Tarnamera Local Custom Tips by budapest8

Forbidden busts of former leaders

Hidden away in statue parks
like in Budapest and museums
one can still find statues and busts
of former Communist leaders like Lenin.
I lived in the Soviet Union before
the 'Putch' and the demise of Communism
so have seen my fair share of statues.
But in this day and age they have become something
of nostalic memorabilia. This one was a bust of Lenin.

Almassy Castle Tarnamera (Almássy kastély )

The Baroque castle built by the Almássy family
in 1780 now houses one of the 2 police museums
found in Hungary.
Almassy Castle which was used by the famous
Almássy Family, Count László Almássy (1895-1951),
Africa-explorer and probably best known for the
'Hungarian count' in the movie 'The English Patient'.

The family used this 'castle' as a hunting lodge.
Almásy was born in Borostyánkõ (present-day Austria)
as the 2nd son of an aristocratic family,
so he neither inherited title nor wealth.
He studied in London Technical Studies and was an avid
sports car and aeroplane racer.
He flew as a pilot for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in World War I.
This encouraged him so that later he became a
pioneer of desert exploration and an internationally
acknowledged explorer.
He then got a job in 1926 working for the Steyr car factory of Graz
and drove the factory's new type of car to test run it through the
Sahara for 2 700 kilometres.
I could write several pages on all his great achievements, but
will end by saying that the romantic parts of the movie were fantasy
and Almassy was arrested by the British and sent to Budapest
to face trial, he then spent several months in jail under harsh conditions.
The Communist People's Tribunal were he was found not guilty of being a spy,
and escaped any charge of war crimes. He returned to Africa to Cairo
with the help of the Egyptian royal family in 1947
where he carried on his research with desert studies.
He was appointed to be director of Cairo Desert
Research Institute but unable to take up the post as he fell gravely ill.
He died in an Austrian hospital due to causes from a severe infection
he had contracted earlier in Africa, not by being burnt like in the movie.
On his tombstone in common cemetery in Salzburg there is an inscription
in Arabic saying: "The father of deserts", the name given to him by a camel
driver before the war.
The Link below is a 3d model of the castle.

Website: http://illatosoldal.uw.hu/