Zalakaros, Hungary
Our routing into Hungary took us through some backroads from Vienna, and we have to say we're really not sure where Jane the Trusty GPS had us cross the border. The former border station was just a shell of it's former self, with the windows broken out. We slowed to 40km, however, when there were no authorities on either side of the border, we kept on going. So once we passed the border, the anxiety hit, as we had heard that in Hungary there was a vignette system (prepaid highway toll) in place and there were hidden cameras that had number plate reading software. Apparently you would get a fine if you hadn’t purchased the said vignette from a local gas station. As we drove further into Hungary, we still had not located a gas station (JANE!). We finally found a gas station with an attendant who spoken a little English and he helped us buy a vignette for 10 days for about USD $11. Hurdle crossed! As it would turn out, the roads were
relatively quiet since it was a Sunday. We drove for about 2 hours in Hungary, turning south towards the Lake Balaton region, and there was barely anyone on the roads. Our routing took us past some real bleak, communistic-looking small towns with serious concrete monstrosity housing near the border. However, as we kept heading south, the landscape began to look like Wisconsin - rolling hills, farms, and plenty of small two lane roads. Rows of corn and sunflower farms dotted the countryside - very pretty!
In Zalakaros, we rented an apartment with a two ring kitchentop burner, minifridge, and a real drip coffee machine. Our studio had a nice kitchen table and chairs, a queen sized b
ed, full bathroom, and a small semi-shaded porch with a drying rack, and al fresco outside table and chairs, which overlooked the fruit bushes (raspberries!) and gardens outside. It was perfect for us! The best thing was that we were the only occupants of the rental building until our last night there. The weather there during the week started off mild, went crazy hot (36-7), and then cool winds, storms and rains headed in for the last full day we were in the rental. We did not do too much while in our little rental, we intended it as a break from traveling!
While there for our week, we learned that the north was the nicer looking area, towards Keszthely, but did not have as nice grocery stores. The south, to Nagykanisza, soon got our nickname of “naggy hag,” due to the prostitutes that would wait on the side of the road for customers. They had some crazy outfits, including short Scottish kilts and neon bikini tops. The grocery store stops also scared us a little – the people were weird looking. We tried to avoid eye contact – there were some rough looking BIG men with huge bellies and tattoos and hard looking women with yellow dyed hair, and lots of see through plastic heels, plus some dark looking ethnic minorities. Toto?!?!?
We took some interesting jaunts to the north around the lake area. One day we drove to Badacsonytomaj and had our first lunch out at the Borbaratok, where we sampled ghoulash and pork, red cabbage and mashed pots. We learned that the food is a peasant type fare, and was quite heavy. After eating our heavy food – in the
serious heat – we were ready for a nap. Alas, however, the waiter ruined that --- he told us we could have a complimentary glass of wine next door at their family winery. So, off we went! There was a local film crew there, so we eagerly tried to get on camera for again – and then in garbled Hungarian and English, we sampled some local wines. We were surprised at the fine quality of the Szurkebarat (pinot gris), Olasrizling (riesling), and Bianca, and ended up buying 2 litres in a cool green jug for $4.50 USD.
