Time is against us now otherwise I think we would have extended our stay in Szeged. But we reluctantly decided we had to move on to our next destination. Pecs is a similar sized city to Szeged and also has a prestigious university so we were excited to see what it offered.
It was only about 170 kilometers but we were traveling on secondary roads so google said it would take 2 1/2 hours. We add about 15 minutes an hour to googles estimates as we do not often travel at the speed limit so I was planning on a little over 3 hours. We needed fuel so I planned to get some on the way out of Szeged, but the first two we saw were on the wrong side of the road so I told Ton we would stop at the next one. Next thing I knew we had popped out of Szeged into the countryside, but I told Ton not to worry as one of the towns ahead would have a gas station and I would turn left if I had to. 45 kilometers later the idiot light came on, and I was beginning to feel like one; as we were in the middle of vast farms with only the occasional very small village. I finally pulled over and googled how far the next gas station was, and initially google told me the nearest one was in Szeged (one of the ones I had driven past). I tried it one more time with a little different search and now it said there was one 4 kilometers ahead of us. Sure enough it was there, and while it was the most expensive tank of gas I have ever put into François, I was happy.
The rest of the drive was much more relaxed and I could enjoy the quiet country roads, and look at the massive farms. We arrived in Pecs about noon, and as soon as we were settled headed into the city. We were assured the bus system was free no matter where we were from, so we hopped on the bus and were deposited in the center in 10 minutes.
The building we were looking forward to was the Church of the Blessed Mary. It is a converted mosque. My favorite Cathedral is the converted Mosque of the Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain. The converted Mosque here was left over from the Ottoman rule, and is much smaller.
The building was nice, and you could see the influence of Islamic design in the layout of the church. It also retained the balcony which was where women prayed when it was a Mosque.
The church was nice and we enjoyed walking thru it. It was unusual to convert an Islamic building to a Christian building as the Mosques were usually razed and a new church was built on the site.
Our ticket to the Mosque/Church also included a visit to the Basilica of Pec so we headed over to check it out. As we were walking the streets we noticed the energy level in Pecs was much lower than in Szeged. The weather was just as good, and it was a Saturday, but the city seemed much quieter. There were a lot of cafes’s on the main street and people were in them, but they also seemed to be much quieter than yesterday.
We did not see any of the happy end of the year celebrations we saw yesterday in Szeged. We kept looking for a spark in Pecs and didn’t find it.
The Basilica was interesting as it had a very unique design. The first thing we noticed was that the roof was flat. It didn’t have the arches and cupolas we expect in major churches. Also, a lot of the art on the walls, ceilings, and floors was geometric patterns-something we associate with Mosques.
After walking thru it for a few minutes we began to wonder if this building was also a converted Mosque. I googled the history of the Basilica and it had never been a Mosque or converted to a Mosque. We decided that maybe the Ottoman influence of 200 years had crept into the artwork and some of the design of the Basilica.
I was surprised when Ton decided to climb the 130 steps to the top of the bell tower. She is afraid of heights and usually avoids long climbs. Today she was up for it so we headed up there where we had a good view of the area around Pecs.
We spent another 30 minutes exploring Pecs and hoping to capture some of the spirit we left behind in Szeged. But it did not happen, so we headed back to the campground where Ton prepared a nice dinner for me.
Different towns have different personalities. Pecs has beautiful architecture, an interesting story. The squares are nice, and the city is extremely clean. I suspect we caught it on a quiet day. We enjoyed our walk, but after a couple of hours we were ready to move on.