Pigskin and Spelunking

A group of us played touch football Friday afternoon in Városliget (covered in 6+ inches of snow).  The game was a blast, but I'm sore in an uncountably infinite number of ways.  Head-to-toe, putting-socks-on-hurts sore.  Worth it, though.

Unicycling has been coming along nicely.  I can tell I'm improving a good bit (as I hadn't ridden much at all in a year at least) and developing some new skills that I've been working on.  Riding backwards is at the top of the list, as is learning to stall (stay in one place with minimal motion).  I've spent a good bit of time riding around the breezeway at my apartment building and through the courtyard and have gotten a few momentary spectators.  I brought the unicycle out to Hero's Square before the football game and rode around there a bit.  My friends say some tourists snapped pictures of me while I was riding.

Finally, a group of us went to see the labyrinth beneath the castle (which is really not a castle at all) over in Buda.  I heard good reviews and was looking forward to some unique history, but I was sorely disappointed.  The labyrinth began as a series of caves carved out by the numerous hot springs beneath Budapest. The caves were supposedly occupied by prehistoric man.  Later, the Hungarians adopted this underground network and built it up for use as a cellar and military resource.  In WWII and the Soviet era, the labyrinth was adapted for use as an underground bunker and reinforced with concrete.  Some time in the 90s, restoration efforts began, and the labyrinth opened to the public.

I was expecting a museum-like recreation, segmented by different periods and historical commentary. In reality, however, the labyrinth dangles somewhere between comedy and tragedy.  An absolute mangling of history, yet at the same time so ridiculously hokey as to make me laugh.  Stage one is the "prehistoric labyrinth" which is a bizarre amalgam of corny, stereotypical cave painting and Egyptian/Easter Island-esque statuary.  About as detached from any cultural authenticity as possible.

 Seriously?   

(All cave images courtesy of wikipedia commons.)

Their tribute to the terra cotta army.

Stage two is the "historical labyrinth," which consists of some cheesy Christian symbology, wells with iron grates and ominous music subtly emanating from their depths, and a Dionysus-themed room, complete with a four-sided wine fountain (smelling strongly of vinegar), festive harp music, and wilted ivy.

Devastatingly corny.

The wine fountain.  You know, for the next time you're looking to booze in a dark, musty cave.

Stage three brings you to perhaps the strangest part of the cave, the "other-worldly labyrinth."  The exhibit is framed as a set of archeological discoveries made in the numerous caves of the Buda hills, and each fenced-off rock specimen is accompanied by a placard explaining the find, complete with date and location of find, plus some speculation about age and origin.  The first find you encounter is said to be a footprint that archeologists later discovered to be of non-homo-sapien origin.  The print, the sign continues, has provided the basis for classification of a new species of ancient man who died out roughly 43 million years ago.  Oddly enough, the specimen looks like a sneaker print embedded in rock.  We continue to other bits of rocky strata with imprints discovered in the Buda hills, ostensibly traces of this mystery civilization, yet still the oddity continues -- the imprints are all modern items.  Among them, an ATM machine (O, what commentary), a laptop, a solo cup, and strangest of all, a gigantic rock (15 feet high) cut away to reveal the negative image of a glass Coca-Cola bottle.  I have no idea who came up with this garbage or exactly what their message was, but at best it seemed insipid, confusing, out of line with their love of cheesy historical recreation, and poorly executed.

One of the "specimens"

Other bits of the cave included little nooks and side-rooms and the "Labyrinth of Courage," which is a totally dark passage with a rope to guide you.  Potentially cool until the rope leads you to a brightly-lit side room with some huge copper sun tacked to the wall.  Snore.  A projection room ran a 10-minute film that was perhaps the height of this farce.  The film included lots of people dressed in velvety outfits with animal masks dancing around the cave and acting creepy.

I'll give it a little credit; the labyrinth itself was a neat structure and the atmosphere was definitely a little ominous.  That said, if you can't create a creepy atmosphere with 1200 meters of dimly-lit, rocky, prehistoric cave, then you're really doing something special.  Anyhow, my disappointment with this tragedy grows with each recollection.  Shame on whoever runs the labyrinth.  In line with it's dedication to being hokey, the website touts the attraction as one of the "Seven Underground Wonders of the World."

Sigh.  Budapest has many wonders, but the labyrinth in its present state is not one of them.