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As my plane landed in Budapest, the pilot said, “Thank you for patronizing Lufthansa Airlines.”
Met at the airport by my friend and local guide, Peter, we hit the road immediately for Eger. My goal: to know Hungary outside of Budapest. Hungarophiles are frustrated by American travelers’ lack of respect for anything in Hungary outside its capital.
The capital city does dominate. In fact, in what other country is its biggest city ten times the size of its next-biggest? Roughly 20 percent of Hungary’s 10 million people live in greater Budapest. Athens — with 40 percent of Greece’s 10 million — is more dominant. But there’s no city in Hungary much more than 10 percent as big as its capital. (Debrecen is second, with around 250,000.)
There’s a quirky charm here. Thirty-six miles from the airport, we passed a town called Hatvan. That’s literally “Sixty” in Hungarian — named for being that many kilometers from Budapest. The fine little four-lane highway, built with EU money, felt like it was paved and painted yesterday. Tidy, wooden-railed overpasses make sure wild game (wild boar, deer, fox, and even frogs) can safely pass the traffic. Peter mentioned that in the communist times, only politicians and the elite could hunt. Now hunting is more accessible and popular.
Short tunnels come with the fanfare of a big one. The length of a land’s tunnels is a function of the height of its mountains. Hungary’s highest point is just 3,000 feet…so the tunnels are tiny. More than a thousand years ago, the Magyars migrated here from Asia and staked their claim to this basin, defined by a rim of mountains. All week here, the weather has been rolling through like a bowling ball. Everyone seems to know that if it stormed over there…it’s coming here.
With capitalism, life in Hungary has sped up. At a gas station mini-market, half the drink case is taken by energy drinks: Along with Red Bull, there’s Hell, Burn, Bomb, Playboy, Adrenalin, and Monster. Some of these exceed legal limits of power drinks in Western Europe.
We talked of the changes Hungary has experienced in the last 20 years. Peter remembered that when the Berlin Wall fell, he journeyed with his family as a schoolboy to Italy in their puddle-jumping Skoda car. They would roll down the autostrada, hugging the shoulder and marveling at how high-powered cars would zip by. In the last years of the Cold War, Hungarians were free to travel to Austria. Everyone had the same dream. They’d routinely bring home three things: refrigerator, color TV, and VCR. They’d put the TV and VCR inside the fridge. Then, in good Hungarian style, they’d pay duty on the fridge and tip the customs man — who wouldn’t look inside (where the TV and VCR were cooling).
In those days, there was a social ethic that it was OK to steal from your company or the state. Everyone cheated. The saying went: “If you don’t steal from the state…you steal from your family.”
Driving by Hungary’s Lake Balaton, the inland sea of this landlocked land, we saw huge communist-era hotels evoking the days when Eastern Europeans would all go to the same place for the same R&R. Poles would take a mountain break at Zakopane. Bulgarians hit the beach at Varna on the Black Sea. And Hungarians would enjoy Lake Balaton. Peter recalled how, back then, all Eastern European tourists toted the same brown-cased Soviet-made cameras. You could tell the year of an apartment by its wallpaper design. Grandiose scenes — like the Swiss Alp fantasy — might fill an entire wall. You’d stare at the wall and call it a vacation.
But all that is ancient history. Anyone under thirty barely remembers the communist times. Traveling in Hungary today, you enjoy a small country with an enormous past and an endearing pride. Hungarian-Americans seem to be notorious know-it-alls when they visit the old country. Several times, I heard them referred to as “New York Magyars” by locals who understand it’s a huge world out there…but there’s no place like home.
Hungary is a wonderful country, with one of its greatest charms in its underrated wine region in the south, near Pecs. In communist times, schools would empty at harvest time and school children would pick the grapes. Needless to say, if you ask a Hungarian about memories of this time, they worked about as hard as you would expect a group of high schoolers picking grapes to work, and ended up largely sampling the finished product. Though today, you’ll find a vibrant wine scene, without the prices and crowds of France or Germany, but the same stunning scene and tasty fermented grape juice! Plus, this part of Hungary is right by Croatia, so it makes a convenient stop on a trip from Budapest to Zagreb, then to the Croatian coast!
