Eger, Hungary

From Monday until Wednesday, Justin and I were in Eger celebrating 8 years of marraige. Eger is a village in the northeastern part of Hungary, about 2 hours away from Budapest.

We found a hotel, Kulacs Csarda Panzio , on-line that had a special for two nights that included breakfast and a candlelight dinner. It is located outside of the downtown area called the Valley of the Beautiful Women. There are around 200 wine cellars in this area at which you can get very cheap wine.

Here is a view from our balcony and two pics of our room.

Here's the breakfast area, right outside our room! I have heard that a Hungarian breakfast is typical of Europe: bread, sliced meats, boiled eggs, cereals, yogurt, juices, coffee/tea. I'm enjoying hot chocolate!

After checking into our hotel, we went to the city center to find the Tourinform. There we found out that a special day will be celebrated on Tuesday, called St. Ivan's Day and there will be festivities right outside our hotel! :)

After that, we walked around the city to see what was to see. We got very pretty pics of the streets. For about $1.30 each, we climbed the northernmost Minaret left by the Turks when they ruled over Hungary. It is not a feat for claustrophobics as the tower is only a staircase enclosed by walls. It is 40 meters (130 feet) high and gives a great view of Eger and the surrounding countryside.

We walked around the city some more and visited a park. We also visited a very nice mall there and discovered a Subway sandwich place, so we ate there. Don't worry, we ate great Hungarian food while in Eger too.

After a very hot drive to Eger and walking around Eger on a very hot sunny day, we pretty much crashed after dinner. We were thrilled to come back to an air-conditioned hotel room!

On Tuesday, we had a great breakfast then headed into town again. (Festivities in our area wouldn't start until 3 pm.) From the information we got at the tourist office, we knew what we wanted to see. We visited Gardonyi Geza's house first. He was a famous Hungarian writer and wrote Eclipse of the Crescent Moon about a battle with the Turks. His house is now a museum and overlooks Eger. Then we headed to the Lyceum, or university. On the top floors is located a museum about the history of telescopes. At the very top of the university is the camera obscura, or periscope, that "spies" on Eger. There is a very small opening on top of the building and a mirror and lens allows you to see the goings-on of the town. In order for this to work, there needs to be a dark room where the light reflected off the mirror can pass through the lens and onto a white table. We were amazed at how clearly the image on the table was! We could watch people from that room! Then we headed across the street to the Basilica and took some pictures. Last, we wanted to see the natatorium because of its architecture. Outside the natatorium is an interesting clock tower.

Finally, back to the szepasszonyvolgy, the valley of the beautiful women. Not much was going on at 3 pm. We wondered what the dragon building and flying models were about on the paper that we got from Tourinform. It sounded so interesting! We figured we'd find it from following the crowd. No crowd. Some people were there eating at restaurants and drinking wines, but we didn't see much going on. So, we had lunch. I had a Hortobagyi palacsinta and Justin had turkey breast with fruit and rice. Then we headed to one of the wine cellars and tried two white wines. (You could try 1 deciliter for 80 HUF, which is about 53 cents.)We tried a Le'anyka-almagyar (dry) and a Mucat Ottonel (semi-sweet). We like the Le'anyka, the Mucat was actually very sweet to us. Then we found out that the dragon building and flying things was for kids! There were 3-4 booths set up for kids and they were coloring dragons. So, off to another wine cellar. :)

(Rows of wine cellars.)

This time we tried a Merlot rose at 70 HUF per deciliter. We didn't like it. We walked around a bit more and more people were showing up. We decided to go take showers and go to our special candlelight dinner. As we walked back to our hotel, a parade of kids was walking past. They were singing and dressed in traditional clothes! On our paper that we got from Tourinform, it said they were going to do folkdancing. As it was 7 pm, and our dinner was at 8, we couldn't watch it.

Our candlelight dinner was wonderful. We sat under an area covered with grapevines. I assume that when they are ripe, the guests could just pick them and eat them. There was a gypsy band playing the violin, clarinet, bass, and another string instrument that I don't know the name for. One of the volinists would walk around and play in front of your table. For starters, Justin had cold-fruit soup and I had fried camembert with blueberry sauce. For the main course, Justin had roasted ham on a bed of beans and I had chicken breast with mushrooms and onions on a bed of roasted potatoes. I LOVED my food! We did not have wine for obvious reasons.

(the grapevine-covered restaurant)

(the gypsy band)

Around 9:15pm, we had finished our dinner and walked up to the wine cellars again. This time, in a central area, we saw people playing with fire! They had a ring, about the size of a bike wheel, and it was lit on fire. With the help of some people wearing orange, kids were lined up to roll the wheel. (Yes, I said kids.) They put on this wet glove and just pushed it along the ground. It was exciting for about 5 minutes. We walked up to the wine cellars, but were sadly too full to try anymore wines. So, we just bought a bottle of the famous Egri Bikave'r, a dry red. We walked back to the crowd and now saw people JUMPING over a fire. Again, exciting for about 5 minutes. We went back to our hotel, hoping to go back out at 11 pm for a concert in the area, but fell asleep.