october 2015 - pécs city guide

Pécs City GuideOCT 2015 / Issue 07 / Free

INSIDESilver cranes,

Ice rink renewed,Goose dishes,

Eleven, TV-tower

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October 2015 Pécs City Guide 3

4 In Brief Ice rink revamped, Pécs in Top 10 value tourist gems world-wide 6 Feature Silver cranes 8 Drink&Dine Goose and wine, Eleven 12 To Do Music Harvest Fes-tival, Get Your Gun, Sándor Dobány ce-ramics 14 Essentials Pécs TV tower

Contents&Co

HI, this is the 7th issue of Pécs City Guide magazine and I re-ally hope that you’ll find the upcoming

issues more and more easily since we update our list of distribution locations every month. New places come, others vanish but we try be-ing very up-to-date. You can see the latest list including cultural insti-tutions, cafés, restaurants, gyms, shops and more at the Pécs City Guide website.

Chestnut trees are beautiful in fall, that’s why we chose a picture of the iconic Sétatér for this issue’s cover photo. But be careful while hiking in the Mecsek Hills or just taking a walk under the trees in the city, falling chestnuts can be dan-gerous too.

In the October issue you can read about the renovation of Northern

Castle Wall Promenade and the ice skating rink in Uránváros. Hope-fully the works don’t delay as much as in the case of Pécs Zoo: we told you in the September issue that it will open in the end of October. This information isn’t accurate anymore: officials say now it will open in December only.

Our feature covers the story of Blanka Gajcsi, a jewellery design-er working in Pécs, who started a crowd-funding campaign. You can help her to collect enough money to realize the dream of creating 1000 silver origami crane pendants. Some of the money goes for chari-ty, but see more on page 6.

The next magazine is coming in the second week of November. Until then every feedback or question is appreciated and feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Ervin Gűth, editor

Pécs City Guide / September 2015The free, insert magazine of Dunántúli Napló in English. Editor-in-chief/Publisher: László Póré Managing editor: Ervin Gűth Published by Mediaworks Regionális Kiadó Kft. Baranya Megyei Irodája Sales manager: Gyöngyi Nagy Phone: +36 72 505 060, +36 30 9971 006 E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 08659133Printed by Érdi Rózsa Nyomda, Érd

T h e t im e l e s s c l a s s i c s

F A S H I O N S T O R E I R G A L M A S O K U T C Á J A 1 4. OPEN:M-F:10AM-6PM SAT: 9AM-1PM

DEPOT OUTLET NEW

FALL AND

WINTER

COLLECTION

4 Pécs City Guide October 2015 pecscityguide.com

In Brief

ICE RINK REVAMPED

There were talks about the mod-ernization of the ice skating rink for ages, but the final decision came last season. City officials re-alized that if they don’t do some-thing the facility has to stay closed after the summer break. So, some-how they finally found HUF150 million and the works were initi-ated in the last week of September. If everything goes like planned, the facility will be available in the first week of November. Visitors shouldn’t realize much develop-ments since only the cooling sys-tem had to be exchanged. Other im-provements will hopefully arrive in near future.

There were plans to make an ice skating rink next to the TV tow-er, but someone realized that this wouldn’t be a great idea. For some years a fake ice skating rink was operated in Zsolnay Cultural Quar-ter but currently we have no infor-mation whether the plastic and oil sliding track is coming back this year or not.

Finding winter sport opportuni-ties in Pécs? Not an easy task. At least one of them is getting bet-ter: the ice skating rink in Uran-város is being renovated.

Northern Castle Wall Promenade (Északi Várfalsétány) is one of the hidden gems of Pécs. Located next to the basilica it can be accessed via Káptalan str. It used to be a great place for quite walks and several

ONE MORE PARK RENOVATED

People ordered by court to community service are helping to reno-vate Northern Castle Wall Promenade. Work is coordinated by the NGO Gerillart Association, who have a lot of experience with such projects.

family events took place here earli-er. But in recent years almost noth-ing. This is going to be changed by spring 2016: Gerillart has plans for much more facilities to keep visitors here. Also new plants are coming.

