Eger - It is all about the journey and not the destination.

We accidentally booked two more days in Budapest instead of Bratislava. Whoops! We moved our accommodation and decided to visit the wine town of Eger. The easiest way we thought would be to go to the bus station to book the tickets and that would also provide us with how long it would take. We asked a friendly local who advised us where the bus station was. Onto the Metro we hopped and out to the bus station to buy the tickets. Too late, the bus station ticket office closed at 4 pm. Next day we repeated the trip and 20 minutes later we were there and bought the tickets. We caught the Metro back to town and sat down for a well earned coffee. At that stage we checked the tickets again to organise ourselves as the tickets were for 6:20 am and we were unsure what time the Metro started. OOPs. The tickets were for the wrong place. It's our accent. Quickly finishing our coffee we rushed the subway again and headed to the bus depot. We changed the tickets and received some money back as the tickets were cheaper. It was also a more reasonable time at 7:15 am. It still meant an early morning start. Up bright and early, OK early, maybe not so bright we headed off on the Metro again. On arrival we could not see our bus. A question to the man in reception was not easy, but finally he said the bus left from a different depot and we had to leave the station and catch a train to Stadion Aut.

 

We still had 14 minutes. Down the subway under the road and we surfaced at the tram stop. Would you believe it? There were 2 Stadion stops, one in 3 stops and one in 5 stops. "Do you speak English?" we asked a lady at the stop. "A little" she replied. With finger pointing and broken English we decided on the first stop. That came quickly and we hopped off the train, but could not see a bus depot. There was one man on the platform so we asked him and he advised us that it should have been the other Stadion stop. Just as well there is a very efficient public transport system and the next tram arrived in a minute. Still time. At the right stop we bounded off the tram to see the bus to Eger just leaving the station. What to do? Give up? No. Let's see if we can change to a later bus. At the ticket office we managed, for a 20% fee to buy a ticket on the next bus at 8:15 am.

We boarded the bus. We were on our way. The country side was flat with fields of corn and fields of sunflowers. So many sun flowers. Hectares and hectares like we would grow wheat.

 

There were a few low hills and suddenly fields of grapevines were everywhere. At 10am we had arrived at Eger and left the bus at the bus station. We found the information centre and proceeded to discover the sights.

This is the second largest church in Hungary. It is an immense building.

The cobble stoned streets are part of every old town.

For about $1:25 we bought a hamburger, but it was so big we had half each. This lad did his best, but I think he failed to finish.

Coke $2:20, .5 litre beer $1:70, coffee $1:30. Even an eyebrow wax, which one of us had, was less than $1.

Gabrielle, writing some postcards.

 

There must be snow here as the roofs of houses had these little attachments which we presume are to stop the snow from falling into the street onto some unsuspecting passer-by.

The reason for the area's fame is that during the siege of the Turks in 1552, the citizens drank wine to give them strength to fight, but the wine spilt into their beards and onto their armour. Word spread that they drank bull's blood to make them strong and fierce. Spread the legend and before you know it, it becomes fact and the fight is over. The Turks were demoralised and defeated.

 

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