Before telling you about our brief encounter, here is some essential background information. The family of my wife’s mother hail from Mandvi in Kachchh (Kutch), which is now a part of the Indian state of Gujarat. We often visit Kachchh, especially Mandvi and the larger town Bhuj, which is the capital of Kachchh. I have written much about these places in my latest book “Road To Heaven – A passage through India”.

The couple we began chatting with on the train looked Indian and smiled at us, which was why we began speaking with them. They have lived in Sweden for many decades, and were visiting Budapest with a Swedish tour group. We soon discovered that they spoke Gujarati, one of the languages that my wife speaks fluently. In her family home, conversations between family members were mainly in Gujarati. We were surprised to be conversing in Gujarati with strangers on a suburban train in Hungary. We were not expecting such a situation.

Our surprise increased by leaps and bounds when we learned that the couple’s families had originated in Kachchh. Both families had come from Bhuj – a place we have visited many times.

Both the man and his wife had been born in Uganda, and their families had been thrown out of the country when Idi Amin had forced Indians to leave in 1971. Some of my wife’s cousins, also of Kachchh origin, were amongst those who had to leave their homes and businesses in Uganda. Many of the Indians expelled from Uganda have become successful entrepreneurs in the UK.

One of our new acquaintances had fled from Uganda to Sweden, which welcomed the refugees from East Africa, and the other had moved to India. Both his and her families had been friends in the Ugandan city of Kampala prior to Idi Amin’s expulsion of the Asians. Friendship between the two families resulted in the couple’s arranged marriage. Since then, the couple have been living and working in Sweden.

This chance meeting on the train was remarkable. I wondered what is the probability that two sets of strangers, both Gujarati speaking and both with origins in Kachchh, would meet on a short train journey in the environs of the capital of Hungary. It was a pretty unlikely , but it happened.

A synagogue in Budapest then and now

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The Dohány Street Synagogue in central Budapest is now a major tourist attraction, visited by swarms of visitors. It is the largest surviving synagogue in Europe. Highly restored and well-maintained, it is a glorious site, but also a memorial to the awful fate of Hungarian Jewish people in the last year’s of WW2.

The first time I visited this place of worship was in the early 1980s, when Hungary was still part of the Soviet bloc, under control of the Russians. Unlike today, 2026, then there was no queue of tourists waiting to see the building.

To enter it back on the early 1980s, one simply went to the watchman and asked permission see the interior.

On the afternoon when I went there, I was not the only person in the watchman’s small office. There was a German and an two Americans – a couple.

The watchman asked us where we were from. The German answered first, and the caretaker said:

“Come back this evening when the service is being held”.

The German left, and the man turned to us. When he heard that we were not German but British and American, he admitted us to the interior of the great synagogue.

The place was not in a good condition. It looked as if it was falling to pieces and needed a great deal if care and attention.

The three of us looked around the ill-lit synagogue without saying anything. Then, as we walked towards its exit, the American said in all seriousness:

“Back home, the Fire Department would not approve of this place. It contravenes all fire regulations.”

And that is all he could say about a building whose existence is a reminder of a community that was all but wiped out a few years before we visited the synagogue.

It always amazes me how differently people see the same thing. For me, the synagogue was a moving experience; for the American it was poor example of health and safety; and for todayourists, it is yet another ‘must see’ item to tick off one’s Budapest ‘bucket list’.

Trieste and the fragrant odour of sauerkraut

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The first time I visited Trieste was by car in the 1980s. As I wanted to avoid having to drive within the city and because I was worried about parking there, I stopped on a village near Trieste. My idea was to leave the car there, and enter the city by local bus.

I parked close to a restaurant. As soon as I opened the car door, the odour of sauerkraut, a foodstuff that I adore, assailed my nose. Immediately, I entered the trattoria, and ordered a dish with sauerkraut – a food preparation I had not expected to find in Italy.

