Central Eastern Europe 2. From Hungary, north into Slovakia

 

a late lunch at our hotel in Pecs

a grand building in Pecs on the central square 

 

this isn't a badly aligned photo, it really is a
wonky meterological information post 

Budapest is about the centre of the north of this roughly oval shaped country and we’ve travelled to Pecs in the far south and quite a way in the east to Eger with both only a little over a two hour train journey from the capital.  So Hungary is not a large country and from what must be described as my limited viewpoint it has an unprepossessing landscape.  Using the unofficial SI unit of size it’s about 4.5 times the size of Wales while Slovakia, the next country we plan to visit is about 2.5 Wales.  There’s a possibility we might get to Slovenia too which is the same size as Wales assuming Anglesey has declared independence.

 

is this really a statue using a mobile phone ?

I'm sure you'll agreee that this isn't
the most inviting name for a restaurant

Eger is a town like many others with a central old town which is generally all we ever bother with, especially when Lonely Planet describes the rest of the town as ‘gritty’.   Here it’s again virtually traffic free which makes it more attractive to look at as well as less noisy and polluted.  It also helps that Hungary appears to be almost litter free.  The centre is pretty small but has lots of restaurants with tables spilling out in front of them.  Menus are very meat oriented with lots of pork featured.  Some menus have sub-titles of No Legs, Two Legs and Four Legs for fish, poultry and

animals.  Eger has an impressive castle wall above the old town and our hotel is just outside it but inside the old town.  As oldies, we got free entry and inside the castle walls there is lots of restoration work going on, an impressive underground museum and great views over the town.  It has achieved a greater importance to the town since 1905 when a whole medieval castle bastion (a defensive tower) and a chunk of wall was destroyed so that a railway from a local quarry could be run through it.  A detour to the line of about fifty yards would have left the castle wall and bastion untouched.

 

near the centre of Eger

Eger castle in late evening sunshine from the main square

Eger old town from the castle

from 1326, this is the earliest European
depiction of a cannon - which apparently fired arrows

One disturbing thing we have noticed is an almost complete absence of birds, not just here but in what we’ve seen of Hungary.  Silent Spring in reality.  In Budapest we saw a couple of Pigeons, a couple of House Sparrows and a single Cormorant on the Danube.  From the train rides we’ve had of seven hours or so in total, we’ve seen a few Pigeons, a Magpie or two and a few distant raptors.  In Pecs, a couple of Pigeons and House Sparrows and on the outskirts a very rare treat of a family of Long-tailed Tits, one of our favourites, each one looking like a ball of feathers on a stick.

 

The trains used here are of variable age, the more modern ones have the carriages set low between each set of wheels so each carriage has a small rise where the wheels are.  It means that the platform is not so far down from the steps and it might make for a smoother ride.  These ones have good electronic information boards with the time to next station and plenty more to make sure that it is obvious when our station is next.   We’ve also seen on more than one occasion something I’d heard about but never seen before.  They actually do have wheeltappers with a small hammerhead on a spade length handle.  Men, of course, who walk along the platform and hit the train wheels to check for a clear tone rather than whatever the sound a cracked wheel makes.  Older British readers might remember ‘The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club’, a sort of variety show set in a fictitious working man’s club.

 

When we left Eger we were going international from Hungary, north into Slovakia with two changes.  Our second train was running late and we arrived ten minutes after our international connection was due to leave so were very happy to see it waiting for connecting passengers.  I’d expected it to be a new smart express but it was an old train and the Laser Display Screen on this one told us that once we got going we were thundering along at 53kph (32mph for those who can’t convert it).

 

Kosice illuminated fountain with the tower of St Elizabeth Cathedral behind,
proudly described in the tourist literature as
 "the easternmost western style cathedral in Europe".

It was spitting with rain in Slovakia when we arrived at Kosice and as we walked into the old town to our hotel the rain increased.  Travelling as we do with pretty well everything arranged only a day or so ahead as we go, we rely a lot on the electronics, the phones, the laptop, even the camera and without power we’re in trouble.  There are no internet cafes anymore which was what we used when we started travelling in a more laissez-faire manner some years back.  So it was galling to discover that we’d left our converter plug for converting three pin British to two round pins behind in our room in Eger.  It was our power bottleneck and it was in another country.   One of the staff at our latest hotel suggested an electronic shop in town as a possibility for a replacement so we set off the short distance in heavier rain to find the shop closed and a new address about half to a mile away.  This wasn’t a shop but more like a wholesale unit for workmen with a line of them waiting one side of a wooden counter while four or five other men scooted up and down retrieving stuff from the shelves behind.  They didn’t have a converter so I had a good look at what kit was visible and decided that as we were in extremis, I’d buy an extension lead with a local plug on it and a roll of insulation tape.  Then I’d cut the plug off my laptop, wire up the local plug and everything could be charged via the USB ports on the laptop.  My fellow traveller was not happy with my excellent solution but it was the only one we had.  Walking back happier even though the rain seemed to be harder we were within only a couple of hundred yards of our hotel when Heather saw a sign with an arrow pointing down a side road (invisible on our way past it earlier) which said ‘Electronic Shop 80 metres’.  Of course they had exactly what we’d wanted, a converter plug, English to local.

 

two photos in Kosice once the rain had stopped

Kosice is the only place in Europe I've seen a cafe with a Hookah on every table with most of them being smoked.  There's generally been a lot more smoking in Hungary and Slovakia than we're used to seeing at home.

In Hungary and Slovakia we’ve noticed that wine can be bought as usual by the bottle but also by the decilitre (100ml) and you order one or two dl’s to accompany your meal.  I think this is a much better system than what many restaurants in England and the USA now do and try to sell a ‘glass’ of 175ml or even 250ml and still call it a glass.  A bottle of wine is 750ml or thereabouts and traditionally contains six glasses of wine.  A glass is therefore 125ml.  and that is a full stop !   This is also the first place we’ve ever come across Burciak.  It’s cheap at only 1 euro for 100ml and is the must drawn off part way through a wine’s fermentation.  Slightly cloudy and yellowish, it goes off quickly and is only available for a short time each year.  With an alcohol content of about four to five degrees you’d think it was quite mild.  But no.   Apparently it continues to ferment in the stomach, so the story goes, although I think the acid content of a stomach would kill the yeast.  It does though taste very innocuous and people do get very drunk on it.   Heather only had the one Burciak after I’d checked out its qualities on the internet with my now fully charged phone.

 

low and narrow platforms at Kosice

Covers 10 September to 16 September