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All the pictures
Budapest: statue of St Stephen
Sopron: panorama and Church of St Michael
Fertod: a detail of the palace
My trip to Hungary
As you can imagine, I traveled to this wonderful country primarily to see the last European solar eclipse of the 20th century, on August 11th. But, during the three weeks I spent there, I had a lot of other adventures, as you will see... Besides, this has been my first "do-it-yourself trip", since I did not rely on a travel agency: I chosed where to go and what to visit, I booked the hotels, I took care of everything... and, let me say that, it was a success! Well, the money was put by my parents, that is the only thing I did not provide by myself...
If you read what I wrote about me, you know that I have a "hermit-like" personality. However, I asked other people to join my project, but the answer was always the same: "Well, maybe, I don't know, we'll see..." so at the end I sent everyone to hell and decided to go by myself. And it was a good idea!
I divided my report into four episodes, one for every city I visited in Hungary:
Part One: Budapest
Well, my trip begun in a pretty catastrophic way. When I reached the airport of Milan Malpensa, I had my first overbooking adventure - you know, when airlines book more seats than what's actually available on the airplane. I was lucky, however, because the flight was operated jointly by Alitalia and Malev, the Hungarian airline. I was with Alitalia, but some seats belonging to Malev where free, so I could at last jump on the airplane.
Once in Budapest, I went to the baggage claim and... I discovered that my baggage wasn't there! Actually, it was nowhere, so I had to go to the lost baggage office. Finally, I could reach my hostel, and the first thing I saw in Budapest was a supermarket, where I spent some money I had received at the airport to buy the most urgent things: shampoo, after shave, and so on.
You may well understand that I wasn't very happy... but not even desperate, anyway.
Luckily, on the day after, the hostel reception called the airport, and they said my baggage had arrived. They brought it to the hostel, so I could finally change my clothes (I did not smell like a horse yet, but it was close) and enjoy one of the most beautiful European capitals.
It would take a lot of time to list all what I've seen: museums, parks, caves, monuments, churches, palaces, castles, Roman ruins, the zoo... people is really friendly, food is great, and the public transport system is one of the best and cheapest I've ever seen. Oh, and the girls are simply gorgeous... but I had no hot dates... :-(
The weather was also very good; what I liked most was walking near the Danube after sunset, and look at the illuminated Chain Bridge and the Royal Palace.
I was alone in my room during the first days, but on the last but one day a British guy arrived, followed by a Spanish one the day after. Nice guys, even if the latter was quite noisy at night.
Finally, on the morning of August 8th, I took the train to Szeged, but that's another story...
Part Two: Szeged
I arrived to my hotel safe and sound; it was pretty outside the city centre, near a big and noisy road, but it was cheap, and with the tram I could reach the center in ten minutes. After Budapest, Szeged (which has about 180,000 inhabitants) looked like a small village... I saw all what was listed on my guide during the first couple of days, and what I liked most was the old synagogue and the city museum, with an exhibition about the Avars.
While in Budapest I had no problem with English, things changed in Szeged, and I had to dig up my little German, which proved to be very useful. With elderly people, however, the only chance was my very little Hungarian... and the worst thing was that in many museums the "guides" were precisely elderly Hungarian women! When I went to museums quite off the beaten track, I often was the only visitor, so the "guides" were anxious to explain to me everything about the exposed items. They followed me like my shadow, switching light on in the room I was going into, and switching it off in the one I had just left. It made me feel quite uncomfortable!
But let's speak about the eclipse. During the first two days I spent in Szeged, there was not even a single cloud in the sky; then I watched weather forecasting at the Hungarian TV, and I saw rain, thunders, a real flood on the entire country. Next morning it started raining, and I was, as you can imagine, incredibly depressed, much more than when I had lost my baggage!
Then, about one hour before the totality, there was the miracle: the rain stopped, and spots of blue sky begain appearing in the sky. Since there was really a lot of people in the city centre, I preferred to go back to my hotel, and I watched the eclipse from a bridge on the railway: not a romantic place, but I was alone, that's what I wanted.
After those two unforgettable minutes, I had nothing left to do in Szeged: I simply walked around, wrote some postcards and prepared to go by bus to Pécs, my third destination...