Our routing into Hungary took us through some backroads from Vienna, and we have to say we're really not sure where Jane the Trusty GPS had us cross the border. The former border station was just a shell of it's former self, with the windows broken out. We slowed to 40km, however, when there were no authorities on either side of the border, we kept on going. So once we passed the border, the anxiety hit, as we had heard that in Hungary there was a vignette system (prepaid highway toll) in place and there were hidden cameras that had number plate reading software. Apparently you would get a fine if you hadn’t purchased the said vignette from a local gas station. As we drove further into Hungary, we still had not located a gas station (JANE!). We finally found a gas station with an attendant who spoken a little English and he helped us buy a vignette for 10 days for about USD $11. Hurdle crossed! As it would turn out, the roads were
relatively quiet since it was a Sunday. We drove for about 2 hours in Hungary, turning south towards the Lake Balaton region, and there was barely anyone on the roads. Our routing took us past some real bleak, communistic-looking small towns with serious concrete monstrosity housing near the border. However, as we kept heading south, the landscape began to look like Wisconsin - rolling hills, farms, and plenty of small two lane roads. Rows of corn and sunflower farms dotted the countryside - very pretty!In Zalakaros, we rented an apartment with a two ring kitchentop burner, minifridge, and a real drip coffee machine. Our studio had a nice kitchen table and chairs, a queen sized b
ed, full bathroom, and a small semi-shaded porch with a drying rack, and al fresco outside table and chairs, which overlooked the fruit bushes (raspberries!) and gardens outside. It was perfect for us! The best thing was that we were the only occupants of the rental building until our last night there. The weather there during the week started off mild, went crazy hot (36-7), and then cool winds, storms and rains headed in for the last full day we were in the rental. We did not do too much while in our little rental, we intended it as a break from traveling!While there for our week, we learned that the north was the nicer looking area, towards Keszthely, but did not have as nice grocery stores. The south, to Nagykanisza, soon got our nickname of “naggy hag,” due to the prostitutes that would wait on the side of the road for customers. They had some crazy outfits, including short Scottish kilts and neon bikini tops. The grocery store stops also scared us a little – the people were weird looking. We tried to avoid eye contact – there were some rough looking BIG men with huge bellies and tattoos and hard looking women with yellow dyed hair, and lots of see through plastic heels, plus some dark looking ethnic minorities. Toto?!?!?
We took some interesting jaunts to the north around the lake area. One day we drove to Badacsonytomaj and had our first lunch out at the Borbaratok, where we sampled ghoulash and pork, red cabbage and mashed pots. We learned that the food is a peasant type fare, and was quite heavy. After eating our heavy food – in the
serious heat – we were ready for a nap. Alas, however, the waiter ruined that --- he told us we could have a complimentary glass of wine next door at their family winery. So, off we went! There was a local film crew there, so we eagerly tried to get on camera for again – and then in garbled Hungarian and English, we sampled some local wines. We were surprised at the fine quality of the Szurkebarat (pinot gris), Olasrizling (riesling), and Bianca, and ended up buying 2 litres in a cool green jug for $4.50 USD.We also checked out Keszthely, sight of the Festetics Kastely castle, where the grounds were open to the public as a park. The castle was built by the family of George Fesetics 
hundreds of years ago, and was a gorgeous surviving castle, one of the largest in Hungary. Amazingly, a two story wing is just for a library, now open only to citizens of the city. The gardens and vistas were pretty amazing, and everyone saught shelter from the sun and heat in the cool gardens. While in town, we caught the local market, buying perfectly picked peaches, and enjoying a hearty peasant lunch of cabbage rolls and bean stew.
Budapest
We had reservations to stay inside the Castle Hill district at the Hilton, which was outstanding. Amazingly, this was one part of the city where you could park on the street for free! Our spot was directly in front of the hotel, which the hotel told us to take advantage of. The Castle Hill district was beautiful and was all within old castle walls. We had done a little bit of reading before arriving there, and were surprised at the condition of the city considering it was pretty much destroyed by both the Nazis and the Russians in World War II, due in part to Hungary changing sides during the war; therefore becoming everybody’s whipping boy. Germany retreated from Buda
pest and left their mark on their city by blowing up all the bridges connecting the two sides of the city. To this day, they are still finding unexploded bombs in the city ---- as many as 2500 a year. These bombs came from Germany, the Allies, Russia and Romania and the bomb disposal units have to identify them before disarming them. That must be one hell of a job! On the first afternoon we took a walk around the Castle Hill district which was very interesting. All of the buildings appeared to be at least from the 1700’s, though we knew that was not the case. Bullet holes still mark some of the walls, it is amazing! From the top of the hill you had a great view through from the wall out across the river to the Pest side of the 
Danube. Yes, Budapest is really made up of two historical villages, one called Buda and the other called Pest. Over time both sides have grown and become a city. The river is spanned by several bridges that have been rebuilt since the Germans blew them all up when they retreated from the Russians in WW2. The new bridges are spectacular and each has its own theme. The Castle at the end of the hill has a museum inside of it which we did not go into, however we walked all around the walls and got some great photos of the surrounding views. All in all it was a beautiful and stunning area to be in. We particularly enjoyed all the fountains which were simply stunning!
The next morning we had a plan, we decided that we would spend damn near $300USD to get our tourist visas for China which would free up the rest of the Europe trip from this task. You are only able to get them 90 days in advance of your entry into the country. We decided to “expedite”
the handling of them for one day processing, and were prepared to pay an extra $90 USD to have this done. The issue was that some Chinese embassies in countries we plan to visit are only open certain days of the week – and you can not get a definitive answer on what constitutes the official number of working days that they process the visas in. Since we are country hopping, we did not have the luxury of time, nor do we like traveling without passports on us. So we got up early, ate breakfast and headed off to the Chinese Embassy on foot so we would be there for the 9am opening. The walk was about 2.5 miles and it took us into the Pest side of the river which was really amazing with massive elegant buildings and graceful tree-lined boulevards, filled with cafes and upmarket shops. We also passed the Hungarian Opera – which had to have been one of the coolest buildings! We arrived at the embassy about 25 minutes before it was due to open and were first in line. Before long, there were about 15 people waiting outside the embassy. We had completed the forms, had photos, our passports and the cash and we walked in! We were met by the most unimaginative embassy official you could ever hope to interact with. The first thing he did was look at our USA passports dismissively and asked where our Hungarian visas were. To make a long story short, it went to hell from there, and we were flatly denied and told to send our passports back or fly to the USA for processing. Right on. It was a really bad experience, and once you are denied, you have to state this on your next application. After some stress, sleepless nights and moodiness, we finally talked to the most helpful manager at American Airlines via Skype who helped us resolve our ticketing issue. As a result, we now have 19 extra days in Hawaii at the end of our trip. Um, who's the big winner?!?!?
On our last full day there, we walked through the castle palace again and headed down to the town area of Pest. We enjoyed a fine walk along the river. We found the market, which was a massive building, on the ground floor there was supposedly a fish market, however we have seen them before (and we could already smell it on the first floor) so we didn’t take the stairs down. The ground floor was fresh foods which included veggies, herbs and spices and baked goods. We had to try the chocolate goods - which turned out to be chocolate rum balls. Yum! Upstairs there were the tourist souvenirs, however as with most things in Hungary, we found them to be very expensive, or at the very least, more expensive than they needed to be. One of the funniest things in the market was a tee-shirt that said “I heart BP,” which we thought was funny because of BP (oil giant) which was still all over the news with the spill. We’re sure the Tshirt designers meant it to be BudaPest.
Eger
Our hotel was walking distance to the town and to the wine area, so we decided to hit town in search of sights and food. We really were not sure what to expect. Lonely Planet has said there was no reason to NOT like it, so we decided – hesitantly - that this must be a good sign. Sure enough, it was one of the highlights from our Hungary trip! It is famous for the old baroque buildings in town, large pedestrian streets and the Eger Fortress, or castle … and the famous bull’s blood wine.
We first came to the Basilica, which is is the only classicist building in town, and the second largest church in Hungary, built in 1831. Quite honestly it looked like The Pantheon, it was massive, bright colored, and was covered on the roof with amazing life-sized statues. We were sufficiently wowed and kept walking…. We saw town’s other interesting sights, the Provost’s Palace, the Lyceum and the Minaret, which is the northernmost historical building from the Turkish era in Europe. Town’s main square had amazing larger-than-life statues
commemorating the victory over the Turkish in 1552. Sadly, however, this was not the end to the Turks, who re-took the city again in 1596, and occupied the town for another 91 years. We kept walking and marveled at the town, it was gorgeous. The nice thing was that it was not crawling with tourists, and even the locals were all out and walking. Many were sitting in the village square and having lunches and drinks in the small cafes ringing the pedestrian streets. We had such a good time, we stopped to try a special delicacy, which is a hollow tube shaped cake which comes in different flavors. We had our cake fresh off of the “cake spit,” which cooked it. It was melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon goodness. It sort of had a monkey bread taste to it (for those of you in the states that remember that childhood treat!) We could have kept eating more, and we wish we knew the name of what it was. By the time all was said and done, it was almost dinnertime (or mosquito eating time!), so we decided to walk to our hotel, and have a meal at the Western Etterem, which was adjacent to our hotel. There was a steady stream of people pulling into the restaurant when we had arrived earlier, and the hotel owner had recommended it, so why not? We were not disappointed, and found that the food was really good! Marcus had schnitzel and Christy had veal ghoulash with spaetzle, washed down with a few local glasses of wine. The meal cost about $25, which was a really good treat, although not the healthiest.
