Europe Summer Series: Pécs, Hungary (Part 2)

Welcome to the final instalment of my previously published print articles on Central and Eastern Europe. In the previous post about Pécs, Hungary, I discussed the city's long connection with Zsolnay porcelain. Now to enter the museum...

The Zsolnay Museum is an eye-opener. It details porcelain’s use as decoration, but also its history as a practical architectural element, being part of drainpipes, fireplaces, and even picture frames.

There are some intriguing early 20th century porcelain artworks hanging on the museum’s walls, and some novelty pieces such as marvellous Japanese-made works that were modelled on items found within the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Elsewhere in the exhibits there’s a spinning table set with porcelain tableware, floral designs for garden use, and an elaborate golden bust of the founder of Hungary, St Stephen.

Out in the garden, sitting near a pair of ceramic elephants and soaking up the afternoon sun, I’m pleased to have discovered that porcelain is more interesting than I had expected, and also why it forms a visible part of the identity of Pécs.

Lunch below stairs

Sated with ceramics, we decide to have a late lunch at Cellarium. As the name suggests, it’s located within a cellar eight metres below ground, which we reach via deep stairs down a stone-lined tunnel.

The restaurant tables are spread throughout a series of nooks and crannies, which we discover were ancient catacombs; legend has it that 17th century locals held secret meetings here away from the eyes and ears of their Turkish rulers.

It’s a marvellous place, full of atmosphere, and we’re able to find ourselves a quiet candlelit table in a small side chamber, away from larger lunching groups. It has a low arched brick ceiling and is lined with cushioned banquettes, the tables set with linen cloths.

From the interesting menu I order “prison officer rolls”, basically segments of a pork schnitzel which has been stuffed with smoked spare rib meat and horseradish, and served on a bed of oven-baked potatoes. It’s excellent, with baked vegetables as an accompaniment.

Our excellent wine is a dry red from the nearby Villány region, whose warm sub-Mediterranean microclimate provides ideal conditions for grape growing. It’s tasty, like a fuller-bodied chianti, and perfect with our food.

What’s equally appealing is the price tag, just 1,950 forint (about $10). That’s the other great lure of Hungary - it offers similar attractions to Western Europe, but at much lower prices.

Roman tombs with a view

Our final expedition is to the Cella Septichora Centre, beneath the grand cathedral in the northwest of the Old Town.

Located underground, it’s the remains of a Christian tomb complex from the 4th century, when the city was part of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, it was never completed - perhaps the empire wasted away before the final tombs were excavated.

It’s an impressive set-up - an underground labyrinth pierced by walkways through low-ceiling tunnels leading to remnant tombs. Particularly interesting is the tomb distinguished by the painting of a jug within an alcove behind it.

There’s something haunting about this once important place that is now in ruins, having been concealed over the centuries beneath other sacred buildings.

There’s also contemporary input within the tombs. When the centre was being constructed, an artist was commissioned to create a series of works to be placed within the large open space at its entrance, provoking questions of spirituality and identity.

The most moving of these is a large angular metallic sculpture full of gaps and slots. As we walk around it, we realise that the gaps momentarily align when seen from three subsequent positions, revealing a Muslim crescent moon, a Christian cross and a Jewish Star of David.

In a place as ancient as the tombs, in a city that has been home to people of all these faiths, it seems a neat reminder of the complex roots - and diverse beauty - of Pécs.

Europe Summer Series: Pécs, Hungary (Part 1)

Happy New Year! The final instalment of my previously published print articles on Central and Eastern Europe takes us to the city of Pécs in southwestern Hungary...

The bull’s head reminds me of the ornaments that used to stand on my grandmother’s mantelpiece.

It’s ceramic, with a green and gold glaze that looks almost unearthly in its gleaming smoothness.

But this is no miniature ornament - it’s life-sized and a prominent element of a fountain in the Hungarian city of Pécs (pronounced paych).

In fact there are four glazed bull’s heads on this elaborate piece of street furniture, surmounted with shields and other fine decorative elements.

Beyond the fountain, as the street opens out into a broad public space, is Széchenyi Square, the centre of this attractive city in Hungary’s southwest.

Although it’s part of Central Europe, Pécs looks somehow Mediterranean with its sand-coloured tiles and stone buildings, bright sunlight bringing them to life on this warm spring day.

And there’s even more porcelain on public display, I realise, as my wife Narrelle and I walk around the perimeter of the square, glancing up at the magnificent 1898 County Hall, a solid but elegant structure whose roof is an interlocking pattern of shiny red and orange tiles.

A mosque that’s also a church

Eclipsing that 19th century remnant, however, is the striking building set in the centre of the long sloping square, a squarish stone structure with arched windows, a large green dome, and... is that a cross or a crescent moon on top?

It turns out that it’s both; for Pécs is a city with a history of conquest. In the 16th century the city was snatched from the Kingdom of Hungary by the invading Turkish Empire, who held onto it for 160 years.

During that time they built a mosque in the middle of the square, which was duly transformed into the church after the Turks were ousted.

Nowadays the Mosque Church (originally the Mosque of Gazi Kasim Pasha) is a museum, but it’s also a symbol of the waves of cultures which have washed through this town.

But what about all the porcelain? More of that little mystery later. For now, we enter the Mosque Church, where we learn it’s been much reconfigured over the centuries.

Its decor has now been returned to how it looked in the Middle Ages, with many original Turkish elements revealed through restoration: including the prayer niche, Arabic calligraphy and coloured decorations on the walls.

It’s a beautiful interior in which Islamic elements join with Christian ones to create a fascinating whole.

Ceramics with a past

Of course, none of this has helped us solve the mystery of the shiny ceramics - but the answer is waiting for us just 200 metres north, in the Zsolnay Museum.

Established here in 1853 by businessman Miklós Zsolnay, the Zsolnay Porcelain Manufacture company became one of the world’s largest creators of porcelain in an age when it was novel, decorative and more practical than its alternatives.

After being popularised at World Fairs in Paris and Vienna, Zsolnay grew to become the biggest porcelain manufacturer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of which Pécs was then a part.

Having then survived two world wars and a communist regime, Zsolnay’s output was revived in the post-communist economy, and the company now supplies large amounts of goods to IKEA.

Business aside, its history is on display in the museum placed within a 13th century house, just within the city’s old medieval city walls. 

Given that my perception of porcelain still belongs to the dull old-fashioned objects that once adorned my grandmother’s living room (I seem to remember a large glazed golden snail that functioned as a flowerpot), the Zsolnay Museum is an eye-opener...

[Next post: Ceramic elephants, ancient catacombs dining, "prison officer rolls", and subterranean Roman tombs......]