Category: 2026

We headed into Sopron early as the weather forecast had rain arriving in the afternoon. When we arrived downtown the streets were very empty.

It is a nice town with a well preserved medieval core. Sopron is known as the most loyal city in Hungary. It is located about 80 kilometers from Vienna, and if you drive 10 kilometers North, East, or West you are in Austria. When the Austro-Hungarian empire was being divided after WWI the people of Sopron were offered the choice of joining Austria or Hungary. Despite the economic incentive to join Austria, the people here decided to stay with their Hungarian heritage and opted to stay in Hungary.

Ton had read that they had a Holocaust memorial that was moving so we headed there. The memorial was in the modern town, but located in what became the Jewish Ghetto during WWII. The memorial was small but very well done. It was similar to the one in Budapest highlighting the shoes and winter coats the Jewish residents had to leave behind before they were executed. It also had a Hebrew inscription that faded away into the sky. I really liked the symbolism.

The Hungarians have the most moving Holocaust memorials we have seen in Europe. Other countries have them, but they are often small and hidden away. In Hungary they are more in the forefront. They also seem to be making more of an effort to maintain the synagogues though the one in Sopron needs to be restored.

On the way back to the old town we stopped in a nice coffee shop on the main street. They had a quote from Frank Capra on the wall, he was a famous combat photographer of the Spanish Civil War, WWII and Vietnam where he was killed while photographing the French. In WWII he traveled with the US Army landing on Omaha Beach, but had to have special dispensation as he was still a Hungarian citizen and thus technically an “enemy alien”.

The main street is not part of the old town and was much more active than the old town. It seems the locals prefer to do their shopping and dining in modern buildings rather than medieval ones.

The big attraction of Sopron is its fire tower. It is a tall tower located on what was the main gate to the walled city. It served three purposes, the first is a place to watch for fires in the city, the second was for broadcasting information, and lastly to watch for wine merchants from other regions trying to bring their inferior wine to Sopron.

Since Sopron is famous for its wine we decided we should give it a taste and headed to a cool place for lunch. The restaurant was in a cave under the main square and featured Hungarian food and wine. When we entered we were handed the Hungarian/German menu and then our waiter disappeared. We began taking a stab at what things might be by trying to decipher two languages that we have almost no knowledge of . A lady at the next table heard our discussion and offered to help us. She was Hungarian but taught German in school. Her English was pretty good which she said she learned from Duolingo. We had fun working with her and her translations were good because the waiter returned and fetched us the English menu and we could confirm them. We thanked her and she recommended a particular local wine which also turned out to be delicious.

We settled on two different forms of goulash and enjoyed them both. It took until our last day to find some goulash but it was worth the wait.

It was getting towards the time the rain was supposed to begin so we headed back to François to settle in for the day. Later we found out our Austrian neighbors dental work had gone well so we were happy for her though she looked like she needed to rest.

We reluctantly decided we needed to put Hungary behind us. Today we had our longest driving day of the trip at 400 kilometers as once again we had to back track northeast to Budapest to head northwest to Sopron. Luckily it was Sunday and all of the commercial trucks are restricted so we were the slowest vehicle on the toll way.

We were driving thru a small village called Kakasd when Ton asked that I find a way to stop near what appeared to be a wooden church. François is agile by RV standards but not by car standards, but I found a place to turn around and we found a parking lot near the building which turned out to be the community center for the village.

Besides having a cool building Kakasd is a typical small village you pass thru on the highway. But because we stopped I checked the history of the village posted next to the community center. Prior to WWII the village population was split between Swabian Germans and Hungarians. After WWII the Germans were sent to Germany even though many of the families had been there for centuries. This left the city lacking people, but at the same time Hungarian minorities were being kicked out of Romania and the Ukraine and the lost Germans were replaced by these Hungarian families who had lived for centuries in Romania and the Ukraine. The wooden churches are common in Romania and Ukraine, so after the fall of communism the communities wanted to recognize their heritage by building a replica of the wooden churches from their ancestral homeland.