The next day we took our time in the morning, and headed off to Szepasszonv-volgy, which means the Valley of the Beautiful Woman, at 11am, which is a famous wine valley. The ancient
valley was named after a goddess of pre-historic religion to whom sacrifices were apparently made, although other folklore talks of a famous beautiful woman who used to sell wine in this area out of one of the cellars. Never-the-less, archivists are unable to tell how old the cellars actually are. Cellars are actually carved into the rolite tufa rock, and maintain a temperature – permanent – of 10-15 degrees Celsius. The Eger region is famous for the “egri bikaver,” or the “bull’s blood,” a registered trademark. The wine is a blend of at least three grape varietals, giving most of the wines a ripe bouquet, some with more of a tannin note. We were novices and did not know how to taste there or how to buy…so we struck out on our own.
We came across one cellar, where the young man invited us to try some wine. He ended up pouring wines from the expensive bottled wines, which were quite pricy at between 20-25 USD! We had seen signs for litres of wine starting at 1.50 USD! So we now knew a good, fun fact – if you want to buy, try the liter wines, which were not as expensive. This proved to be true at all of the vineyards we tried. So after we bought a glass of wine, we learned you could sample, buy a glass if you liked (ours cost 50 cents USD!), and then buy wine in litres, half litres, etc. Some people bought in their own containers (empty Coke or water bottles), and if you did not have your own, the cellars would sell plastic bottles for a small fee. We slowly headed in a clockwise fashion around the valley, and tasted at Prokaj Pinceszet#26, where the woman had to be the nicest, and we met up with two hilarious Spaniards. They were also deciding where their next vacation was going to be… between get this… New Zealand and China. We talked a hard talk, and think we made some decisions easy for them! We then carried on with the Spaniards to
the #40 Juhasz Peter Pinceszete, where the Spaniards continued their hilarity. The afternoon went on, and the Spaniards left to find food in town, and we met some Aussies from Melbourne, who had just lived in Auckland. As it happens, they were traveling the long way round the world, too! We had a nice chat with them, and listened to the gypsy music on the deck enjoying the day. We then winecellar crawled for a bit and ended up at #27, where it was getting to be dinnertime. We loved it (who would not at that point… 6 hours into the day?!?!?) and bought a two litre bottle of red wine there, before all heading back home. It was a great day, but let's just say the 6 hour drive into Romania the next day was not as fun.
We really liked Hungary and were appreciative of the time we had to get to know the country. The scenery was lovely, and it was like being back in the rolling hills of glacier-carved Wisconsin. Budapest was a wonderful surprise, and Eger was a real trip highlight. We found Hungary to be more expensive than we thought, especially foods, gifts and goods. We were glad to keep moving for a few reasons, though… We had to get away from the Austrian/Hungarian style toilets! Let’s just say we called them “display” style… they had a really short drop to the large flat bowl, and then a small flushing hole. That should be enough of a description – gross.
Next Up: Roamin' Romania
hundreds of years ago, and was a gorgeous surviving castle, one of the largest in Hungary. Amazingly, a two story wing is just for a library, now open only to citizens of the city. The gardens and vistas were pretty amazing, and everyone saught shelter from the sun and heat in the cool gardens. While in town, we caught the local market, buying perfectly picked peaches, and enjoying a hearty peasant lunch of cabbage rolls and bean stew.Budapest
We had reservations to stay inside the Castle Hill district at the Hilton, which was outstanding. Amazingly, this was one part of the city where you could park on the street for free! Our spot was directly in front of the hotel, which the hotel told us to take advantage of. The Castle Hill district was beautiful and was all within old castle walls. We had done a little bit of reading before arriving there, and were surprised at the condition of the city considering it was pretty much destroyed by both the Nazis and the Russians in World War II, due in part to Hungary changing sides during the war; therefore becoming everybody’s whipping boy. Germany retreated from Buda
pest and left their mark on their city by blowing up all the bridges connecting the two sides of the city. To this day, they are still finding unexploded bombs in the city ---- as many as 2500 a year. These bombs came from Germany, the Allies, Russia and Romania and the bomb disposal units have to identify them before disarming them. That must be one hell of a job! On the first afternoon we took a walk around the Castle Hill district which was very interesting. All of the buildings appeared to be at least from the 1700’s, though we knew that was not the case. Bullet holes still mark some of the walls, it is amazing! From the top of the hill you had a great view through from the wall out across the river to the Pest side of the 
Danube. Yes, Budapest is really made up of two historical villages, one called Buda and the other called Pest. Over time both sides have grown and become a city. The river is spanned by several bridges that have been rebuilt since the Germans blew them all up when they retreated from the Russians in WW2. The new bridges are spectacular and each has its own theme. The Castle at the end of the hill has a museum inside of it which we did not go into, however we walked all around the walls and got some great photos of the surrounding views. All in all it was a beautiful and stunning area to be in. We particularly enjoyed all the fountains which were simply stunning!The next morning we had a plan, we decided that we would spend damn near $300USD to get our tourist visas for China which would free up the rest of the Europe trip from this task. You are only able to get them 90 days in advance of your entry into the country. We decided to “expedite”
the handling of them for one day processing, and were prepared to pay an extra $90 USD to have this done. The issue was that some Chinese embassies in countries we plan to visit are only open certain days of the week – and you can not get a definitive answer on what constitutes the official number of working days that they process the visas in. Since we are country hopping, we did not have the luxury of time, nor do we like traveling without passports on us. So we got up early, ate breakfast and headed off to the Chinese Embassy on foot so we would be there for the 9am opening. The walk was about 2.5 miles and it took us into the Pest side of the river which was really amazing with massive elegant buildings and graceful tree-lined boulevards, filled with cafes and upmarket shops. We also passed the Hungarian Opera – which had to have been one of the coolest buildings! We arrived at the embassy about 25 minutes before it was due to open and were first in line. Before long, there were about 15 people waiting outside the embassy. We had completed the forms, had photos, our passports and the cash and we walked in! We were met by the most unimaginative embassy official you could ever hope to interact with. The first thing he did was look at our USA passports dismissively and asked where our Hungarian visas were. To make a long story short, it went to hell from there, and we were flatly denied and told to send our passports back or fly to the USA for processing. Right on. It was a really bad experience, and once you are denied, you have to state this on your next application. After some stress, sleepless nights and moodiness, we finally talked to the most helpful manager at American Airlines via Skype who helped us resolve our ticketing issue. As a result, we now have 19 extra days in Hawaii at the end of our trip. Um, who's the big winner?!?!?On our last full day there, we walked through the castle palace again and headed down to the town area of Pest. We enjoyed a fine walk along the river. We found the market, which was a massive building, on the ground floor there was supposedly a fish market, however we have seen them before (and we could already smell it on the first floor) so we didn’t take the stairs down. The ground floor was fresh foods which included veggies, herbs and spices and baked goods. We had to try the chocolate goods - which turned out to be chocolate rum balls. Yum! Upstairs there were the tourist souvenirs, however as with most things in Hungary, we found them to be very expensive, or at the very least, more expensive than they needed to be. One of the funniest things in the market was a tee-shirt that said “I heart BP,” which we thought was funny because of BP (oil giant) which was still all over the news with the spill. We’re sure the Tshirt designers meant it to be BudaPest.
Eger
Our hotel was walking distance to the town and to the wine area, so we decided to hit town in search of sights and food. We really were not sure what to expect. Lonely Planet has said there was no reason to NOT like it, so we decided – hesitantly - that this must be a good sign. Sure enough, it was one of the highlights from our Hungary trip! It is famous for the old baroque buildings in town, large pedestrian streets and the Eger Fortress, or castle … and the famous bull’s blood wine.
