Margaret Island (Budapest)

Margaret Island sits in the Danube River. It is accessible from bridges across the Danube at the island’s two ends. Margaret Island’s southern tip is not all that far from the centre of Budapest.

* Note: If you zoom out and look at a map of the entire length of the Danube, it is a roughly east-west river. However, if you zoom into just the portion of it through Budapest, it runs roughly north-south, with some bends. The flow through Budapest is from the north to the south.

I walked to the southern bridge, Margaret Bridge, i.e., the one closest to my hotel, and spent the rest of my morning on the island, walking the full length (with some intended and unintended zigs and zags) to the northern bridge, Árpád Bridge.

Jeez. That was an arrogant thing to say, wasn’t it? I didn’t own the morning. It wasn’t “my” morning. Other people were free to experience it in their own way. Even if I had acquired ownership rights to the morning, I would have granted everyone the right to enjoy it. That’s just the generous sort of guy I am. I would have, of course, charged a fee. But I would have made it reasonable and means-tested so no one would be forced to forgo the morning for financial reasons.

But never mind that. The point is, the only activity I undertook this morning, and generously into the afternoon, was to visit Margaret Island.

My regular readers, who are used to typically seeing discussions of more activities in each of my posts, and sometimes my seemingly frenetic tourist pursuits, are probably saying that sounds like a slacker morning. You’re likely thinking that because Margaret Island is in a river, not in an ocean or a large lake, it must be a small island.

There are perfectly good reasons it sounds like, as you so rudely called it, a slacker morning. To list just four:

1. I somewhat caught up on my sleep last night. I didn’t wake up until a few minutes after 9:00. That’s about an hour and a half beyond the boundary of what I label as sleeping in. It’s exceptionally rare that I even reach that boundary.
2. Yes, Margaret Island is a river island, but the Danube spreads out fairly widely around it. And Margaret Island is quite long. My walking tour app says it was three islands that merged. I’m not clear on whether they merged through natural sedimentary forces or if humans merged them.
3. I had lunch on Margaret Island. That helped the morning invade well into the afternoon’s territory, but it was not the only one of a few factors in the invasion’s success.
4. Most importantly, it was a slacker morning. It was hot again this morning. I walked slowly so as not to overexert myself, and I did a lot of sitting on shady benches. I usually prefer to sit on fine, upstanding benches rather than shady ones, but I hoped the heat would restrain their nastiness.

Most of Margaret Island is grass and trees, a couple of playing fields, playgrounds, paths and trails, flower beds, formal gardens, and some statues. But there are other elements. Some of them enhance the island’s pleasantness. Some, less so.

Non-Park Elements of Margaret Island

Among the less-so parts is a road that runs the length of Margaret. Automated electric lift gates at either end of the island seem to raise only for buses that run along it and taxis. So there is not much traffic on the road. However, there is a parking lot on the opposite end of the island from where I entered it.

There are also some structures on the island. A couple of them are relatively large and not ugly, but far from beautiful. One is a health spa and hotel. It also has a nice bistro, which is where I had lunch. The other is a large thermal bath.

Allow me (as if you have a choice) to pause briefly to talk about thermal baths. They are a big thing in Budapest. All of the tourist books and other tourism information sources highly recommend visiting one or more of them if you’re in Budapest. I won’t be doing that.

There are multiple reasons for my avoidance of them:

1. As I mentioned, it’s hot here now. The forecast doesn’t predict any significant cooling while I’m in Budapest. I find the thought of intentionally spending time in an even hotter pool to be unappealing.
2. I don’t like the concept of bathing in the same hot water as other people.
3. I don’t respond well to hot tubs. Even if I’m in for just a short while, I feel faint when I come out. Consequently, I haven’t used many of them. Once, probably at least a couple of decades ago, I was in a hotel that wasn’t high-end, but it nevertheless had a jacuzzi/hot tub in the room. I used it. I literally had to crawl out and stay on the floor for a while to avoid passing out and falling. The only person who might benefit from me spending a long time soaking in a pool of hot water is my heir.
4. I have a rational, morbid fear of appearing in public topless. I have an even greater aversion to appearing bottomless in public, but that’s more common. No, “rational” was not a typo. I know most men feel it’s irrational to experience overwhelming angst over being seen by the general public without a top on. However, if they had a body like mine, I guarantee you that almost all of them feel the same way. The very few who wouldn’t share my reluctance, well, there’s no accounting for their sense or sensibilities or, rather, lack thereof.

There is also an open-air theatre on Margaret Island, but that is quite unassuming and almost camouflaged.

Park-Enhancing Elements on Margaret Island

Dancing Fountain

A short piece from where I entered Margaret Island, there’s a dancing fountain. It consists of a circular pond with three low-rise tiers and several water jets. When I approached it, some of the jets shot up, but the fountain was silent and not dancing. Shortly after I arrived, the jets turned off, and the pool remained calm.

I had read about the dancing fountain when planning for this trip, long before visiting Margaret Island. So I waited for more.

I didn’t have to wait for more than maybe a minute. Then a song came on some speakers around the fountain. And the water jets started performing, synchronized to the music. Some of the jets shot straight up, reaching heights that varied in response to the music. Other jets spiralled around.

