Eger

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After our Budapest blow-out, we decided to slow the pace down a bit and took a train out some 160km east to a small town called Eger in Heves County. Eger is at the heart of Hungary's wine region and this increased its appeal.

We arrived at Eger station shortly after midday and were greeted by an elderly woman called Kathy who offered us to stay in her home during our stay. As Eger is such a small place we decided that stopping over with an old lady was better than sleeping on the street so took her up on her offer. Her flat is perfectly comfortable and we even have our own living room.

Once the rain had stopped, we headed into towna dn had a quick look at the Basilica, Hungary's second largest church, which is lavishly decorated and we enjoyed a quiet moment before heading to Szepasszonyvolgy (The valley of beautiful women), where you can wonder round the various wine cellars, tasting the wares. We spent a couple of hours tring different kinds of wine, including the local speciality, 'Bulls Blood'. In one of the cellars we stopped at, Maria, the hostess offered to fill up our water bottle with wine - how could we refuse?

In the evening we went to a local restaurant for a Hungarian meal and were filled with stodge from beef, chicken, pork, rice, chips, mushrooms and bean salad. An exceedingly satisfying day.

Our second dayn in Heves County was spent in the Bukki National park, a 45 minute bus ride from Eger. We hired bikes and rode up and down hills all day, taking in various streams, waterfalls and near misses with our automobillic competitiors. All together, we must have rode between 15-20 kilometres, but the sweeping scenery and fresh air was a wonderful change from all the big cities we have visited so far. We headed back to Eger with sore backsides in time to watch Arsenal v Vilarreal in the Champions League while rewarding our hard day's excersize with a few beers.

Thursday morning and we left Eger by train at 11:00am to Fuzsabony. From there we took another train to Debrecen which passed right through the Great Hungarian Plain. The name describes it perfectly. It is very flat and very...plain although we did spot some storks and a couple of deer. As we neared Debrecen we encountered sheeting rain and a thunder storm with impressive lightning bursts thrown in for free. Luckily we only had a two hour wait in the hell-hole that is Debrecen before boarding train number 3 for Szolnok, where we ahd a scheduled 4 hour wait. Arriving at 21:00, we grabbed a Macdonalds before being kicked out when they closed. The last few hours was spent in Szolnok station with the tramps, one of whom was in a wheelchair and had actually wreaked of excrement. We bought him a cup of coffee and made a quick escape to our platform. The scheduled 0:33 to Bucharest finally arrived at 01:35 and the joy with which it was met by myself and Adam is unimaginable. Back on the move and a new country tomorrow.

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Photos

Valley of the Beautiful Women2
Drinking wine in the Valley of the Beautiful Women

Valley of the Beautiful Women
Valley of the Beautiful Women

Bukki National Park
Bukki National Park

Bukki National Park3
Ham and cheese sandwiches in the Bukki National Park

Bukki National Park2
At the summit in the Bukki National Park

Szolnok
Waiting for the train at Szolnok

Comments

[anonymous]

Spelling!!!
Hi Joel! Thanks for copying us in on your travel blog, which we are following with great interest. We enjoy the descriptions of your trips, including the trials and tribulations, but feel you need to edit the spelling more carefully - e.g. you go "wondering" when you mean "wandering" and the tramp at Szolnock station "wreaked"... when you actually meant "reeked", "excersize" instead of "exercise" . "greatful" instead of "grateful" - to name a few...... If you ever want to publish the entire text I'll be happy to proof-read and edit for you! By the way - where did you spend the Seder night? Shalom and all the best, Pamela

[David Wicks]

ooooo how much drinking can you do
Well Mr Stern your beer tour of the world is obviously going down very well glad you are enjoying your self when do you plan to hit kiwi land?