Home -> Europe -> Hungary -> Travelogue 2003 -> Thursday 26 June

Eger - Szeged, to the south of Hungary

The sky is cloudy and it is less hot than on the last few days. For us that is great, since we want to drive along the eastern border of Hungary, over the socalled puszta, the extensive lowland plains. Via Debrecen, the Calvinist Rome of Hongary we drive to the south, parallel to the Romanian border. But instead of extensive plains we see mostly cultivated land with sweet corn and sunflowers. In the towns are large factories, probably from Soviet times.

The villages are about 5 to 10 kilometers from each other and are not really spectaculair. They are simple, there are at least two churches and the electricity wires hang low across the road.

But suddenly we pass several villages where stork have their nest on electricity poles, all in the centre of the villages as if they are drawn by the presence of humans. Everywhere the parents are feeding their young and once a stork almost hits our car at take off.

The towns we pass, all look very modern, like Bekes on the picure. Elisabeth is going to sneeze, that's why she looks so funny. But you only see it on the larger photo.

The whole day we have looked for a nice place to stop and have a picknick, but there weren't any places to stop. After our break at Bekes we see one after another!

The puszta is clearly not what we expected: we had hoped for a large area with barren plains to imagine how the first horsepeople entered Hungary, but all we see is tree-edged roads, cultivated farmland and towns with heavy industry. A least it was not too warm until about 6 when we enter Szeged.

This part of Hungary is not really our favourite. Tomorrow, we will cross the Danube again and continue to the west, in the direction of Pecs.
But, since we arrived here, the temperature is rising quickly and now we are enjoying the last beams of the sun.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije