Just 19 km north of Budapest, Szentendre (St. Andrew) is the southern gateway to the Danube Bend.  Like the most towns along the Danube Bend, Szentendre was home first to the Celts and then the Romans, who built an important border fortress here called Ulcisia Castra (Wolf's Castle).  The area was overrun by a succession of tribes during the Great Migrations until the Magyars arrived late in the ninth century and established a colony here.  By the fourteenth century, Szentendre was a prosperous estate under the supervision of the royal castle at Visegrad.  It was about this time that the first wave of Serbian Orthodox Christians came from the south in advance of the Turks (a group of people that would go on to build most of Szentendre's churches and give the town its unique Balkan feel).
  But the Turkish occupation of Hungary brought this peaceful coexistence to an end, and by the end of the seventeenth century Szentendre was deserted.  Though Hungary was liberated from the Ottomans not long afterward, fighting continued in the Balkans and a second wave of Serbs, together with Greeks, Dalmatians and others, fled to Szentendre.  Believing they would eventually return home, but enjoying complete religious freedom under the relatively benevolent rule of the Habsburgs (a right denied Hungary's Protestants at the time), a half-dozen Orthodox clans each built their own wooden churches.
  Szentendre's delightful location began to attract day-trippers and painters from Budapest early in the twentieth century; an artists colony was established here in the 1920s.  It has been known for its art and artists ever since.  (Steve Fallon & Neal Bedford, Hungary 143-44.)

IMAGE	IMAGE NO.	DATA
Margit Kovacs Ceramic Collection		Margit Kovacs Ceramic Collection ("Kovacs Margit Keramiagyujtemeny"), Vastagh Gyorgy utca 1.
	szn2003-009	(Tuesday 14 July) "Korongolo Fiu" (a potter boy); ceramic work by Margit Kovacs (1902-77).  Margit Kovacs Ceramic Collection ("Kovacs Margit Keramiagyujtemeny"), Vastagh Gyorgy utca 1.  Kovacs was a ceramicist who combined Hungarian folk, religious and modern themes to create Gothic-like figures.  Some of Kovacs' works are overly sentimental, but many are very powerful, especially the latter ones in which she became obsessed with mortality.
Fo ter		Fo ter
	szn2003-005	(Monday 14 July) Blagovestenska Church, Fo ter.  The church, built in 1754, with fine baroque and rococo elements, hardly looks 'eastern' from the outside (it was designed by the architect Andras Mayerhoffer).
	szn2003-007	(Monday 14 July) Memorial Cross, Fo ter
	szn2003-001	(Monday 14 July) A street portraitist, Fo ter, Szentendre
	szn2003-006	(Monday 14 July) An Irish professor from Limerick (sorry, I do not know your name), Fo ter
Alkotmany utca		Alkotmany utca
	szn2003-002	(Monday 14 July) Alkotmany utca
	szn2003-003	(Monday 14 July) Viewed from Alkotmany utca
Dumtsa Jeno utca		Dumtsa Jeno utca
	szn2003-004	(Monday 14 July) A wine bar, Dumtsa Jeno utca
Dumtsa Jeno utca		Dumtsa Jeno utca
	szn2003-008	(Monday 14 July) A bag shop along Dumtsa Jeno utca
Kucsera Ferenc utca		Kucsera Ferenc utca
	szn2003-010	(Tuesday 14 July) Plum stall, Kucsera Ferenc utca