Global hotel comparison website trivago.co.uk has revealed its Best Value Destination Index for 2016. This index combines hotel price data with aggregated user reviews and ratings, resulting in a list of 100 destinations where the hotels are both affordable and highly rated.

The top 3 destinations are: Feng-huang (China), Mostar (Bosnia and

Herzegovina) ,Veliko Tarnovo (Bul-garia). The 4th is quite close to Pécs: Novi Sad (Serbia) can be a good 2-3 day trip at any season. In this lovely town cultural diversity plays a huge role: it has six official languages.

Pécs is the only Hungarian city making it to the Top 10, but Győr (43th) and Szeged (50th) played well too.

PÉCS IN WORLD’S 10 BEST VALUE TOURIST GEMS

The hotel comparison site Trivago announced that Pécs made it to the Top 10 Best Value City Destinations for 2016. The 8th place isn’t bad at all, on the other hand there are a lot of services that need improvement.

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Feature

1000CRANES1000WISHES

Making 1000 origami cranes out of silver is not an easy task. Some might say it’s quite a crazy com-mitment. But it could be a dream coming true for Blanka Gajcsi, who makes a living by creating exciting art of jewellery in her own studio in a basement in downtown Pécs.

The idea came to her when learn-ing about the story of Sakado Sasa-ki. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. The ca-tastrophe of Hiroshima caused Sakado to struggle with leukaemia until the age of 12. By this time, the time of her death she could only fold 644 origami cranes, but the rest were completed by loved ones and school friends. In 1943 the lit-tle girl was laid to rest with the 1000 cranes.

Blanka learned folding origa-mi cranes several years ago with a mission in mind. Her goal is now to collect enough money with the help of online crowd-funding on Kick-starter to make the cranes.

Pécs-based designer Blanka Gajcsi would like to make 1000 origami cranes out of silver. A part of the money col-lected in the crowd-funding camping will go to charity.


Feature

Each crane, that you can wear as a pendant will cost AUD150 that is about HUF30,000. There are sever-al other options to back the project.

If the project goes live the money will help Szemem Fénye Founda-tion also. The NGO operates a hos-pice house for sick children since 2010, one of a kind in the Pécs re-

gion. They would like to introduce new services and an even bigger fa-cility, but they have collected only a small part of money needed.

So by backing the campaign you do not only get a hand-crafted sil-ver crane pendant but can do some charity too. You can take part in the crowd-funding campaign and

make an order until Nov 13. The project will only start if Blanka can collect all the money need-ed that is a huge sum. If the 1000 cranes=1000 cranes project gets funded, kick-starters will get their pendant in a month. That means a silver crane could be an ideal Christmas present too.

29TH OCTOBERTHURSDAY 7.00PMKODÁLY CENTRE

REQUIEM MEMORIAL CONCERT

KLÁRA KOLONITS – sopranoANDREA MELÁTH – mezzo-sopranoOTTOKÁR KLEIN – tenorKOLOS KOVÁTS – bassoHUNGARIAN NATIONAL CHOIRHUNGARIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRAConductor: MÁTYÁS ANTAL

www.pfz.hu • 72/500-300


Drink&Dine

SEASON OF

THE GOOSENo, it’s not Christmas yet but goose dishes are already on season

from late October. And these geese are accompanied by new wines since first Portugiesers and rosés from vintage 2015 are ready.

In recent years an old, and almost forgotten tradition has a real reviv-al in Hungary: more and more peo-ple are celebrating Saint Martin’s Day with goose dishes.

November 11 is a feast day since medieval ages. It’s a commemo-ration of St. Martin of Tours, born in the 4th century in the Roman province Pannonia, more precisely what is present-day western Hun-gary. The goose became a symbol of the saint because of the legend that when trying to avoid being or-dained bishop he had hidden in a goose pen, where he was betrayed by the cackling. Maybe it’s a little bit morbid but surely it’s not an acci-dent that St. Martin’s feast day falls in November, when geese are ready for killing. The holiday originat-ed in France and quickly spread to Germany, and Eastern Europe. It is usually a celebration of a successful harvests too.

