Saturday 18 July 1998

Slideshow Pictures

Woke up early had breakfast and checked out of the Gellért hotel. It had cost us $300 CAN. a night, but we had stayed in hotels that cost more and were not as good. We packed our luggage and had the bellhop bring a dolly. It took two bellhops to navigate the dolly and lift it over the curbs that were on the way to our car, which was parked on the other side of the street by the Danube. It was time to leave Budapest. There were many sights we hadn’t seen including the parliament building, the Liget which has an amusement park, which we drove by as we left Budapest, but there was no more time.

We had no trouble finding the road to Eger. It was a beautiful sunny day and the wheat & sunflower fields extended for miles on either side of the road.

People were selling watermelons, piled about six feet high, hundreds of piles along this stretch of road. Melon country. Stopped at a roadside restaurant and ordered hamburgers and beer, Rachel of course had a coke.

Rachel thought that the hamburger was the best she ever tasted.

Arrived in Eger in the early afternoon and found the hotel without much difficulty. The hotel was not very spectacular, neither was our room, a small room with three beds and a small balcony. The only thing in its favor was the price $45 CAN. including breakfast. But then we were spoiled by the Gellért and the other great places we had stayed in. We went for a walk and looked at the menu at a restaurant around the corner that served wild meats. Walked into the old part of the city and had some refreshments in the square.

We started walking up towards the castle but then changed our minds. We had seen our share of castles. There were a lot of interesting doorways in the city and we decided to take a picture of one.

The Turks had ruled this part of Hungary in the 16th. century and there were some buildings with a Turkish influence. People were going up to the top of the minaret and Rita and Rachel were thinking about going up but decided against the wait.

A wedding was taking place in the town and the married couple were going down the street with a horse drawn carriage followed on foot by all the guests. We went back to the wild meat restaurant and had dinner and a bottle of Egri Bikavér.

After dinner we decided to drive to "Szépaszony Völgy" (Valley of the beautiful woman). But the road signs stopped suddenly and we didn’t find it. Drove for a while, explored some of the valleys in this famous wine growing region, then decided to head back to Eger. We wanted to buy a bottle of Egri Bikavér, what else would you drink when you’re in Eger. As we had entered Eger earlier in the day, we had noticed a row of wine cellars just on the outskirts of town so we headed for them. One was open.

There were enormous barrels on one side of the cellar and the owner was siphoning some wine for the customer ahead of us from smaller barrels on the right.

He told us that he had run out of wine bottles, but that he had some old wine in liter bottles. The old wine was 400 forints $2.50 CAN., or he could sell us some of the wine from the barrel in five liter plastic containers which cost 700 forints $4.50 CAN. We couldn’t decide so we bought both

So we went back to the hotel with our six liters of wine, had the bottle of wine sitting on our patio overlooking Eger. The wine was delicious and couldn't stop until we finished the bottle . Then we went to bed. After having all that wine there wasn’t much else we were able to do.

Woke up, packed, had breakfast, checked out and went looking for Szépaszony Völgy again. This time we found it. It is a valley shaped like a horseshoe, with wine cellars dug into the mountainside, each with its own address atop its entrance.

I was looking around, straining my neck, to see the beautiful women but they weren’t any better or worse looking than anywhere else. I was puzzled as to why they would call it "the valley of the beautiful woman".

We ordered a glass of wine. It cost 20 forints 14 cents CAN. I had solved the puzzle why they called it "The valley of the beautiful woman.". If I would have been allowed, by my beautiful wife Rita, to drink a bucks worth of wine, I would have come out of the cellar ready to kiss a horse, and all women would have been absolutely gorgeous.