The winter in the mountains is perhaps the most exhilarating, as plenty of winter sport goes on.  The air is very cold, but the sun has great strength in sheltered corners, enabling even delicate people to spend the winter there.  In the lowlands the summer is exceedingly hot, but frequent storms, which cool the air for some days, make the heat bearable.  Now and then there have been summers when in some parts of Hungary rain has not fallen for many weeks—­even months.  The winter, too, even in the more temperate parts, is often severe and long, there being often from eight to ten weeks of skating, altho the last few years have been abnormally mild.  In the valleys of the Carpathians potatoes, barley, oats, and cabbages are grown, while in the warmer south wheat, maize, tobacco, turnips, and the vine are cultivated.  Down by the Adriatic Sea the climate is much warmer, but Hungary, as already mentioned, has only the town of Fiume of her own to boast of.  The visitors who look for a temperate winter and want to get away from the raw cold must go to the Austrian town of Abbazia, which is reached in half an hour by steamboat, and is called the Austrian Riviera.  Those who visit Hungary should come in spring—­about May—­and spend some weeks in the capital, the lowlands and hilly districts, and go north to the mountains and bathing-places in the summer months.

Tokay produces some of the finest wine in the world, and the vintage time in that part of the country is most interesting and picturesque.

[Footnote A:  From “Hungary.”  Published by the Macmillan Co.]

BUDAPEST[A]

BY H. TORNAI DE KOEVER

Budapest is one of the most beautifully situated cities in Europe.  Nobody can ever forget the wonderful sight of the two sister towns divided by the wide and swiftly flowing Danube, with the steamers and barges on her waters.  Buda, the old stronghold, is on one side with the fantastic “Gellert” hill, which is a formidable-looking mass of rocks and caves; farther on is the lovely royal palace with its beautifully kept gardens clinging to the hillside; then the oldest part, called the stronghold, which has been rebuilt exactly in the style Matthias Corvinus built it, and which was demolished during the Turkish invasion.  Here is the old church of Matthias too, but it is so much renovated that it lacks the appearance of age.  Behind the smaller hills larger ones are to be seen covered with shady woods; these are the villa regions and summer excursion places for the people.