And what are typical goose dish-es in Hungary to celebrate with? All kind of roasts are on the menu, like roasted whole goose, or just legs. In the more expensive segment we find fois gras (goose liver) prepared in different ways. Patés and pan seared liver are on the menus of more exclusive restaurants. One of the cheapest goose dishes is bread and dripping (zsíroskenyér in Hun-garian). This is made with several types of fats but goose is the best, it is not an accident that it’s the most expensive lard of them all.

In Hungary and especially in Villány goose dishes are accompa-nied by the first wines from the lat-est vintage. The first wine used to be made from the Portugieser variety that is usually a very fruity wine with mild acidity. It is also the most popular wine of Villány, almost every winery has it in it’s product line.

Where can you get one of those?In Pécs and Villány a lot of restaurants and wineries will host events. Some special offers will be available even until the end of November. In Villány the wineries Agancsos, Bock, Günzer, Maul have events on Nov 6-7 for sure, but even more are going to be announced. In Pécs Kalamáris and Balkán Bisztró are going to salute to the tradition for sure. See their Facebook page for more or wait for the listing at pecscityguide.com.

Goose breast with apple, red cabbage and oven roasted potatoes

Bread and dripping with onions Pan seared fois gras


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Drink&Dine

1. Next Step Cofffe(Kórház sqr)

2. Ízes Magyar Csemege

(Széchenyi sqr 2)

3. Juice&Co (Jókai sqr 1)

4. Maci Lángosozó (Szigeti str 51)

5. Market Hall(Bajcsy-Zs. str 25)

*Editor’s opinion, based on price, quality, and reliability.

ELEVEN IS EVEN MORE THAN THE ULTIMATE WINE BARDid you realize that the latest gastronomic hub of Pécs is Jókai square? And since summer, the most Mediterranean square in town has the most wine savvy venue too, that is Eleven wine & tapas.

As the name points out Eleven wine & tapas has two things in fo-cus. Food and wine. I really don’t bother to figure out which comes first but I’m sure that together they are more than just adding them up.

Anyway, let’s talk about the wine first. I’m very thankful that great wine cards are not scarce in town anymore, but I think there is no other venue where you can taste a new wine al-most every day. Actually four days a week since Eleven oper-ates only from Wednesday till Sat-urday. And this is not the only unu-sual characteristic of the bar. And when I say bar, I don’t really mean bar, since Eleven is a little bit less and also a little bit more.

The prices vary a lot eg. you can taste wines from Hungarian small

wineries from starting HUF350/dl. International wineries are usual-ly a little bit more expensive with prices starting above HUF500/dl.

There are always at least 18 bot-tles open, but their range is even bigger if you are willing to buy a bottle.

For the food: Eleven has a daily offer, that is the only warm meal

available. Sure, Spanish ham, cheese, olives and olive oil is always on the menu card, but daily offers are

even more interesting. Everything has a touch of the Mediterranean, and you just have to follow them on Facebook to keep track of their al-ways changing offers.

Eleven is not the cheapest place in town but the pricetag comes with the guarentee that everything is always flawless.

MARKET HALL PLANS FINAL

Three billion forints could be spent on a new market hall. The winner of the tender for the plans of the new building will be made public in the second half of October.

According to the plan of the city’s chief architect and the architects’ committee the new market hall will be a neighbour of the old one, that will be demolished as soon as the new one starts operation. The key concept is that the new

facility should be much more than a market hall, with other related services, too.

Like a wine fes-tival every day

The 5 Best* Breakfasts


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To Do

GET YOUR GUN (DK)Classical music festivals in Pécs

aren’t very common, but for sure is that every fall Music Harvest Festi-val is brought to the city by Filhar-monia Hungary. Which is the only cultural entity in town that organ-izes events countrywide.

