Blogs from Sopron, Western Transdanubia, Hungary, Europe

Tuesday July 16 – Today was a daytrip to Sopron. I started with breakfast in my hotel again, and this time it was a woman who spoke to me in German. It’s much more common for Hungarian’s to speak German than English, it seems. But they are so close to Austria that it makes sense. And actually, Sopron, my destination for the day, has a huge number of Austrians who cross the border each day for cheap hair cuts and dental work, kind of like me grocery shopping in Germany and France from my home in Basel. But getting back to breakfast, today I tried something new. I got the muesli, a healthy cereal type option, with hot chocolate instead of tea. I’m such a daredevil. At the train station there was some confusion about the ... read more

After a convenient 1 hours train ride from Vienna, we arrived in Sopron. Sopron is 9km from the Austrain/Hungarian border and 60km from Vienna and is one of Hungary's tourist destinations. We were staying at time share accommodation at the Solar Club Hotel, whilst situated a little out of town it was a comfortable 20min walk. The accommodation itself was fine and provided all the amenities, although I had to sit out in the garden to have wifi access. My first impression of Hungary was somewhat mixed. Hungary certainly was not as affluent and wealthy as its Austrian cousin, everything was just a little more run down e.g. buildings, roads etc. We also quickly found that very few Hungarians speak english (many spoke German), however there was ample tourist information written in english. On our first ... read more

Gorog utunk elott hazalatogattunk a szulofalumba Baluval:) Pereszteg Soprontol kb.18km-re talalhato,bekes kis falucska...a termeszeten kivul itt nem sok mindent talal a vandor, csupan 1kocsmat,2boltot, 1ovit es 1altalanos iskolat, dehat en ezert is szertem. Keveseknek adatott meg az a szerencse, h. olyan helyen cseperedjen fel, ami eleg kozel van a nagyvaroshoz ahhoz h. a lehetosegek tarhaza nyitott maradjon szamara es megis , eleg messze ahhoz,hogy megtapasztalja az egyszeruseg oromet,a termeszet szepseget es a szabadsag varazsat. Es ami a legfontosabb, itt elnek a szuleim, akikhez sosem "vendegsegbe", hanem "haza" megyek...... read more

This entry is marked as Hungary - since there is no entry on travelblog.org for´Das Burgenland', the current easternmost province of Austria - which stayed with Hungary after the countries split at the end of WW1 until the province, formerly Western Hungary, was joined to the new Austrian republic. That is all of the province except for its capital, Sopron (Odensburg in German), which voted to stay in Hungary. Thus the province was without a capital city. The second largest town, changed its name at the time from Mattersdorf or Mattersvillage to Mattersburg or Matterscastle, in order to give it more cachet as a possible capital city but the title went to the contender Eisenstadt which already was called Stadt or City. Both of the towns are still quite small. The province was quite poor ... read more

This part of the old town goes back to Roman times. ... read more