Bill's Blog

Bull's Blood

After leaving Tokaj on Sunday, we drove back through Tarcal and head west though Szerencs, Miskloc, and several small towns before turning to Eger. The countryside was fairly flat. The crops were corn, wheat, oats and lots of sunflowers. It reminded me a lot of southern Minnesota.
Eger is another medieval town with a large fortress where they once defeated the invading Turks in the 1500's. The Turks did take and occupy the city for almost 100 years, but still they are very proud of the earlier victory. In the evening we wandered around in the fortress, before stopping for a pizza and beer.

On Monday, we spent several hours, walking from one historical building to another. The most beautiful buildings were built after the expulsion of the Turks and starting in the mid 1600's. It was a hot day and the sun was getting to Betty, but we pushed on.
Eger is also famous for its red wine, commonly called Eger's bull's blood. The town has many commercial and family cellars. Unfortunately only few of the family cellars were open. The wine was excellent. My only disappointment was that there was so few to try. We did discover a first rate restaurant that also had a cellar. If you ever are there you might want to visit, it is called Talizman-Tulipánkert Étterem. We had a bit of soup at lunch and decided to return there later for a full meal. As the sun was setting we went back and had two of the best meals that we have eaten. I had venison with a fantastic cranberry sauce, while Betty had roasted turkey with roasted pears. We met a wonderful couple from Hamburg, Gabriella and Harald. They are cycling through Hungary and will go on to Slovenia and Bosna i Hercegovina. We spent quite a bit of time talking about our lives and the changes that we have seen in the USA and Europe. We wish them a safe journey.

Press HERE to see a slideshow from Hungary.

Eger's Central Square from Fortress	Lázló from the Talizman Restaurant
In Bartha's Cellar	Another Cellar

Today, we left about nine, headed on the back-roads for Budapest. We passed through forested areas, several smaller towns and finally into Budapest. The city of two million souls is difficult to get around in. The main problem is lack of one ways and restrictions on left turns. If you do not know your way around it can take along time to drive just a few miles. Also there is a lack of public parking in some location. We ended up going to three information places before we could get recommendations for a place that we wanted to stay at. One was in Buda so we even got a glimpse of it. By the way, the Buda side of Budapest is west of the Danube River, and the Pest side is east of the river.
After checking in we wanted to head back to the center. We had problem in the hotel parking slots. The bars that lay on the ground in one spot rocked up and caught a bit of the Fiat's bumper. The damage looks very minor but in this day and age - who knows what they will charge to fix the hunk of plastic. Since it was faulty lockup bars that caused the problem, I expect that the hotel will pay for the damage but who knows.

Posted by bill at July 6, 2004 10:02 PM