Budapest to Eger May 4-6

By Eric
 

In the morning, just before checking out of our hotel, we called Paris with the Newton to send a few of these chapters to Katy. When we paid for the room, about 30 minutes later, we told them we had called France that morning but the call didn't show up on the hotel computer. We debated telling them again but decided not too. We justified it by the fact that it took the clerk about 5 minutes to get through the computer system and find the two local calls we had made several days before. So if we had said something it would probably have taken her 30 minutes more to figure out how much we owed.
The ride out of Budapest was a lot more of the light- and heavy-industrial crap we passed on the way in. There's something about Eastern European telephone poles and electric lines that look particularly bleak.

Fortunately we had a semi-bike trail much of the way. Sometimes it was more of a stroller trail or a walking path than a bike trail but it was a lot less stressful than riding on the busy roads.

The countryside, when we finally reached it, looked remarkable like western Pennsylvania. It has the same weeds, trees, and grasses. The climate must be very similar. Maybe eastern Europeans were attracted to Pittsburgh because it reminded them of home.

One thing really stood out: outdoor crucifixes. We later saw them all over Eastern Europe. They're all along the highways and in towns, too. Later, in Slovakia, we met up with some French cyclists who had noticed the same thing. We thought that was odd, because the French also have outdoor crucifixes, just not as many. The French cyclists told us, "But we only have them at the highway intersections." And it's true. The Hungarians, meanwhile, put the crosses everywhere.
 

Though we passed the occasional horse drawn cart, the vast majority of the farming was done with tractors-- rather impressive John Deeres sometimes. I even saw a man tilling his garden with a rototiller.

There was one striking crop of bright yellow flowers that brightened the fields here and there even on the gray overcast days. I do not know what these flowers are or why they grow them but they're very pretty.

We had no particular plan for that evening. We hoped to find camping or a hotel in the town of Hatvan. The hotel was full (this keeps happening to us -- low season is over) so we just started asking everyone we met if there was camping anywhere. Otherwise we figured we could find some free camping.

I popped into a little bar where a bunch of large grumpy looking Hungarian men wearing brown sat drinking. I showed the bartender the phrase in our phrase book, "Is there any camping near here?" All the guys suddenly took interest. The first answer was "nem" (no) but then there was a lot of talking and near arguing. Everyone in the little bar had a word to say. Then the bartender drew me an excellent map with distances.

We followed the map and about 2.5 km later we were at a totally unmarked "campground." It was really just a bunch of old cabins. A huge group of teenagers was staying there. After a long check in process (I don't think they get many dropins - they don't even have a sign) they put us in one of the cabins. It wasn't much but it had water and cost just about eight dollars. No one spoke English but they were extremely friendly.

Thanks to the teenagers on the other side of the wall from us, we got an early start the next morning. It was cold, we had some headwinds and the skies were gray but it didn't rain. We were really looking forward to our destination for the night, Eger, a place famous for its wines.

We spent all morning climbing a 750-meter pass. At the top there's a ski lodge. There was no snow now but it was still cold -- about 48 degrees. None of the restaurants were open so we did not hang out long. After a chilly descent we were revitalized and reheated with a great Hungarian lunch of soup and goulash with dumpings. Hungarian food was invented for days like that.

After that it was not too terribly far to Eger but the road went up and down like the design on the front of Charlie Brown's shirt. It took us a long time. After some confusion we finally found the town center and went immediately to the nicest restaurant we could find and ordered another big round of Hungarian food.

I read on the menu that Hungarian food was invented by shepards that spent all day in the hills. They wanted to have just one big hot meal that would be enough for an entire day. We've been eating two, sometimes three of these a day.

We didn't ride the next day and instead explored Eger. We loved it. We saw the observatory museum with a fantastic camera obscura (they call it a periscope) at the top. We went into a dark room with a round table in the middle and three shiny brass poles hanging above it. The poles had egg-shaped knobs on the ends and swung. A man closed a little window at the side of the room and a picture appeared on the table. It was amazing. The picture looked like a painting of the Cathedral outside except the cars and people moved! By manipulating the knobs he could look around the town and spy on everyone.

The cathedral was a little like St. Stephan's in Budapest - nice warm, colorful, happy interior with pleasant paintings in pastels on the ceiling. God seems unusually kind in Hungary, very New Testament love and forgiveness stuff. So I can't understand why the Hungarians have such a high suicide rate. Higher than Russia.

The old university had a fantastic library. Nicely carved wood shelves, ancient texts in academic feeling bindings. You're I.Q. raises ten points just walking in.

The woman who worked there was amazingly friendly. I mean amazingly. She talked to tourists all day long but I would have sworn she had been waiting years for anyone to ask her a question. She showed us the only English books in the library - about 20 works of Shakespeare - and she pointed out something fascinating about the giant painting on the ceiling. It depicts a Catholic church conference on censorship from hundreds of years ago. The interesting thing is a bolt of lightning coming out of no where setting some books on fire while some Transylvania-fashioned cleric types look on unimpressed.

The librarian also pointed out that the ceiling was nearly flat, curving up only 80 centimeters. Clever painting makes it look almost like a dome.

When we left, we tried to buy five postcards, but she only let us pay for one, and gave us the rest for free!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Thermal baths. They were in a big area with three or so swimming pools and a few smaller pools. The sun shone but it was only about 60 degrees. We tested the waters of the pools until we found the hottest ones.

Next: Hungary Chapter 3 - Itsy-Bitsy Ida

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