Home -> Europe -> Hungary -> Travelogue 2003 -> Tuesday 24 June

Eger, through the Bukki Nemzeti national park (150 km)

We take a day off today, and we start very lazy: a long breakfast, reading a book and just doing nothing, just enjoying the warmth of the sun. Sometimes people remark that we seem to be spending so much time in the car, but we don't. But we don't like to stay on the camping all day or spend a whole day at the beach, we also want to see or do something. And concerning the driving: we take a lot of breaks, to have a picknick, just a cup of coffee or tea, or to walk around a bit and make photographs.
Now we also have some time to figure out the value of the HUF (Hungarian Forint); yesterday we had problems with it. After some calculating we find out that one HUF is the almost the same as one old Dutch cent! 100 HUF is an old Dutch guilder, or € 0,45. In Poland it was much easier, 4 Zloty is 1 Euro and in Slovakia 40 crowns make up 1 Euro. So here we first convert the amount into guilders, then into Euro's.

Around noon we leave for a trip through the national parc, Bukki Zemzeti. It is only a small area but nevertheless there are mountains with a height of almost 1000 meters. It is very hot and we are glad we can drive through the shadow of the cooler woods. After a few hours we arrive at Lillafüred, where we went through yesterday. The pseudo-Gotic hotel (on the picture) dominates this village.

Elisabeth near the waterfall at Lillafred

We wanted to visit some caves, but there are not enough people for a tour, so we settle for a walk through the neighbourhood. Next to the hotel is a path leading to these nice waterfall.

As soon as we stand still in the sun, sweat starts to dripple down from our faces. But when we drive back to Eger, the sky changes very suddenly. Thunder clouds appear in the sky and a firm wind starts to blow. It is nice that the heat also diminishes a bit.

But the thunder doesn't really break out and when we arrive at Eger it is still warm. We make a walk through the town centre which is filled with buildings in baroque and classicism style. It is nice to walk around, but we don't find it very impressive.

Eger was once a Turkish town but almost nothing of that time has survived, except for this lonely and freestanding minaret. There is nothing left of an oriental ambience, in spite of what our travel guide tells us.

But when we sit down for a drink, we are surprised by some sort of medieval popular entertainment. Artists with puppets are being led by Hungarian music and dance to perform a play. We couldn't understand any of it, but we think it was about the battle between the Hungarians and the Turks. They really made an attractive spectacle out of it.

Meanwhile the sky has turned blue again and we have a nice evening outside at the campsite. Tomorrow we want to visit Budapest, but first we have to prepare us a bit for that city and read something about it.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije