We had a relaxing start to the day and did not head into town until nearly 11. Our plan was to visit the castle here which is an important part of the Hungarian national story and the subject of an epic poem by one of Hungary’s great writers. But once again we enjoyed walking thru Eger and found ourselves going off on tangents.
At one point as we were walking down the street we noticed a large group of high school aged kids being placed by their teachers on either side of the street in pairs. The street was lined for a couple of hundred yards so we decided to wait to see what was going on. It was taking the teachers awhile to get things organized and three boys had broke formation and were chatting with each other near us. I asked if they spoke English and one of them replied yes. I asked what was going on and he explained in flawless English that they were practicing for the graduation tomorrow. He said that the graduating class walks down the street thru all of the other students of the school who are forming a guard of honor.
The castle is located on the highest ground in the city center and is quite large. In its long history it was burned to the ground by the Mongols, successfully staved off a siege by the Ottomans in one of the battles that is taught as a high point in Hungarian valor- only to fall to the Ottomans 50 years later in a defeat that is blamed on foreign mercenaries, was retaken by the Hungarians (with help from Wallons from today’s Belgium) and then fell into disuse for 100 years before being converted into a garrison for various iterations of the Hungarian Army (Hapsburg, Republican, Fascist, and Communist). It symbolizes the complexity of history in this region.
In 1960 the government recognized the importance of the castle in Hungarian history and started a program to preserve and reconstruct it. A lot of the castle today is a reconstruction, but the reconstruction is well done.
The displays were really well done and we enjoyed reading the history of the castle and the surrounding town while looking at artifacts from the various phases of history back to the Mongol invasion. Hungarian is a unique language in Europe and is related to Mongolian so the Hungarians owe their language to the invasion.
They also had a well done 18 minute movie depicting the battle in which a teenage Hungarian not interested in history is transported back to 1552 to take part in the battle with a cute female class mate who loves history. In the movie all ends well as their teacher and the hero of the battle arrive just in time to save them from the Turks and send them back to modern times where the history hating boy falls for the history loving girl.
When we were done Ton proclaimed Eger Castle to be one of the most interesting castles we have visited and well worth the less than $3 entrance fee she paid. I also enjoyed it especially the wide range of medieval artillery on display.
After a few hours walking, climbing hills and battlements we decided to reward ourselves with another wine tasting of the excellent local wines. Today we went for a high end winery and were not disappointed.
