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My first impression was, that Hungarians party hard on weekends. Obviously it turned out that it was a special festival :D.
I’ve been silent over here, but it was well needed. Now I can feel that I want to go back to writing and describing where we are and what we do. We’ve been on the road for over a month now. We had quite a plan and it all went not as it was supposed to. If it did, I’d be writing to you from Georgia. But I write from the north of France, soon going on a ferry to England. While we were down in Bucharest, planning on driving to Bulgaria, it turned out that an electro box in our car wants to talk to us in morse code, which means that it kept making ridiculous noises all the time. We had to fix it and to make a long story short, after 3 days it turned out that we can fix it in Austria (the closest place). Which meant many kilometres in a wrong direction (1300 km to be exact). We did it and then we’ve decided to go back to Georgia next year.
But in this story we’re still on our way to Georgia, leaving Bieszczady and heading to Romania. The plan was to drive through Hungary, but a friend wrote me a massage, that there’s this one village we shouldn’t pass on. I am easy to convince, so 5 minutes later we were heading to Hollókő.
I knew nothing about Hungary, about its habitants, culture, architecture, just nothing. Imagine how surprised we were, when at midnight we drove through a village, where whole families were on the streets, partying, enjoying the night. There was actually a traffic created by people and we had to wait a bit to be able to drive through. My first impression was, that Hungarians party hard on weekends. Obviously it turned out that it was a special festival :D. When we got to Hollókő, we parked in front of a tourist information and I told Tomasz, that there’s a chance that party people will wake us up. It did not happen at all. We woke up to a breathtaking village, located about 10m from our van and the coolest playground I’ve ever seen. It was a miniature of the village and Mia refused to go anywhere before she has a chance to enjoy it properly (read over an hour). Thankfully, she got hungry! We went for a breakfast to a local bakery and had Rétes for a breakfast, which is something like a strudel, but with a thinner dough and among 4 versions we had, ricotta one was the winner. I am definitely making it for a breakfast and I promise that I’ll try to make the best version ever, but I need to go back to my oven first.
Another surprise – there was a free shower in the information center! How cool is this! Hungary became my numberr 1 destination in Europe!
As we walked around the village it shortly turned out that there will be a celebration within an hour and that locals will wear traditional clothes. We were invited to stay over to see. I am a big fan of traditions, so you can imagine me crying out of all the beauty. It was only slightly embarrassing. I also cry whenever someone sings a hymn.
Hollókő was also the place, where I tried Hungarian cuisine for the very first time and Marhapörkölt will stay in my heart for a long time. I’ve decided that one day is definitely not enough and we’ve decided to spend another closer to the Romanian border – in Hortobágy.
We found a beautiful wild spot for the night and I got very excited to meet a horsemen the following day, who know how to put a spell on their horses. It comes from a long tradition and they used the trick to hide from an enemy. It was a very interesting experience to go to a farm to see how the whole process used to look. Mules were pulling a cart, horseman riding in traditional clothes. I hope it will stay around for many years to come.
We’ll be back for way more!
8 Comments
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There are pretty bad mistakes, thank you for pointing this out <3 Yes we will be back 🙂 I enjoyed Hungary a lot.
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this is sooooo cool!!! I cry all the time, too, someone smiles and I’m in tears, so it is rather ridiculous, I can’t even go to mys son’s school parties without bawling out like mad!! The other day I was seeing a cooking show and someone started singing and I cried!
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It is a bit embarrassing indeed 😀 I do the same :D:D:D
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Czasami takie nieprzyjemne sytuacje sprowadzają nas do pięknych miejsc do których w innym wypadku nigdy byśmy nie trafili. Jadąc pierwszy raz na Węgry niewiele wiedziałam o tym kraju. Przywitali nas niesamowicie ciepli, serdeczni i bardzo gościnni ludzie. Pokazali nam trochę tradycji, pysznego jedzenia i winnic wraz z degustacją niesamowitego wina z małej przydomowej winniczki.
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U nas było bardzo bardzo podobnie 🙂 A teraz cche tam wracać.
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Great pictures! Bummer that you had car problems, but this way you’re getting some unexpected adventures. 🙂
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It was not bad at all. Ok at first we were really unhappy about it, but in the end it all worked out well 🙂
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Hi – I am glad you had a pleasant time in Hungary! I’d like to mention that the strudel-like baked good you write about in your article is “rétes”, not reres, and the meat dish is “marhapörkölt”, not Marchaporkolt.
I hope you get to go back to Hungary, there’s a whole lot more I am sure you would enjoy besides these classic tourist attractions!