We first came to the Basilica, which is is the only classicist building in town, and the second largest church in Hungary, built in 1831. Quite honestly it looked like The Pantheon, it was massive, bright colored, and was covered on the roof with amazing life-sized statues. We were sufficiently wowed and kept walking…. We saw town’s other interesting sights, the Provost’s Palace, the Lyceum and the Minaret, which is the northernmost historical building from the Turkish era in Europe. Town’s main square had amazing larger-than-life statues
commemorating the victory over the Turkish in 1552. Sadly, however, this was not the end to the Turks, who re-took the city again in 1596, and occupied the town for another 91 years. We kept walking and marveled at the town, it was gorgeous. The nice thing was that it was not crawling with tourists, and even the locals were all out and walking. Many were sitting in the village square and having lunches and drinks in the small cafes ringing the pedestrian streets. We had such a good time, we stopped to try a special delicacy, which is a hollow tube shaped cake which comes in different flavors. We had our cake fresh off of the “cake spit,” which cooked it. It was melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon goodness. It sort of had a monkey bread taste to it (for those of you in the states that remember that childhood treat!) We could have kept eating more, and we wish we knew the name of what it was. By the time all was said and done, it was almost dinnertime (or mosquito eating time!), so we decided to walk to our hotel, and have a meal at the Western Etterem, which was adjacent to our hotel. There was a steady stream of people pulling into the restaurant when we had arrived earlier, and the hotel owner had recommended it, so why not? We were not disappointed, and found that the food was really good! Marcus had schnitzel and Christy had veal ghoulash with spaetzle, washed down with a few local glasses of wine. The meal cost about $25, which was a really good treat, although not the healthiest.The next day we took our time in the morning, and headed off to Szepasszonv-volgy, which means the Valley of the Beautiful Woman, at 11am, which is a famous wine valley. The ancient
valley was named after a goddess of pre-historic religion to whom sacrifices were apparently made, although other folklore talks of a famous beautiful woman who used to sell wine in this area out of one of the cellars. Never-the-less, archivists are unable to tell how old the cellars actually are. Cellars are actually carved into the rolite tufa rock, and maintain a temperature – permanent – of 10-15 degrees Celsius. The Eger region is famous for the “egri bikaver,” or the “bull’s blood,” a registered trademark. The wine is a blend of at least three grape varietals, giving most of the wines a ripe bouquet, some with more of a tannin note. We were novices and did not know how to taste there or how to buy…so we struck out on our own.We came across one cellar, where the young man invited us to try some wine. He ended up pouring wines from the expensive bottled wines, which were quite pricy at between 20-25 USD! We had seen signs for litres of wine starting at 1.50 USD! So we now knew a good, fun fact – if you want to buy, try the liter wines, which were not as expensive. This proved to be true at all of the vineyards we tried. So after we bought a glass of wine, we learned you could sample, buy a glass if you liked (ours cost 50 cents USD!), and then buy wine in litres, half litres, etc. Some people bought in their own containers (empty Coke or water bottles), and if you did not have your own, the cellars would sell plastic bottles for a small fee. We slowly headed in a clockwise fashion around the valley, and tasted at Prokaj Pinceszet#26, where the woman had to be the nicest, and we met up with two hilarious Spaniards. They were also deciding where their next vacation was going to be… between get this… New Zealand and China. We talked a hard talk, and think we made some decisions easy for them! We then carried on with the Spaniards to
the #40 Juhasz Peter Pinceszete, where the Spaniards continued their hilarity. The afternoon went on, and the Spaniards left to find food in town, and we met some Aussies from Melbourne, who had just lived in Auckland. As it happens, they were traveling the long way round the world, too! We had a nice chat with them, and listened to the gypsy music on the deck enjoying the day. We then winecellar crawled for a bit and ended up at #27, where it was getting to be dinnertime. We loved it (who would not at that point… 6 hours into the day?!?!?) and bought a two litre bottle of red wine there, before all heading back home. It was a great day, but let's just say the 6 hour drive into Romania the next day was not as fun.We really liked Hungary and were appreciative of the time we had to get to know the country. The scenery was lovely, and it was like being back in the rolling hills of glacier-carved Wisconsin. Budapest was a wonderful surprise, and Eger was a real trip highlight. We found Hungary to be more expensive than we thought, especially foods, gifts and goods. We were glad to keep moving for a few reasons, though… We had to get away from the Austrian/Hungarian style toilets! Let’s just say we called them “display” style… they had a really short drop to the large flat bowl, and then a small flushing hole. That should be enough of a description – gross.
Next Up: Roamin' Romania
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