Budapest and Tarcal, Hungary

Hungary, or in my mind the country of pain! Originally settled by seven related tribes from the Ural Mountains and from the depiction of the leaders in statues and painting may have been from the Kazakhstan region. Known to themselves as Magyars, thought to be in connection to the ancient tribes, the country has been over run by the Mongols, the Germanic tribes, was conquered and ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for a century, conquered by the Habsburg empire of Austria, and since 1900, lost with Austria during WWI, was occupied by the Nazis and then under Soviet rule until 1990. The Hungarian people, who are proud and resilient, are trying to become a nation that is productive and can take its place in the modern world as it did in the past. Switching from Soviet domination to free enterprise has not been easy and, especially in the larger centres one sees a lot of areas where no reconstruction or upgrading has started. Beyond that the country side is beautiful, the people mostly friendly and accommodating, and is a really nice place to travel.

Budapest straddles the Danube and was once two separate cities of Buda and Pest. Now joined ,about 70% of the population and the main shopping and industrial area is on the Pest side while Buda has more higher end residential and a hilltop castle where several Hungarian Monarchs were crowned.

We toured the castle and had a good view of the Hungarian Parliament Buildings across the river.

  

Same buildings at night.

In the center of the Pest side we visited a large square that is dedicated to the founding of the Hungarian country and peoples. The dominate feature here is a statue depicting the leaders of the seven tribes from the Urals that established themselves here.

On the Buda side stands Hungary's Statue of Liberty.

Our big thrill was to visit the market place, the largest indoor market in Hungary, and is packed with vegetables, fruit, meat, souvenirs, baking and many other types of shops. The place is huge.

Outside of the larger cities, English is not widely spoken. We managed to get train tickets bought for our train ride from Budapest to Tokaj, then wondered around looking for the train track that our train would come in on, which was really difficult as the Hungarian language is not based on any language format that either of us can kind of work our way through. Finally two workers decided to help us, and even over Loreen's objections, I followed them around, trustful me. Yep found the right train, checked with the conductor, yep right train, reserved seats on car 21, so these guys grabbed our bags, threw them up on the racks above our seats and held out their hands. I had a couple of Euros in my pocket so I gave them that, but no, they did not want euros, they wanted Hungarian florets or dollars and wanted more. So after a few seconds of them shaking their heads and me saying I wasn't giving more, off they went. This seems to happen to me quite regular in foreign countries. Loreen gets pretty wound up about things like this, she gets just about as excited as I do when she wanders off to examine the cemeteries in foreign countries. 

It had been raining but we walked into the little town of Tarcal, where the town emblem is this lovely wine bottle!

We went to the Coop store and bought some paprika flavoured chips and some Hungarian chocolate.  Chips not bad, chocolate good.

We then wondered around through some back streets trying to find the path up the hill behind town where there is a huge statue of Jesus. We finally scrambled up through the cemetery, which Loreen was exploring, then through a vineyard and out onto the paved road at the bottom of the summit.

There was an elderly gentleman coming down and he started talking to us in Hungarian, but when he found out we only spoke English, he switched and we had a good chat. He was a retired pastor, and had vowed to walk up to the statue to give thanks if Trump won the election. He had watched all the debates and had followed the election process for the past several months. His belief is that the establishment in all governments needs to be removed or sent a message. We discussed the removal of the Jewish community in Tarcal by the Nazi, all were sent to Auschwitz, and religion under the Soviets. Religion was initially suppressed but later allowed under a strict doctrine of what could be presented. We have run into a lot of people from around the world that have great concerns, one way or the other, about the US election.

We stayed at the Grof Degenfeld castle hotel that was originally built in 1857 by a Duke and Duchess as a palace or castle home. At that time they also made their own wines. As elsewhere in  parts of Central Europe during the soviet rule, all lands were confiscated by the state. After Hungary got independence it started to work through the process of returning land to the past owners. The family that owned this previously, regained the castle, the wine cellars and ten hectares of vineyard. They bought up a number of adjacent vineyards, refurbished the castle into a hotel and started up the winery again. There are 21 guest rooms, which at one time were for family and guests, and the one we were in 600 to 700 square feet. These old aristocrats liked their space. They also built a small chapel on the highest part of their land and hold small weddings as well as all the other things that fancy resort hotels do. Funny thing, the place is not expensive.

Tarcal is in The Tocaj region known for its white wines. The area makes some dry whites but is most famous for its sweet whites which are cherished in Hungary. We took a wine tour and tasting at a neighbouring winery, that is still quite young as their first vintages were in 2012. The vineyards and wineries were nationalized under the soviets and all the grapes sent to a central location where the wine was made mostly for Russia. According to our sommelier these wines were not very good and had added ingredients all the way from colouring to vodka. 

The wines here are exceptionally sweet, similar to the ice wines from home, but unlike Canadian ice wine they do not use the frost to increase the sugars. The types of grapes used are attacked late season by a fungus which shrinks the grapes and concentrates the sugars. When we walked the vineyards these grapes are almost shrivelled to the size of a raisin. All the harvest here is done by hand picking, and while some grapes are picked by the bunch, for the very highest class of the sweet wine, the grapes are selected and picked individually.