Day 50: Eger, Hungary

We ventured east today, taking a 2 hour train ride to Eger, Hungary. We were forced to pay for the same train ticket a few times, and needed the aid of another English speaking Hungarian when the conductor approached us to sort it out, but we made it to Eger before noon.

Eger is wine country in Hungary, and that was about all we knew when we decided to go yesterday. Kevin, in particular, was expecting a difficult but rewarding day in a 1000 person town surrounded by farms and with no English. Kevin was wrong.

Our first stop was the city center, a ten minute walk from the train station. Immediately upon reaching the main road it felt like we could have been on any suburban street in the US. Wide roads, wide sidewalks, the smell of freshly cut grass...it was unexpected.

We knew we reached the city center when we saw the giant yellow Basilica. From there we walked twenty minutes in the 95 degree sun to reach Szepasszony-volgy (the Valley of the Beautiful Women, or "Nice Women" depending on the translation). We eventually reached an oval path about the size of a 400 meter track with a park inside the path and about 50 storefronts on the outside. The store fronts lead into cool (60 degrees or so) wine cellars that went into the ground/hill surrounding the oval. Each wine cellar was a wine bar that sold glasses of wine, bottles of wine, or filled up whatever container you brought in.

We didn't really know the protocol on our first stop, but each managed to order a glass of the local red wine called "Bull's Blood." We were surprised to find out the glasses were $0.50 each. Before we knew it, a few hours had passed and we were tipsy from wine cellar hopping. We had bought 3 bottles of wine and filled up a water bottle with wine too (for a whopping $15 total).

We met two teachers from Ohio who were on a 3 week Eastern European trip while tasting. They helped us find the $5 tram back to town, which was a way better method than walking in the heat after all that wine. From the center we made stops at the castle and a park on our walk back to the train station, but kept the stops short so we didn't miss the last train back to Budapest.

After a long, sweltering train ride back to Budapest, we pit stopped at our hotel and grabbed dinner at the nearby restaurant we had wine the night before. The dinner was one of the best we've had on the trip so far, which surprised us. Kevin had some fowl with apples, honey mustard dressing, and mashed potatoes (sounds weird, but good) and Brooke had a salad with chicken and fruit skewer.

We made a final walk to the river to see the castle and Chain Bridge lit up at night. Tomorrow morning it's off to Vienna.