This little village of 1500 people was a poignant reminder of the complexity of history in Europe. I knew intellectually about the mass displacement of minorities after WWII, but reading about the impact on this little village really drove it home to me.

Tomorrow we are going to visit our last Hungarian town located in a little isthmus of Hungary that sticks into Austria. Our Austrian neighbors told us that in addition to being a cute town Sopron has the highest density of dentists in Hungary as dental work is much cheaper in Hungary than Austria and Sopron is the center of dental tourism from Austria.

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.

If you are interested in Art Nouveau architecture than Szeged Hungary should be on your list of places to visit. It is the kind of place we love because there is a lot to see, but it far enough off of the beaten path that the tour busses and cruise boats don’t make it here. In fact neither of us had ever heard of it until we began researching our trip to Hungary and were not sure what to expect when we headed over in the morning.

In 1879 Szeged was struck by a catastrophic flood that destroyed over 90% of the buildings in town. The Austro-Hungarian government was determined to rebuild the town and did so to a new plan rather than trying to reconstruct the old town. As a result Szeged has wide avenues and since Art Nouveau was the fashionable style of architecture in that time it is full of striking Art Nouveau buildings.

Our first stop was the New Synagogue. The exterior is heavily influenced by Art Nouveau and is striking. It is much larger than we expected and reflects the strength of the Jewish population of the city at the turn of the 20th century.

We went inside and the interior was even more beautiful than the outside. We know very little about the architecture and the art of Synagogues but this one was as ornate as any Christian Cathedral, and prettier than most.

While we were inside a high school class was getting a guided tour in Hungarian. While we could not understand the tour we could access the front of the Synagogue where the Torah is kept which is normally roped off by tagging along.

We also provided a bit of comic relief for some of the students as I had lost sight of Ton, she was quietly trying to signal me, but I was oblivious. Finally a couple of the kids got my attention and pointed at Ton with big smiles.

We spent quite a while exploring the building as there was interesting art work around every corner. Over 50% of the Jewish residents were killed in the holocaust, and after WWII a large number of the survivors immigrated to Israel. For a long time after the war the building was used as storage, but restoration began in 2000 and they have done a wonderful job.

After the Synagogue we struck out to find one of the most famous of the Art Nouveau buildings called Reok Palace. The architect was influenced by the Spanish architect Gaudi who built the famous cathedral in Barcelona. Like Gaudi’s architecture it avoids geometric angles trying to mimic nature.

As we were walking the 20 minutes from the Synagogue to the Reok palace we were struck by what a beautiful city Szeged was. It was another city we had never heard of that was blowing us away.

When we arrived at the Reok palace we decided to enjoy a coffee and share a pastry. To continue to build on a special day the pastry was delicious. Ton decided to try another Melange coffee which is famous from Vienna. She declared it far superior to the Vienna one. We were falling for Szeged.

Our next stop was the Votive Church of Szeged. Three sides of the square the Church is built on house classrooms of the University of Szeged with the fourth side being the Church. The square is supposed to be the exact same size as St. Marks square in Venice but we are not sure why.

By this time we were just enjoying walking around Szeged. The weather was perfect. The architecture was to a very high standard and we were constantly pointing at not only government and religious buildings that were interesting, but ordinary apartments and office buildings.

Szeged is also home to a large and prestigious university. It was near the end of the semester and the kids were enjoying their Friday. In particular we kept running into students from the medical school who must be done for the year as they were having a great time heading to a party. At one point 4 horse drawn wagons full of future Doctors went by blowing off steam after finishing their exams by riding thru town accompanied by dance tunes and alcohol.

Just when we thought Szeged couldn’t get any more charming the fountains in front of the natural history museum started dancing in synchronicity to Beethoven’s 5th symphony. We were just walking by and were utterly charmed. We just sat down and enjoyed the music and the accompanying dance for 30 minutes.

We decided to take a break and headed back to François for some water and rest. We really appreciated that our weird campground was just across the bridge from downtown, and now we found it part of the charm of this town.

We headed back over to town for dinner and spent more time enjoying the architecture and the energy of the students. Today is the kind of day that makes any hassle we go thru while traveling worthwhile. It was a special day in a special place that we would never have known existed if we did not travel like we do.

Today we traveled to Szeged which is located about 17 kilometers from Serbia in southern Hungary. It is famous for its collection of Art Nouveau buildings which is a style we enjoy. When I punched Szeged in google it told me it was about 120 kilometers from Lake Balaton so I figured no more than 2 hours to get there.

But apparently all roads in Hungary radiate from Budapest because when I punched in directions the distance from Lake Balaton to Szeged jumped to over 300 kilometers and three and a half hours. The route had us doubling back to the outskirts of Budapest swinging east and then heading south to Szeged. The direct route while almost 100 kilometers shorter google said would take almost 1 hour longer than going thru Budapest. In the end it was a fairly easy drive thru the first rain we have experienced in over three weeks.

The campground in Szeged is from the communist era, and all of the infrastructure has a strange almost right feeling. You can see where they attempted to copy what was going on in the west, but didn’t quite get it right. The place is sprawling with two giant pools, the 7 or 8 story waterside with what looks like an air traffic control tower on top, and a bunch of concrete buildings spread around seemingly randomly, some of which are of mysterious purpose today. We enjoyed walking around. But the view of the river is nice, and the town is nearby so it fits our purpose completely.

We have shifted to Lake Balaton which is the largest lake in central Europe. The drive down had us passing thru Budapest. Apparently Budapest does not have a ring road as google had us pass thru the center of the city on pretty major roads, but it was 45 minutes of urban driving that had me on my toes.

We arrived at a very large campsite next to the lake. Lake Balaton has about 120 miles of shoreline. During the communist era when average Hungarians could not travel Lake Balaton was the center of Hungarian tourism. It is still popular, but a lot of the spaces set up to handle the masses of Hungarians in the past are now being converted to luxury resorts, which has not gone down well with the average Hungarian.

We are on the northern side of the lake which is a long time wine region since the Romans arrived. We saw the vineyards coming in, but didn’t stop for wine.

After settling down we decided to head to the small town of Tihany on a promontory above the lake. The center fo the town is the abbey which was founded in 1050.

It is a cute little town that exudes high end tourism. The prices of beer and wine sent me into shock. But the views and the cute stores kept us occupied until we saw some dark skies gathering. We debated having a drink, but the prices were too much for me, and the skies were threatening so we headed back to François and opened our best bottle of wine from Slovakia.

Our campground is the home to a very large population of crows. The tree above the campsite we are in is home to 10 or 15 crows which has Ton a little concerned. She asked me why so many crows were living in our tree, I told her that the crows were here first and we are in their space. She then said-well I hope they don’t poop all over François, which is a sentiment I can only agree with.

Today we shifted to a suburb of Budapest. It was one of our shortest drives ever at 29 kilometers so we took our time getting ready- to avoid rush hour in Budapest. Ton was looking for an opportunity to do some grocery shopping so luckily just as we entered Szentendre we saw a Lidl. 45 minutes later and 21,000 Forints poorer we were on our way to the campground.

Despite our late start and shopping stop we still arrived at the campground well before noon. Szentendre is known for its porcelain, and as a bit of an artists town. While it is decent sized, Ton told me it was a three hour town. So we decided to take it easy for a while before heading into the town about 3 pm.

While it has always been Hungarian for a 200 year period it was the center of the Serbian minority in Hungary. A lot of the local heroes are Serbian, and a lot of the street signs are in Hungarian and Serbian.

It was a cute town with a lot of interesting shops. We were enjoying just wandering without a plan. The porcelain museum we wanted to visit was closed, but there was a lot to look at. It is on the day trip list from Budapest so there were quite a few other tourists also poking around in the shops.

As we were walking up one of the nicer streets we were suddenly confronted by a man and a women in leather vests, black pants, with copious tatoos and piercings who blocked our way and hit us with a blast of Hungarian. I shook my head at them and tried to move on, but they blocked our way again and hit us with a louder blast of Hungarian. Now I was annoyed, but I saw a bunch of equipment and I could see just around the curve a bunch of people dressed in WWII clothing and a truck from that era. I looked at Ton and said, oh this is a movie set. Then the two intimidating people smiled, and apologized in English saying that they thought I was Hungarian (I take that as a complement)but the set was live so we couldn’t go on.

Later we wandered by the set again, and they were done shooting. Our two leather clad guards saw us and waived us up to take a look. They had converted that part of town to a French village from WWII. We think the film is French as a lot of the crew were speaking French.

We were wandering down another street in parallel with a guy with a beautiful and frisky golden retriever. After a few minutes of sharing the road, he looked over and asked where we were from. We replied the US and he asked what state. When we said Oregon he said Portland? It turned out he was a Hungarian-American who had moved back to Hungary when he retired.

We spent about 20 minutes talking to him about the US, Hungary, and traveling in Europe. He was particularly interested in our impressions of Romania, as he said there is a large Hungarian minority in the country. He gave us a couple of ideas about places to visit on the rest of our visit here.

In the end Ton was right it was a three hour visit. But it was a beautiful town, we saw a movie being made, and met an interesting American expat. Another good day in Hungary.

We had a long lay around in our nice hotel room, so we did not get going until almost noon. I woke up at dawn and looked out the window and the Danube was like a mirror, and the white marble on the palace across the river was glowing orange in the sunrise. A memorable way to start a day.

Ton wanted to visit the market as she wanted to pick up some spices for our use, and also to bring home as gifts. A short ride on our “home” tram no 23 deposited us at the market. It was slightly less crowded than the other day, but still very busy.

We picked up our spices, and then Ton headed over to a butchers counter where we looked at some cuts of meat that we found interesting. We were pointing and kind of speculating about things when a nice Hungarian lady volunteered as our guide and translator. She and the guy running the stand spent a lot of time explaining things, asking about our tastes and based on that making recommendations. It was a fun and we owe her a lot of thanks for taking the time to help us. We now have some interesting meals to look forward to.

As we were passing by the restaurant stalls we saw a sandwich that looked intriguing. It was a massive thing made from Langos bread, with lettuce, tomato, onion, three kinds of cheese, salami, pepperoni, bacon crackling, and jalapenos. It is not something to tackle lightly, but we were up for it.

The completed sandwich was immense and while we gave it our best shot we did not even make a dent in it. It was delicious and Ton declared it the best meal we had in Budapest. We took most of the sandwich home to François and it will make two more meals before we are done with it.

Stuffed, we headed back to François for the afternoon and chatted with our Dutch neighbors. For the first time on the trip François was actually hot and we opened up all fo the windows. But as soon as the sun set it cooled down fast so we should have a nice sleep.

We were anticipating our overnight excursion into Budapest. Ton packed a small bag with the stuff we would need and we were off to our hotel in town around 10 am. Our plan was to drop our bag off at the hotel and head out on a walk. We were really pleased when we checked in that they assigned us our room on the spot, so we got a few extra hours in the hotel.

Instead of setting out right away we enjoyed a few hours of relaxation before heading out for a late lunch/early dinner around 2:30. Ton had found a Transylvanian restaurant she wanted to try so we decided to make a day of it by strolling there.

Transylvania was Hungarian for hundreds of years, and to most Americans is associated with Hungary because the Hungarian born Bella Lagozy played Dracula in the original movies. During the period it belonged to Hungary the region was settled mostly by Germans just to add to the mix of nationalities. After WWI most of the region was given to Romania and it remains Romanian today. When we traveled to Romania a few years ago we spent quite a bit of time in Transylvania and it is beautiful country. Another region with fascinating history. The food was good; though in the end we ordered Hungarian not Transylvanian food.

As we have been walking the streets we keep seeing shops doing booming business selling a confection called funnel cake. Ton did a little research on them and found the Hungarians held them in some disdain calling them “Tourist Cakes” or “Tourist Traps”. But they did look good so we sampled one, think of a churro with ice cream. One is enough.

Since we have arrived I have been fascinated with how the Danube influences the city. We both wanted to try a night time river cruise. We choose one of the longer ones that started just before sunset and lasted until after sunset.

The river cruise covered the whole city in about 2 hours and since both sides of the river are beautiful it was nice to be able to look at the Buda bank going one way and the Pest bank going the other. As I said it seems every architect in Budapest designs their building to present its best side to the Danube. It really pays off on the river cruise.

The views are essentially the same as you see from the River Bank, but of course being on a boat adds some charm. The best thing is it would take 2 hours of hard walking to cover the same distance that we did from a nice seat enjoying the view the whole time.

As the trip ended I convinced Ton to walk down to the Parliament building to take some more pictures. When we passed on the boat the lights weren’t on yet. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed our evening stroll.

When we returned to the hotel we decided to have a glass of wine to toast our evening. It was a great way to end a night enjoying one of the worlds beautiful cities.

On our second day in Budapest we really took advantage of our transit pass to see a large swath of the city. The day began with us taking the #23 tram in front of the campground to the parliament building. I was pleased that the tram ran all of the way to the parliament in fact for most of the trip it ran parallel to the river.

At one point a tour got onto the tram and we learned that the #23 tram was once voted one of the most beautiful tram rides in the world. We jumped off at the massive parliament building and began our day.

The building is one of the landmarks of Budapest and is the largest parliament building in the world. The interior is as beautiful but all of the tours for the building were sold out for the period we are here so we will have to settle for the slide show we watched in the visitors center.

We walked along the river and it is one of the most beautiful river fronts I have seen. As I said yesterday I am completely impressed with how all of the major buildings in the city seem to present their best side to the Danube. It not only makes for a beautiful skyline but allows you to appreciate the buildings from multiple angles as you walk along both banks of the river.

Further along the river we came to a beautiful but sobering tribute to the Jewish population of Budapest. Prior to WWII Budapest had a thriving Jewish population of over 400,000 people. Hungary was allied with Germany until 1944 and as an ally was able to protect the population. The Germans occupied Hungary in early 1944 fearing the Hungarians were negotiating to leave the war. After the Germans swept in they began the biggest shipment of people to concentration camps since 1942 decimating the Jews in Hungary.

Today there is a tribute on the banks of the river called the Shoes On the Danube Bank. In December of 1944 20,000 Jews were taken to the banks of the Danube and executed by Hungarian Fascists, they were forced to take off their shoes before being shot so that their bodies would tumble into the river, the shoes were considered too valuable to allow to be swept away . The bronze shoes lining the Danube are a tribute to the people lost in the holocaust.

Our next stop was heroes square. It is a large square away from the center of the city dedicated to historical heroes of Hungary. There were a lot of big statues of people you have to be Hungarian or a very well read European historian to know.

We had a lunch of goulash today that was ok but not quite what I expected. If this is good goulash, (the restaurant was very full) it appears to be a variation of beef stew and while it was fine, it was not substantially different than an American beef stew. I think I will give it one more chance before finalizing my verdict.

Ton wanted to visit the central market as she remembered it as one of the most impressive in Europe. I punched central market into google and we jumped off the tram in front of a nice building that looked like a market, but Ton looked confused. When we went inside the old market at this site had been converted into a modern supermarket. It turns out there are two buildings called central market, one on the Buda side where we were, and the famous one on the Pest side.

I punched the other central market in and we had to endure another beautiful tram ride along the Danube to a steel bridge. We chose to walk across the bridge so that we could interact with the river some more.

We arrived at the market and this one was much larger and still functioning as a market (even though there was an Aldi supermarket hidden in the basement.) Ton enjoyed looking around even though it was bursting at the seems with people.

She had a few things in mind and was particularly interested in paprika. After spending 30 minutes wandering around amongst the crowds we headed into the basement to the Aldi to get some essentials for François.

Our tram 23 had a stop at the market, so after getting our essentials taken care of we headed back to François for the evening.

Ton really wanted me to see Budapest. She visited about 20 years ago and it made a big impression on her, and when we talked about this trip she always referred to it as the Budapest trip. So I was looking forward to see the city that made such a big impression on her.

We have been in Europe for their labor day (May 1 in Europe) and have had it influence our trips. On our very first trip we were in Paris on labor day and were going to head to the center when the desk clerk warned us we should stay in Montmartre for the day because- as he put it they would be having the annual May Day riot in the center. We spent part of our day watching live coverage of the riot on TV. As we walked around Montmartre you would have never known there was a riot going on 20 minutes away. In Poland we learned that the whole country shut down for not only labor day but the whole week as they had scheduled 2 other national holidays in the first week of May. We ended up in Kraków for 6 days as the campground owner there allowed us to stay out of pity, every campground in the country was fully booked for that week. So we were wondering what we were in for today.

The streets were quiet and the tram was pretty empty so we were optimistic when we arrived downtown. We decided to head to the Basilica as that is where we usually start our city visits. For the first 5 minutes we were on side roads and Ton said that the crowds weren’t too bad. 30 seconds later we turned onto the avenue that St. Stephens faces and we found the crowds. In addition to the normal load of tourists, there were a lot of labor day tourists from the surrounding countries, we heard a lot of Slavic languages being spoken in addition to the normal German and English you hear in every city. The campground is an indicator that this is a labor day destination for Hungary’s neighbors as we are surrounded by plates from Slovakia, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia instead of the normal French, Dutch, English and German RV’s

St. Stephens is a beautiful cathedral, but today it was teeming with people and tours. Ton spent a lot of time wriggling her way around groups of people to get a photo without a head in it. I spent my time on the edge of the crowds trying to enjoy the beauty while keeping an eye on Ton so I didn’t lose her.

After St. Stephens we decided to cross the Danube on the Szechny Bridge. Once again the views were beautiful but it was a challenge to enjoy them without getting swept along with the crowds. But as I looked at the city from the bridge I began to realize how all of the major buildings in the city seemed to be drawn to the river. Many great cities have a river that shapes them but Budapest is striking because so many of the important buildings in the city compete to show their best face to the Danube.

After the bridge we tackled the climb to Buda castle. About 80% of the way up the hill we saw a cafe and decided that we deserved a beer. In the cafe we shared our table with a Brazilian couple who we enjoyed speaking to.

At Buda castle Ton really wanted to visit the fisherman’s bastion as it had really made an impression on her last visit. When she visited she remembered standing on the walls of the bastion listening to a Gypsy Band playing Hungarian music. She was so impressed with the band that she bought one of their CD’s. Now you have to pay to walk on the walls of the bastion and their were not any local musicians around. But the views are still incredible.

Ton than consulted her list of places and said that she wanted to visit the area of ruined pubs. I punched it into google maps and to my surprise it provided directions to the area of ruined bars. So after a bit of a walk to a tram and a transfer to a bus we found ourselves in an ally on the edge of the old town. The ally had character and it did have a bunch of pubs though I would not call them ruined, but intentionally funky.

We had to wait 15 minutes for our pub of choice to open, but by the time it did we had been joined by another 40 or 50 people. I’m not quite sure how to describe the pub. It is consciously outlandish and unabashedly aimed at tourists, but it is so over the top that it works and is almost charming.

We found a table and Ton immediately took off to take pictures. She came back and told me that we didn’t need to rush to get a table as the place was immense. As we were drinking our beers a steady flow of tourists wandered thru our room including at one point a guided tour.

We settled into the routine and enjoyed taking in the steady flow of people including one Canadian couple festooned with Canadian flags on their clothes and backpacks. We guessed they wanted to make sure they were not mistaken for Americans.

As we were chatting the couple next to us leaned over and asked where I was from? They were American and had been trying to figure out my accent. It turns out they were missionaries who live in Austria helping to resettle refugees. They were on a weekend retreat away from their three teenagers and seemed to be having a great time.

We walked to the New York cafe which bills itself as the most beautiful coffee house in the world, to see if we could be tempted to overpay for coffee and a desert. Any thought ended when we saw the line of people waiting to get in. So we decided to head back to François for a much more affordable dinner.

We shifted to Budapest for what is a planned 5 day stay. It was a quick drive from our peaceful campground in the Valley of Beautiful Women to an urban campground surrounded by Lego Buildings. Our only plans for the day after we arrived were to do our laundry, and check out a local grocery to stock up on some vegetables. That accomplished we settled in for the day and did some planning for Budapest including booking a hotel for Sunday to give us a little break from François. Tomorrow will be much more interesting as it is labor day in Budapest.

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.

We are camped in the “Valley of Ton”, or as the Hungarians call it the “Valley of Beautiful Women” near the town of Eger. Eger is the scene of a heroic stand by 2000 Hungarians in 1552 successfully defending the castle against 60,000 Ottoman soldiers. It is also famous for the library and observatory in its University, and the local red wine known as Bulls Blood.

It was a bit of a walk to the center of town but we were fresh so we decided to tackle it. The first place we came to in the center was a giant neoclassical building that I took for a government building as it reminds me of a lot of the buildings in Washington DC. It turned out to be the Basilica and once you stepped inside it was clear that it was a church.

It is one of the newest Basilica’s we have seen as it was built in the 1840’s. The interior was nice and the artwork reflected the period it was built. The stained glass windows were all from the early 2000’s which I found interesting and puzzling.

Our next stop was the Lyceum at the Esterhazy Karoly Catholic University. It was built in the 1750’s and contains a great library which our ticket didn’t give us admission to and a Camera Obscura on an observation deck 9 stories above the city. What we didn’t know was that you had to climb 330 steps to reach the Camera Obscura. A camera obscura is a device that projects images onto a table in a darkened room using lens mounted in a cupola. The projections are real time images of what is going on in the city and by manipulating the cupola you can see different parts of the city. It was fascinating- the guide was able to show us a 360 degree panorama of the town. You could see cars moving and people walking. We really enjoyed the view, and at the end Ton said it was a great way to see the town.

After climbing down 330 steps we still had a lot of the city to cover. Eger was lucky; after 1700 it was not fought over so the center of the city was largely intact. During the communist era the center was not encroached on by new construction and while 30% of toads population still live in Lego buildings, the buildings are mostly on the edge of the city.

The city has a simple charm to it that I really enjoyed. It is an easy walk and there are a lot of interesting buildings both large and small. Ton and I enjoyed our walk to the castle with lots of detours to check out different buildings that caught our attention.

When we finally arrived at the castle, I proposed we extend our stay, and return to the castle tomorrow. After some thought Ton agreed, so we are going to add a day to our stay in Eger.

Our day wasn’t over though. We needed to return to the Valley of Beautiful Women and check out the wine caves. They have done something here that we have not seen anywhere in our travels. In the Valley of Beautiful Women there are many caves that have been taken over by wineries in the region.

In a very small area there are over 15 wineries tasting their wines side by side. You have your choice of high end wines with international reputations, and mom and pop wineries selling wine in 1 liter plastic jugs. It is a great place for us.

The wine the region is most favorite for is Egri Bekaver which translates to Bulls Blood in English. We tried a taster that included Egri Bekaver and 4 other wines from the region. After the taste we decided to head back to François for some food and a bit of a rest.

Before settling in for the evening I convinced Ton to walk back over to the caves for an evening taste. It was a nice evening walk with a reward at the end of it.

Today we officially moved on to Hungary for the trip, despite visiting Tokaj yesterday we returned to Slovakia to sleep. For the next few days we will be in Hungary.

Our stop today was the nearby city of Miskolc. But as soon as we crossed over we ran across a Lidl so we added some food, and a bottle of Tokaj wine to the refrigerator. We are also going to have to recalibrate our minds from Euro’s to Forints, we spent the whole time asking each other questions like is 499 Forints a good price for a liter of OJ? Yesterday as we were driving we noticed all of the gas stations had diesel set at 619 Forints per liter, Ton did the math and that came out to €1.69 per liter, since diesel was around €1.80 in Slovakia we decided to fill up in Hungary. The problem was when we pulled into the first station there was a long note taped on the pump that told us the 619 Forint price was for Hungarian registered vehicles only, and that non-Hungarian vehicles had to pay 688 Forint’s. That turned out to be about 10 cents a liter more than it would have been in Slovakia. Oh well…

Miskolc is starting to get a little light on the tourist trail primarily for its food scene. The downtown core has a section of older buildings, but more so than in most cities we have visited a large part of the skyline is dominated by buildings built in the communist era which look like large Lego blocks made of poor concrete. The city was heavily damaged in WWII so the reconstruction was done by the communist government and the buildings that are not Lego blocks are built in the Brutalist Style that the communists favored which is not nearly as stylish as the art deco and baroque styles you see in most of Europe.

Miskolc oozes a blue collar vibe, and as it was Monday most of the cafes and restaurants were closed on the main street which has a very long name, that even the locals have shortened to Forint Street, as that is where all of their money goes.

There is an area of town that is built on the side of an extinct volcano that has hundreds of caves that have been used for various purposes in history, but today are being used primarily for wine.

We headed there to take a look, and passed a beautiful church that was the architectural highlight of the trip. You have to earn your wine in the Avos district as it is quite a climb from the city center. Unfortunately, for us it was Monday and all of the wine places were closed.

I think we caught the town at its least charming and I suspect that on a nice weekend with a crowd on Forint Road and all of the restaurants and wine stores open it would feel a lot more dynamic than it did today. We ended up spending about 3 hours exploring and then decided to move on to our next stop.

It was a quick drive to Eger and we arrived at what was a campground, but has been converted to an Aire. The problem is it is a no contact aire so you have to log into a website enter all of your information make your payment and then they send you a code to open the gate and enter. It was a frustrating 45 minute process due to a poorly constructed website, a poor WIFI connection, and two boomers trying to work a computer. We eventually got a code to enter, but must have done something wrong because about an hour later someone drove up and asked to see our proof of purchase. After some conversation on the phone in Hungarian the person confirmed we were ok. I am more and more missing people at check in.

We woke up to a gale, but the skies were blue. The plan was to sleep in, but the church we are sleeping next to rang its bell for about 15 minutes starting at 7:30. It wasn’t even a real bell, but a recording of a bell. So we were up earlier than we planned.

Our plan for the day was to drive to Tokaj in Hungary. Tokaj is the center of one of the oldest wine regions in Europe specializing in sweet and desert wines. The wine has been in high demand even in France since the 1300’s.

We kept seeing a big town a few miles away, but when we asked about things we were always given directions to towns in different directions by the Slovaks. It turns out the big town is in Hungary, so we crossed into our 27th country about 10 minutes after leaving the campground. We will be returning tomorrow because the Hungarian town has a Lidl.

After about 45 minutes we arrived in Tokaj which is a pleasant town located on the Tisza River. It was definitely a town leaning into its wine making heritage. We headed to a winery Ton had identified and when we arrived there were three people getting told about the local wines. We asked about their tours but were told that the tour was already underway, after we bought a glass to try, the server told us to take a table near the three people as they were the tour and we could listen in to what they were being told.

Between wines we struck up a conversation and it was a Canadian/English couple living in Scotland, and a medical student from Tokyo. We enjoyed conversing with them, and since we were engaged with the tour the guide invited us to join them on a trip to the cellar. In the end I told Ton it was a good thing that we didn’t do the tour as it included 6 wine tastes, and they were full glass tastes, so it would have been irresponsible for me to drive 45 minutes back to the campground afterwards.

After our visit to the winery we headed down to the river for lunch. We both choose different catfish dishes. Hungary does not use the Euro so we spent some time trying to wrap our heads around whether an entree for 4000 Forints was a good deal. (It is.)

After another turn around a blustery Tokaj it was time to head back to our campground in Slovakia for the night. It was another peaceful drive and when we returned we were the only customers in a really beautiful campground.