Well, I should not have been surprised. The part of Italy containing Trieste is not only close to sauerkraut eating areas such as Austria and the former Yugoslavia, but was also once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Today, 21 September 2026, I was back in Trieste. At lunch, I ordered a “Triestino”. It was a plate with cooked ham, potatoes fried with onions, raw horseradish, mustard, and … SAUERKRAUT! Needless to say, it was delicious.

A small town in Italy near Slovenia

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For less than the price of a single journey ticket on one of the water buses in Venice, you can buy a return ticket for the 30 minute ferry ride between Trieste and its southern neighbour Muggia – a little port on the northern fringe of the Istrian peninsula. This narrow strip of Italian territory is very near the Slovenian border.

Approaching Muggia by sea, the place’s  modern surroundings, which is all that the arriving traveller can see from the boat, look barely inviting. However, a short walk brings one into the maze of attractive streets and piazzas of the old town.

The cathedral – ‘duomo’ – is in the heart of the old town. It was constructed while Muggia was part of the Patriarchy of Aquilea. Consecrated in 1263, it is a spacious church decorated with freckles, some of which look as if they have been mutilated by a sharp object. We visited this church and two other charming smaller ones – Chiesa del Crocifisso and the Chiesa di S Francisco, which was restored in 1411.

Near the edge of the old town, there is a short cul-de-sac called Calle del Ghetto. It is believed by some that some that Jewish people once lived there, but the evidence is slender. The town’s records do not record any inhabitants processing this religion.

Muggia has a long history, stretching back to prehistoric times. After the decline of the Western Roman Empire, Muggia was under Ostrogoth, Lombard, Byzantine, Avar and Frank dominations, until 931, when king Hugh of Italy donated it to the Patriarch of Aquileia. In 1420, Muggia became part of the Venetian empire,  and remained so until 1797, when Venice fell. The town then became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After WW1,  Muggia became part of Italy, and has remained so ever since. Although between 1945 and 1954 it was part of the short-lived, nominally independent  Free Territory of Trieste – in the sector controlled by the Americans and British. The other sector was under Yugoslav control.

Today, Muggia is a thriving tourist destination. Despite this, it is not overwhelmed: it  is a lovely place to wander about, and there are plenty of places to eat and drink. Much to my surprise,  Muggia seems not to be dominated by tourism. There are plenty of ‘locals’ around. We had coffee in a small bar which had far more locals than visitors. Although the lady who made it was friendly,  the cappuccino she served me was one of the worst I have drunk anywhere.  Maybe, I  was simply unlucky, or, perhaps Muggia  being on the very edge of Italy, the magic of cappuccino has become diluted by being so close to Slovenia.

Exodus from Yugoslavia … for the lucky ones.

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The Lutheran church in central Trieste was built in an austere late gothic style between 1871 and 1874. Outside its west end, in Largo Odorico Panfili, there is a tall cylinder surrounded by transparent glass or plastic. Within the cylinder there are models of people. This artwork is a monument to a tragic era.

The monument called “Momentum”, designed by Jasmine Iannì and Giuseppe Sabatino, is dedicated to the memory of those Italians who fled from areas that had been Italian but had been incorporated into Tito’s Yugoslavia at the e d of WW2. These territories included Istria, Fiume, Dalmatia, and Zadar .

Well, I knew about these refugees, but not about something else commemorated by the monument. What I had not known about were the ‘foibe’ killings – massacres of Italians living in the formerly Italian territories that became part of Yugoslavia. These were, it is said, carrued out by Tito’s communist partisans. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foibe_massacres):

“The estimated number of foibe victims is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands,according to some sources 11,000or 20,000…”

I was horrified to learn about this. I had read that many anti-communist Yugoslavs and other opponents of Tito had been killed or imprisoned at the end of WW2. In the 1980s, I knew the wife of a man who had been imprisoned by Tito in 1945 because he was “the wrong kind of communist”, and was still behind bars in the mid-1980s.

However, until I saw the monument in Trieste today in September 2026, I did not know about the Italians who had been massacred simply because overnight in 1945, they were suddenly living in the wrong place.

