Sometimes people ask us:

Why the name Pál Street Tours?

The name comes from the Ferenc Molnár's classic Hungarian novel, Pál utcai fiúk (The Pál Street Boys)which was voted Hungary's 2nd most-loved book in the Big Read competition.

The novel is about a group of boys who defend their "grund" from a competing band, and about the loyalty and sacrifice of their smallest member, Erno Nemecsek.

The book provides a vivid portrait of the boomtown that Turn-of-the-Century Budapest was at the time. It has been made in to numerous film adaptations, and translated in to 14 languages.

 

Sometimes people want to know:

How did we get into the tour-guiding business?

JEFF TAYLOR

came to Hungary with the Peace Corps in 1990 (his parents made him do it) after graduating from Oberlin College (BA English and Political Science). Later he received a Rotary Scholarship to attend the Central European University in Budapest, and earned an MA in Cultural History. After 3 years of working on law reform in ngo sector, he decided he'd rather run a business, and founded First European Shipping. The company would become Central Europe's leader in commercial art shipping when he sold it to Austromar GmbH in 2005. He holds Hungarian state appraisers licenses in Antique Furniture and Oriental Carpets, and works as an art agent with Taylor Art Advisors. Central European University admitted him in 2004 to do his Phd. in Cultural History. His dissertation will be on the development of the Hungarian art market in the 19th Century. Of all his activities, though, he concedes that enjoys the tour guiding the most....except for playing quarterback and tightend for the Budapest Black Knights football team in the MAFL, and center for the Józsefváros (District VIII) Basketball Team in the Hungarian 2nd Division.

ANDREA MEGYES

was born in the steel and glass production center of Salgótarján, Hungary. One of the highlights of her youth was attending Young Pioneers' CHILDRENS' CITY in Zánka where she met Bertalan Farkas, the Hungarian Cosmonaut. She worked for a year as a librarian at the trade union library of the Salgótarján Sheet Glass Factory. She majored in English and Hungarian Language and Literature at ELTE University. Andrea fondly remembers celebrating the first free March 15 in 1989. From 1992-94, she worked in England and developed a taste for Bombay Mix. The grueling ELTE University Translators' and Interpreters' Center was her next stop, where she was trained in simultaneous English-Hungarian/Hungarian-English translation. Since entering the Art business with First European Shipping and now Taylor Art Advisors, she has earned Hungarian State Appraising licenses in Paintings, Graphics, and Art Objects. She also holds a Hungarian State Tour Guiding license.

KRISTIN FAUREST
worked at Pál Street Tours from 1999-2003 and has since gone on to work as a landscape architect.