Part Three: Pécs
Pécs is a city almost as big as Szeged, not far from the border with Croatia. Excluding Budapest, it is the most beautiful and charming city I've seen in Hungary. It's full of monuments, like the mosque-church (a mosque built on an ancient church which finally became a church again), the cathedral, the synagogue and so on. While Szeged was in the middle of the Great Plains, Pécs is not far from low hills covered by trees, which make the landscape much more pleasant. Also, my hotel was a picturesque building in the city centre, one of the cheapest that I've tried in Hungary, but surely the best.
When I arrived it was raining heavily, and I had to catch the first taxi I could see. It was surely an unauthorized one, judging from the conditions of the car: the driver had to use a wood stick to keep the door of the luggage boot open. Then, since the handbrake was broken, I had to keep the car still while he was putting my luggage in the boot. He was a very nice guy however (he couldn't speak neither English nor German, let alone Italian, but we estabilished a primitive form of communication), and the price was fair.
The rain lasted for just a couple of hours, then I had good weather for my entire stay. I could fully enjoy the lively night life in the pedestrian streets of the centre (but, again, no hot dates), and the lively cultural life during the day, in the many museums of the city (the best was the mining museum, in the galleries of an old mine).
Finally, from the TV tower, on the top of a hill just outside the city, the panorama was simply great. There was also a panoramic restaurant in the tower, but I didn't try it, since it also had panoramic prices.
Unfortunately I stayed in Pécs for four days only - this was a mistake I made while planning the trip, but I'm not infallible...
Well, on August 18th I woke up at 4 am to jump on the express train leaving at 5:40. After an awfully long trip (six hours stopping at every hamlet) I arrived to Sopron, my final destination...
Part Four: Sopron
After that interminable trip by train, I arrived at Sopron, a nice city near the border with Austria (since Hungary is a little nation, practically everywhere you are "near the border" with something). What really impressed me was that sometimes it looks more like an Austrian town than a Hungarian one: shop signs are both in Hungarian and German (sometimes only German!), and you can find a surprisingly high number of dental surgeries. The reason is not that people there care very much about their theeth: instead, Austrians find it very convenient to cross the border and have their dental work done at a bargain price.
The strong relation between Sopron and Austria has also a historical reason: in 1921, because of Trianon Treaty, the citizens of Sopron had to choose whether to belong to Austria or Hungary. They chosed Hungary with a large majority, and since then Sopron is called "Civitas Fidelissima" (most loyal citizenry).
Its position, much closer to Vienna than to Budapest, has also saved it from the Turkish invasions, so that Sopron is one of the very few Hungarian cities with a truly medieval heart. My hotel was right in the middle of this heart, so I could explore it very quickly.
Even if Sopron is surely a very nice city, it didn't impress me as Pécs did... above all, I noticed that the medieval centre of Sopron was a real desert after sunset, while the centre of Pécs was always full of people. Moreover, my third day in Sopron (August 20th) was a national holiday: St. Stephen's day, the first king of Hungary (whose crown I had seen in the National Museum of Budapest). All the shops closed and - just to make things more pleasant - rain during the entire day. I spent most of the day in my room, watching Austrian TV, but in the evening I went to a concert for organ in a nearby church, so the day was not completely wasted.
I spent the last two days in Hungary outside Sopron: first I visited Gyor, about 90 km east of Sopron: it's famous for its cathedral (I couldn't visit it very well, since on that day a marriage after another was celebrated), the city walls and a house where Napoleon spent a night on August 31st, 1809: the only time he entered Hungarian territory! On the day after I went to Fertod, a little village about 25 km east of Sopron, famous for the Esterházy palace, built by a noble Hungarian family, precisely by Miklos Esterházy, who used to say "Whatever the [Absburg] emperor can afford, I can afford too". The palace is sometimes called "the Hungarian Versailles", and, though not so luxurious, it's really interesting and surrounded by a magnificent park.
A small note about spelling: in Gyor and Fertod you should put a double acute accent on the o. It is a graphic sign typical of the Hungarian language, and the pronunciation is similar to that of German ö, only a little bit longer.
That's really the end: on the day after, August 23rd, I took the train to Vienna and then the bus to the airport. To avoid the overbooking adventure of the outward flight, I checked-in sufficiently in advance: seven hours before! After visiting every corner of Vienna airport, I took the plane and put an end to the best holiday of my entire life.