Bob K. beat me to it! Ironically,I also was going to submit a comment about Pecs, which I visited on a day trip several years ago while attending a conference in Kaposvar (a university town and the former gateway where American troops deployed into Bosnia). According to a 2007 blurb from CNN.com that I had in my files, Pecs is over 2,000 years old and has remnants of Roman times, as well as structures left behind by the Turks, who occupied the city from 1543 to 1686. Of particular interest is the Baroque Inner City Parish Church, which stands atop Szechenyi Square in the city center. It is a former mosque built with the stones of a former Gothic Church. Both the minaret and the steeple were removed during subsequent restorations. On a beautiful sunny October day in 2005, our group visited a winery in the town of Villany (excellent!) and then went into Pecs to wander around and have a meal. In contrast to Budapest, Pecs was slow-paced, uncrowded, architecturally more interesting, and oozing with history. However, it is not a completely Back Door town, since this year it is one of the European Capitals of Culture (along with Essen, Germany, and Istanbul, Turkey). Word must have got out!
Rick Steves, Hi, my family enjoys your shows on PBS, Create TV. Thank you for very interesting, entertaining, and fun shows. You give me an idea of what to expect when I finally get to travel to Europe. More shows please.
We visited Eger in 2007 based upon the itinerary laid out in “Rick Steves Eastern Europe”. If I remember correctly, Rick recommended 2 days in Eger. After looking at the sight descriptions, some which sounded iffy, (and really liking our Budapest hotel) we opted to day trip from Budapest via the train instead. I’m glad that we did. The cathedral, camera obscura, and the town square were interesting. You could see all of that easily in a half day and still have time for relaxing at a cafe or visiting the wineries. The recommendation to visit the castle ruins was a complete waste of time. Our return train ticket was booked in the evening, so we decided to kill some time over at the wine caves. We bumped into some other Americans who had come on Rick’s recommendation and were also bewildered at the “worth 2 days’ suggestion. The wine was drinkable – probably the best redeeming quality was the cheap price and the fact that we were able to swap stories with some fellow travelers. We didn’t have time to visit Pecs, but judging by the above comments I think I would change the recommendation to Eger as an optional day trip and Pecs as the replacement for Eger on the “recommended” itinerary (or maybe even Lake Balaton).
Blog Editor’s Note: Thanks for your input. Actually, since the first edition of Rick Steves’ Eastern Europe, we’ve suggested Eger as being “possible as a day trip from Budapest, but better overnight”–because of the relatively long transport times (2.5 hours by train each way). We’ve never recommended two days there. Perhaps you’re thinking of a different guidebook.
I have been a fan for years! Always wishing I could go to Europe, I live vicariously through Ricks shows! They are interesting and full of great advice. I love how they take time to look at all the beautiful art in any area they visit! The blogs are fun to read, Ricks writing style makes you feel as though you were there{I wish}. Thank-you Rick, and as always, Keep on travelin’!
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I am currently a California Magyar traveling to my grandfathers country for the first time. Rather than spending time in tourist zones we have chosen to visit the family village not in the guidebooks. Our relatives both over and under thirty, do indeed remember communism…my cousin Jolan remembers riding her bicycle at age ten 30 kilometers into Szombathely to buy the family bread, her husband Sylvester remembers getting through the Iron Curtain briefly during the 56 Revolution, and walking to an American Army camp near Salzburg with 400 other villagers, including another cousin aged 16. We are currently in Pecs, an beautiful small city with Christian burial chambers in a UNESCO World Heritage Sight dating back to the 3rd century, and no other Americans in sight…just lots of Europeans from all over…Hungary is simply amazing.
Eger was one of the highlights of our Rick Steves Eastern Europe tour…mainly because of the chance to visit with the local people. Our wonderful guide, Etelka, took us to visit a school and a local winery where we sampled the wines and danced on the patio overlooking the countryside. We also enjoyed our morning visit to the outdoor market and my husband got a great haircut, communicating only through smiles and sign language. Taking the road less traveled is one of the great experiences of traveling!