The Valley of the Frumpy Middle Aged German Tourist

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Feeling a call to nature during my Budapest onlsaught, I packed up for a few days and headed north east.

A tip off from a Canadian friend and a burgeoning problem with alcoholism meant I was very keen to check out the wine growing region of Eger.

Tantalisingly known as The Valley of the Beautiful Women, I'd heard tall tales and true about this magnificent experience, this "must be sampled" glimpse of rural Hungary... this oasis in the North.

"A little hill" my friend had said... with that far away gleam in his eye of one who is recalling great lives lived... "A little hill, and you'll find all you need hidden away behind hobbit door after hobbit door. Just make sure you aren't driving, and take your own drink bottle. They'll sometimes fill it for free..." and with this, he broke into peals of laughter that sounded like a madman absorbed in his own fantasy world of make believe. But how can we know what really happened to my friend on that fateful trip to Eger? Maybe it was the single greatest event in Hungarian national history. I'm just a big fat sceptic.

Being a wine buff myself (come on, we all know Luke wouldn't have gotten through Uni without my scientific input) I was rabid with excitement at the thought of exchanging valuable information about soil, pruning techniques, filtration methods and disease. I imagined convivial tastings, natty little canapes and Hungarian delicacies and a throng of interested oenologists hanging onto my every word. I would be the new doyenne of the Eastern European wine world, the toast of the emmerging nation's winemaking... and all this without a degree.

What I got was a slightly soggy caravan park, a really fu$king long and unpleasant walk to "The Valley" and a strange desire to twist the neck of the guy who recommended the place, along with the twit who named it.

Chock full of absolutely no-one (save the two busl oads of Japanese and Germans tourists - Konichi wa / Guten Tag to my friends respectively) I scoured the place for someone to pry for information. To share stories of difficult harvest with. To clink glasses and marvel at the full bodied palate and boquet of cherries and vanilla.

Aside from an unhospitable woman in the first hobbit door I entered who clearly didn't like being questioned (or even spoken to), I came across a trio of Mexican musicians, a snooty Australian girl who ignored me and a jolly Hungarian farmers wife who offered her son in marriage. He offered himself too... and his hands, which he couldn't keep to himself. I put it down to the vapours eminating from the closed off fermentation cellar and made a hasty retreat.

After spending what I considered a fair amount of time sampling as much free booze as possible, I found myself rightly pissed, and having to negotiate an uphill walk and a cyclone fence back into the caravan park in the dark. Well, you can all imagine how THAT ended.

Suffice to say, the caretaker COULD have come and helped out a tad sooner than he did. I thought it was a bit unfair of him to sit back and watch me get further and further into my contortionists routine before coming out to ask if I'd like him to open the gate?

I left the next morning with my sunglasses on and my fantasies of Hungarian fame a sodden, fermented, over ripe mess.

(Photos coming soon)

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