looking for signs of spring in Hungary


Yes, it's been a while since I posted. The stomach virus killed my motivation and energy to do anything but sit and knit. I do have some pictures and a whole post on my 250th project prepared, but let me share something else with you today. Yesterday my mother and I drove to Hungary to have another look at the Eszterháza palace built by the Esterhazy family in Fertöd, a couple of kilometers over the Hungarian border. Here's a Wikipedia link (in English). 

The picture above shows the garden side, I didn't take a picture of the front, because the courtyard is currently being renovated and that doesn't look too nice. As you can see above and from the Wiki link, it used to be painted in what is called "Schönbrunn yellow", after the Schönbrunn palace in Vienna, which is also yellow. In an early attempt of corporate branding, Emperor Joseph II. ordered all buildings erected by the state and the Habsburg family to be painted in that color and so it became fashionable to paint everything in that yellow.


However, Schönbrunn used to be painted pink and grey and so did Estzerháza and while Schönbrunn will probably never be pink and grey again, Estzerháza is being renovated to show its initial coloring, which suits it much better. The beautiful gardens - also reminiscent of Schönbrunn, but less extensive and without the hills, fountains and follies - are also in need of renovation. There's a dell that probably used to be a fountain and you can tell where there were extensive flowerbeds and broad gravel paths to walk on, but those are all overgrown with grass.




Left over are the beautiful yew trees. Those attracted my attention the first time around when we went there a year and a half ago or so.

Back then, the grass was bleached to a pale green, the sun was wintry and faded and the black-green yew trees made such a stark contrast ... I still wish I had taken my camera that time. Ah well, I'll go again to capture it. As it is, I like the yew trees even now - I could probably stay a whole day and take pictures every hour to see how the light and shadows change.



But we actually went there to look for signs of spring and to take in the sun. I am extremely fond of spring flowers and while Vienna is showing definite signs, in the areas North and West of the city spring usually progresses far more slowly, so South we went.

And I was right, the sun was hot and the gardens of Eszterháza were teeming with violets and other wildflowers, bugs, ants and birds. There were so many violets that you could actually smell them, a sweet, delicious smell. Driving to and from Fertöd, we could see plum and peach trees in bloom already.

Apart from having fun with my new tripod, I had no fun at all messing with my camera settings. The blues in the violets and in these tiny star-like flowers which are native to this part of Hungary and are called Scilla buekkensis nearly drove me to madness, both in the food setting set on red (made the greens far too golden) and the macro setting (old problem of not catching the blue correctly).

I wonder why my camera can take pictures of the blue sky without any troubles, but these intense and unique blues and violets make it go haywire. Maybe it's the ultraviolet component. There ought to be a bee setting. Still, I think these came out rather well. Now back to knitting (and baseball anime).