You should drink the water from taps in Venice

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In Venice and other towns in Italy, we have been told that for hygienic reasons, customers cannot be served acqua dell rubinetto – tap water.

Seen im Venice

Yet, at bars in those same towns, tap water can be served with a cup of coffee.

And on the water buses in Venice, the city council has put up signs – see my photo – encouraging people to DRINK TAP WATER.

IF tap water was to be served in restaurants, the greedy owners might be deprived of 1 to 4 Euros per bottle of the only kind of water they are prepared to serve.

Six decades at the same bar in Venezia (Venice)

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From early childhood until I was 17 years old I visited Venice with my parents every year for 7 to 10 days.

We used to stay at the Pensione La Calcina on the Zattere shore of the Giudecca Canal – the waterway along which liners, car ferries, and freighters sailed through Venice on their journeys between the Adriatic and the port of Marghera.

It was at La Calcina that John Ruskin stayed in 1877. Back in the 1960s, the coffee served with breakfast at this pensione was almost undrinkable. I hope that now the place has been considerably upgraded, it serves better coffee.

Because of the terrible coffee, the first thing we did after breakfast every day was to walk from La Calcina to the Academia Bridge,  cross it, and then after passing two piazzas, reached Bar il Redentore.

Bar Redentore

The bar occupies a corner plot next to a bridge crossing a narrow canal. There, my parents ordered espresso coffees, and my sister and I would be given small bottles of fruit juice.

The Bar il Redentore is still in business and looks very much as I remember it did in my childhood in the 1960s … and before!This September – 2026 – I  have returned to the little bar twice – once for morning coffee and the other time for beer and cicchetti – Venetian ‘canapés.  And on each visit, I  marvelled at the fact that I have been visiting this bar at intervals for almost than 6 decades.

Across the bridge, there is a small shop that sells artisan paper goods. Like the Bar il Redentore,  that has been in business since before I first visited Venice.

I have loved Venice since as far back as I can remember. Much of it looks as if it has not changed since then, but excessive tourism has done nothing to improve it. Many of the city’s visitors – both foreigners and Italians – are what could be described on Italian as ‘maleducati’ – you can look this up – and selfish. And, with a few exceptions, many of the Venetians have become unfriendly and very mercenary.

Although Venice is truly magical, I am not sure that I want to pay another visit tothis city filled with lovely memories for me. I would rather retain these memories than become disillusioned with La Serenissima.

Locks of love unlocked a distant memory

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About 20 years ago, I visited the waterfalls at Sivasamudra in Karnataka state, India. At one viewpoint,  there was a  fence to which padlocks had been attached. The fence was special; it surrounded the tomb of a Muslim saint.  I had never seen anything like this before.

I asked our well-educated driver, Rahim,  about the locks. His explanation was that people  who had a wish that they wanted fulfilled, attached a lock to the fence and discarded the key. Their belief was that when their wish was granted, God would unlock the padlock.

 

Some years after visiting Sivasamudram, I began noticing bridges in Europe to which padlocks had been attached, often in great numbers. Each lock usually bore a name that had been written on it. These locks are known as ‘love locks’. Their supposed origin was at a bridge in Vrnjačka Banja in Serbia in 1914 (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_lock). Loving couples place padlock is on a bridge or railing, and throw away the key. The lock is placed to symbolise their undying live for one another, rather than to fulfil a wish, such as hoping for a baby or  a spouse, or success in some other venture,  as Rahim explained to us at Sivasamudram.

 

Some bridges have had so many locks attached to them that the weight of these attachments can threaten the structural integrity of the bridge.

 

Locks on a bridge over one of the navigli in Milano

Today, 15 September  2026,when visiting the navigli – the canal network of Milano in Italy  – I spotted neat clusters of lo e locks, which looked a bit like bunches of misshapen grapes. Seeing these lo ks brought back memories of my visit to Sivasamudram,  and inspired me to write this.