The Tokaji wine is not merely a noble drink it is also the centuries old symbol of the Polish-Hungarian connections and friendship. The special and unique character of the two nation’s relationship is shown by a number of Polish proverbs. A Polish saying in Latin language speaks about wines of Tokaj and Eger, once mellowed in vine cellars in southern Poland, it rhymes with the work of the 2011 Hungarian and Polish Presidencies: “Hungariae natum, Poloniae educatum” translates to “Born in Hungary, grown up in Poland”.

Just like the previous five months, June also held numerous exciting and high-quality programmes for us.

Smoked sturgeon with marinated zucchini, goose liver consommé with jellied eggs, sautéed leg of deer with miller’s millets and beet root confit, followed by a stroking trilogy of hazelnuts to round off the ASEM gala dinner.

“Standing here by the Branderburg Gate on Pariser Platz is like a dream come true for us. When I first came up with this idea in February, absolutely no-one else believed that it might be possible to realise.” – recalled opera singer Andrea Rost.

The International Danube Day, 29 June saw the opening of the Danube Study Path, which is a project supported by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and realized on the Danube banks between Margit and Petőfi bridges. It is a study path in the modern sense: 13 stops with works of young and contemporary fine artists, graphic designers, photographers, street artists and architects tell the stories of the past, present and imagined future of the Danube.

More than 6000 people were watching in awe the stunning 2D and 3D projections on the building of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at Széchenyi Square last Sunday evening. The final round of the Paint Up! Visualpower building mapping competition was part of the Danube Party programme series and a worthy closing of the Hungarian EU presidency.

The significance of Hungarian photography and photographers has always been unquestionable - yet quite a few decades passed when only some really well-informed professionals in Hungary were ’in the picture’ about André Kertész, Robert Capa or Brassaï, and about why their names should be uttered with great admiration.

Internationally celebrated Gergely Bogányi, Liszt and Kossuth-prize awardee, who tours even more this year than earlier, gave a concert in the Lotz-Hall of the Paris Grand Store in Budapest. He played the Rákóczi March and the Mephisto Waltz, and in between transcriptions of Liszt to works by Chopin, Schumann and Schubert. An interview by Kornél Zipernovszky.

We celebrated Europe with a family-day and Liszt with a marathon, we had a Secessionist picnic in the Museum Gardens, then we rowed around the water exhibition on the City Park Lake.

These are the three words which best describe the countless cultural events of April. The feature topic of the month was Secession, more precisely, the masterpieces of Secessionist architecture.