This time the tagline of the festi-val is North in the South since 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of both: Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and Danish composer Carl Nielsen.

Performers include Hungary’s no. 1 orchestra, the Budapest Fes-tival Orchestra that is accompa-nied by Sophie Klußman (pictured above). Their concert on Oct 18 starts the festival with Strauss, Brit-ten and Sibelius at Kodály Centre.

Another highlight will be the ac-cordion battle between Bjarke Mo-gensen and Mihály Demeniv who compete on Oct 24 at ANK Cultural Centre in Kertváros.

The festival is much more than a series of music events: exhibi-tions, readings, exciting perfor-mances, and also food tastings are on the programme. Several events are free but others cost between HUF500-7000 Oct 18-25; Various locations. More: zeneszuret.hu/en

The Danish post-rock band has started their European fall tour in the UK, and the guys are now head-ing to Pécs. Brothers Andreas and Simon Westmark along with Søren Nørgaard formed the trio and their debut album titled The Worrying Kind came out in 2014.

Get Your Gun’s sound is not a forced practice of style, but some-thing that originates from the mo-ment the band was formed. A blend between the weight and aggressive nature of stoner-rock, the Nordic

Local artist Sándor Dobány be-gan his career as a plaster model designer at the Zsolnay Factory in Pécs in 1969 at the age of 15. Work-ing closely with old Zsolnay ce-ramics was a defining experience in his career. While at the factory, he studied painting and sculpture. He is an expert with porcelain and plaster, and has numerous archi-tectural ceramic commissions to

SÁNDOR DOBÁNY CERAMICS

melancholy, and the darkest tales of country- and folk music.

The result is a constant duality between authority and fragility, where the complexity of simplic-ity is given the pride of place and where it is cut to the bone, until it hurts the most. It is the sound of an individual balancing on a knife’s edge between resignation and strength of will. Oct 28, 9pm. Pécsi Est Cafe (Rákóc-zi str 46) Free entrance. More info: getyourgun.dk

his credit. His architectural ceram-ic work can be seen in his native Hungary, Scotland and Greece.

As a porcelain designer, he has created eccentric and functional objects, including tea sets and vas-es painted with highly detailed sur-real imagery. Until Nov 8, Pécs Gallery (Széchenyi sqr). Tue-Sun 10am-6pm. Entrance: HUF250/500.

MUSIC HARVEST FESTIVAL


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Essentials

The TV tower above Pécs is as much a symbol of the city as the Eiffel tower for Paris, or the CN tow-er for Toronto. Or the Berlin TV tower. Hunga-ry’s tallest building is also a tourist magnet.

ON AIR

It’s not hard to guess that the main purpose of the tower was to have a reliable broadcasting system for television and radio sig-nals in the region. The top of the Mecsek Hills, the Misi-na seemed to be quite suitable for that and it was built on a place where an observation tower has helped hikers to see Pécs from above already since 1908. The works started in 1968 and the TV tower with its height of 197 m is the tallest building in Hungary since its completion in 1973. That said, there are some taller ones but those are not suitable for accommodating people, and are therefore competing in another league.

It became an instant tourist attraction ever since thanks to the beautiful view in each direc-tion. Not only the city and the Croatian Papuk mountain in the South but the unspoiled for-

ests in the North are charming. And of course the character-istic signs of mining are also worth a few minutes. Not because of their beauty.

The three sto-reys, starting at 70 m above ground, accommodate a res-

taurant and bar, an open observation level and fa-cilities for broadcasting. Though people aren’t working there anymore, since everything is com-puterized and operated remotely.

In the first half of the 2000s the restaurant and bar was a trendy party venue. The last big event took place in 2009, when during a three-day sci-fi festival international electronic music artists filled the observation level with up-tempo beats.

There are talks about completely renovating its vicini-ty but in first place a much needed new lighting system will come in a couple of months.

The tallest building in

Hungary



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october 2015 - pécs city guide

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