Blogs from Southern Transdanubia, Hungary, Europe

After a little overnight rain we woke to a beautiful clear sky. Our accommodation at the guesthouse in the hills above Samobor has been wonderful. But today we must move on as we have an appointment with the border guards on the Croatian-Hungarian border on our way to Pécs. During our travels we endeavour to stay off the toll roads for two reasons, money and boring driving, so our drive today meant taking the scenic route through the centre of Zagreb. From what we saw it was not really a city where we would spend time sightseeing. Some of the older buildings had the grim exterior of the Communist era. The trams on the other hand were very modern. Perhaps over time the general appearance of the city will become more appealing. Tito was known for ... read more

Hopefully, a few interesting facts about Hungary ( the 5th country on my itinerary) and the last on the river cruise. It is a small, about the size of Indiana, with a popuation of about 10 million. Magyars , another word for Hungarians, form the largest ethnic group (90%). 98 % speak hungarian ( this next part is for Linda, Eugene, Sharon, and Sheri- all language gurus). It's a fairiy exotic tongue based on the Uralic family which includes Finnish and Estonian. Vowels are marked by various accents and change to agree with other vowels in a word. Yikes! Accents or lack of them may completely change the meaning of a word. Double Yikes!! I was told a knowledge of German is useful ( where is my son, the German teacher when I need him?). English ... read more

Now that I have uploaded the photos for this entry, I'm not really sure why I bothered as apart from walking to the busstation to get the bus to Zagreb I did nothing else in this town. It was snowing heavily and minus 10 degrees!!! I suppose as it is my last entry for Hungary I mars well have one last gripe about the people who work in the train and bus stations. I went to the trainstation in Pecs where I was pleasantly suprised to be served by someone who spoke relatively good English. That lasted all of 20 seconds, which had seen us get passed the greetings stage and establish that there were trains to Zagreb. My next question, saw the attendant shrug her shoulders, roll her eyes and begrudgingly stamp her oversized feet ... read more

My Eastern European & Turkey adventure from April 8-27, 2010 included 4 days & 3 nights in Budapest, Hungary, followed by a 7 night AMA Waterways Danube River ship cruise on the beautiful Amadagio with stops & visits in: Mohacs, Villany & Pecs, Hungary; Vukovar & Ovcara, Croatia; Novi Sad & Belgrade, Serbia; the “Iron Gates” and narrow passageways between Transylvania & Bulgaria; Vidin & Belogradchik, Bulgaria; Giurgiu & Bucharest, Romania; and finally Rousse, Bulgaria. My travels concluded with five spectacular nights in Istanbul, Turkey at the 5 star Conrad Hotel and a 2 night stay in the amazing Cappadocia, Turkey region. NOTE: Be sure to check my photos that accompany this blog and travelogue Also, I will be amending this travelblog over the coming weeks as I re-discover more of my notes and items from ... read more

So, getting a host was quite an effort and I almost didn't go but I sent out a SOS on the group list and managed to get a host :) My host in Budapest was really nice and said I could stay longer if I skipped Pecs but I'm glad that didn't happen. Getting a bus ticket was a chore and as usual, my ISIC was rejected. Jeez.....ISIC has been pretty useless so far in terms of getting discounts for transportation. I think I should have gotten a Euro 26 card instead. Apparently it's cheaper and really, no one can ignore the big EURO 26 on the card. Transportation in Hungary is expensive! Especially after coming from the Czech Republic. So I headed down on the bus and arrived about 3-4 hours later. Pecs certainly looked ... read more

We spent a few days in Pecs and on a farm outside of Pecs in a town of 280 called Kiskassa. Pecs was far more relaxed than Budapest and when we first got there we sat on some benches outside a church near some fountains and snacked on salami and bread, checking out the scene. It is like a very touristy version of Cambridge to Budapest's Boston. In Budapest we went to the baths to relax (an amazing experience); here we could just look around. Pecs is more tourist friendly - more people speak English, it is compact and fairly cheap (gyros are half the price of those in Budapest). We met a backpacker from Missouri named Scott who gave us a map and pointed us in the direction of the bus station after telling us ... read more

31-08-08 Pecs - Goldilocks Pizza and Surly Youth We arrived in Pecs at about 4pm after a pretty leisurely 5 hour trip from Timosoara. We were mainly traveling though low river valleys, and excellent farm land. You notice the improved standard of living in the rural areas in comparison to Romania pretty much as soon as you cross the boarder. I had my first experience of getting blocked from getting on a motorway on ramp - guess what - it was a Brittish driver, I decided to give him some pointers on road rules. I think he was too busy staring at his GPS to notice. We followed a group of 15 motorbikes for the last part of the trip - good fun. Interesting with the waving etiquette across central and eastern Europe - all riders ... read more