It was very impressive.

I stuck around for about six songs before moving along. I don’t know how many more it danced to in its set. I took videos of a couple of the ones I was there for. I won’t post the first, because I didn’t start the video until well into the song, but here’s the video of the other video I took:

(Note: When I uploaded the above video to YouTube, it said the video would be blocked in Russia and Belarus due to audio copyright issues. So if you’re viewing it from one of those countries, sorry, you can’t see it.)

Here’s the funny thing. There are large maps mounted on posts at various points throughout Margaret Island. They label this as just “Fountain.” But they also show something that they list as “Musical Fountain.” It’s closer to the other end of the island than the dancing fountain.

I saw it much later, but it’s not worth much discussion, so I’ll deviate from the natural order and mention it here. It looks like a ridiculously high, circular gazebo. A sign by it says, “The construction standing here since 1936 is a replica of the world-famous Bodor well originally built up on the main square of Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mures) in 1820-1822.

“Above the original well, which was the work of the Transylvanian handyman Péter Bodor, there was a clock and a musical mechanism operating inside the cupola, which stood on slim wooden pillars. The clock and the musical mechanism were operated with water coming from wooden pipes. On the top there was a Neptune statue showing the time with its harpoon, and it turned round every 24 hours. The construction was damaged during a snowstorm in 1836, and the remains of the well were removed in 1911.

…

“Different medieval-sounding Hungarian melodies can be heard every full hour, a four-trombone tune is played 30 minutes after every hour and a brief introduction can be heard about the well 15 minutes to every hour.”

It was silent when I was there. I didn’t stick around to listen to it.

Formal Gardens

I saw three formal gardens on Margaret Island.

The first one I came across, the Light Garden, doesn’t look like much in the daylight. At its centre, there’s a large oval of grass; surrounding that, there’s a narrow band of somewhat uninspiring flowers. Beyond that, there’s a gravel path and band of lawn, then another narrow band of scraggly flowers. Then there’s more grass and more flowers at the outer border of the garden.

According to a sign at the Light Garden, LED lights are embedded in the garden and, from dusk until midnight, they put on a show. Fair enough, but, as I said, it doesn’t look like much in the daylight.

The rose garden is small, but vibrant. It’s well worth a look during rose season.

The Japanese garden is beautiful and a fair size. It consists of what a map in the garden lists as a lake, but what I would call two ponds connected by a narrow, shaded channel. A statue stands in each pond. Both ponds contain water lilies that were blooming when I was there. One had some tall aquatic grasses carefully cultivated in it. I only saw a couple of koi, and only in one of the ponds, but it was quite attractive.

The Japanese Garden also has a small hill. A small waterfall pours into one of the ponds off another short ridge, and there’s lovely vegetation.

Pictres of the Japanese Garden on Margaret Island:

Medieval Ruins

Before coming to Margaret Island, I’d seen on my walking tour app that there are some recommended medieval ruins on the island. I kept my eye open for them at first, but forgot about them after a while. At one point in my walk, I stopped and thought to myself, “Wait! Ruins! I thought I should have seen ruins by now.”

I opened up my walking tour app, looked at its mapping function, and saw that, sure enough, they were by another path well back the way I came from where I was at that point. I decided not to double back. It was, as I said, hot. And I’ve seen plenty of medieval ruins in my travels. I figured the extra steps weren’t worth it in the heat.

Further in my walk, I came to the bistro where I had lunch. It was not far from Árpád Bridge, where I planned to leave Margaret Island. Sometime during lunch, my sense of direction got turned around 180° from reality. I set out after lunch in the direction in which I was absolutely, positively certain Árpád Bridge lay.

I walked for a while, much longer than I thought it should take me to get to Árpád Bridge, when I spied some ruins. Because I was confident I was walking in the right direction, I thought, “Wow! I didn’t know Margaret Island had two sets of ruins.”

I pulled out a mapping application to try to learn more about them. Turns out that, as you’ve no doubt surmised by now, I had been walking in the wrong direction, and I was at the ruins mentioned in my walking tour app.

The ruins aren’t much. Just some low-rise portions of walls, but there is more than enough to see the clear outlines of buildings. There’s also a metal grate walkway raised about one floor, with stairs up to it so visitors can look down on the ruins.

St. Michael’s Provostship Church

My bad sense of direction also serendipitously led me to an old church among the trees that I wasn’t expecting because I hadn’t read about it anywhere. It’s small and fairly unadorned, but dignified enough with an interesting history that it deserves more attention.

A sign by the church informed me that “The St. Michael’s Provostship Church of the Premonstratensians was built in pure Roman style in the 12th century. During the Turkish wars in 1541, the building was completely destroyed. The ruins were excavated in 1923 and the little church was reconstructed in 1930-31. The bell was found in 1914, among the roots of a walnut tree unrooted by a storm. It is one of the oldest bells in Hungary. It was made by Masier John Stroud in the 15th century.”

So, that was cool even if the morning was hot.

And that concludes my extended morning. If you’re in Budapest and are looking for a relaxing respite on a sunny day, Margaret makes for a nice one.

More pictures from Margaret Island: