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.
