Vertigo

We have arrived at Eger, the closest town to the Valley of Beautiful Women.

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The stop at Eger was another last minute decision, it wasn’t that convenient, slightly out of the way up to Slovakia. However, we read online that Eger is renowned for the Valley of Beautiful Women, a concentration of cellars where they make the famous Bull’s Blood – one of very few reds produced in Hungary –.  As we are lovers of full-bodied red wines, we couldn’t miss this opportunity.

So here we are, at 12.00. We have a wander first around the town. We leave the best to the end, the wine tasting.

This is the first sight we come across when we arrive at the High Street. Whilst travelling around the East European countries, we have had the pleasure of not seeing many Western brands, such as Starbucks, Costa Coffee, KFC or Subway. However, McDonalds’s is the brand which has consistently appeared in every town. Amazingly, like in the West, it always has customers, no matter what time of the day it is. I must admit I admire them. They are one of the most successful and adaptable companies in the world.

It is easy to  become saddened by the ubiquitous nature of the high street and the common global brands that appear in every shopping centre. As travellers we want originality, every place to be different and unique. But what we often fail to appreciate is that places are not just for visitors, they are for local people too. What local people want is global brands. That is the truth of it, back home we have the benefit of these brands,we buy them,  that is why they are there,why should not the places we travel to have them too. GDR

Like most of the Hungarian towns, Eger is very clean, cute, quiet.

Dobo square, the main square of the town, welcomes us with a colourful baroque building, which we think is the town hall. It looks like some sort of festival may be taking place this weekend. A few stands have been put up around the edges of the square. In one of them, a queue of children are eagerly waiting for their faces to be painted.

On this square, the Minorite church stands up on the left of the town hall. It is considered one of the most beautiful Baroque churches in Central Europe. It looks pretty but it is not my style.

What catches my attention here is the fountain, which cools and refreshes the ambience on this very, very hot day.

Children seem to be having lots of fun.

These modern  water features are become quite commonplace in towns and they are beautiful,in a different way to the old sculptural fountains of the past.How wonderful to allow children to interact with water and here the mist is really cooling. GDR

Again, the inside of the church is over decorated. For me, it is just too much going on; scenes, colours, shapes… I wonder what other people like about them; the variety of colours, the golden paintings, the grandiosity of the dome, the light (or lack of it), the religious scenes? I would be interested to know their opinion.

But there is something really incredible about the three dimensional nature of the imagines, amplified by the curvature of the dome. On the other hand the architect here seems to have gone completely mad with this over scaled freeze at the top of the column, what is it all about? Proportionally it is an abomination. The fake pink marble only emphasises the crudity further. Not all religious architecture is beautiful or good! GDR

And, of course, Eger has lots of trendy cafes. So far, there has not been a single country whose main towns have not had them.

We arrive at the Minaret, the northernmost historical building from the Turkish era in  Europe.

Its  height  is 40 metres; its floor plan is a 14-angle geometrical shape.

About six people are waiting outside. Only fifteen are allowed at one time.

 

And we now understand why. The stairs are so narrow that you have to be of a certain size to be able to move, otherwise, you risk being wedged in. I wonder what explanation the ticket officer would give to oversized people; ‘sorry, you can’t go up the Minaret because you are too fat??’

As usual, views from the top are stunning.

The panorama makes the climb a worthwhile sacrifice.

From here, we make out where we go next, the fortress.

Burt we look down. We start to feel a series of physical symptoms; dizziness, sweat, palpitations…Is this true? Yes, it  is, we are feeling vertigo.

Us, climbers, we are feeling incredibly intimidated by the height. The balcony is, literally, suspended in air, only protected by an iron banister.

We feel unsafe. There is nothing underneath us. If the balcony fails, that would be it. We have so many times been on exposed ridges on the mountains and we have coped well. But this is new to us. It also shows that phobias are just simply psychological. And that, most of the times, the most you expose to them the better you handle them.

I have always had this problem, man made structures are intrinsically less safe than nature, for me anyway! GDR

We come down slowly and extremely careful. The steps are slippery, as they have been worn out by overuse for centuries. There is nothing on the wall to hold on to. We are now out and finally safe.

We walk up to the fortress but we turn back quickly. The entrance fee is €12; we have seen too many fortresses recently and we have already experienced the nice views of the town from the Minaret (until we looked down). So we don’t go in, we go back to Dora and head off towards the Valley of Beautiful Women.

We have done a fair amount of wine tasting; in France (Loire Valley and Bordeaux), Spain (La Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Rueda) and Serbia (Sremski Karlovci). What we expected to see in the Valley of Beautiful Women is, precisely a valley, with vineyards and wineries which take you around their cellar and offer you some of their best wines to taste.

Well, it is nothing like that. The so-called ‘Valley’ is just a place outside town where lots of wine cellars have set up their shops. In these shops, you can buy wine and if you ask nicely, you can taste them.

The choice of wine cellars is overwhelming. Walking around is not pleasant. The staff members of each stand come and beckon us to enter, it feels like being in a Muslim souk. We want to go to one that Gary has found this morning online; it is meant to be architecturally attractive. But we cannot find it, so we choose the one I found, which has good reviews.

We sit inside, where there is free WI-FI.

The way the wine tasting works is very weird. You pay for every wine you taste, and because we cannot speak Hungarian, we don’t get any background of the wine making process, grape, year, age, etc..

It is still incredibly good value, just under €1 for each glass. We choose three whites and three reds (including of course the Bull’s Blood).

Gosh! those 100 ml glasses go down damned quick.

Interestingly, we are not that keen on the Bull’s blood. We do like, though, their local white wine; Leanyka, of which we buy a bottle. We also buy the other white we have tasted, which has a combination of four grapes. I think that, under this hot weather, our bodies welcome the ice, cold white wine than to the heavy, outside temperature red wine.

Whilst we were wine tasting, we looked online to find out where Gary’s winery is. We don’t want to taste any more wine, but we just want to see it.

And here it is, it looks splendid. The winery seems to be in an old excavated quarry.

The shear light coloured walls are magnificent and dramatic. We are not sure whether this place has anything to do with the wine making process or not, but assume excavated caverns would make ideal cellars,but perhaps this is just a wonderful marketing ploy. Come what may, it is wonderful architecture. GDR

The views of Eger from here are lovely.

There is no one at the entrance so we come in. We pass the bar. The owner, who is currently with a group of tourists comes and greets us.

Please feel free to wander around and I will be at the bar if you are up for wine tasting.

This place is huge, it has several sections, all part of the cowry. This one is like a night bar.

Going up the hill, there is a barren, flat, opened space. A few abandoned stands suggest that they may hold festivals or wedding receptions here.

Outside this tunnel, there is a big garden with a BBQ, where a group of people seem to be celebrating a birthday.

Very interesting place indeed. Shame we have already had our wine tasting and we don’t fancy having another one.

Thank you Gary for this quirky find.

It is now 19.00. We park next to the centre of the town and do some IT before going out for our meal.

We have chosen, of course, a Hungarian restaurant.

For starter, we share Ajvar, a pepper paste, with refreshing cucumber and rocket salad in pitta bread.

For the main course, I have a cottage cheese salad. To my surprise, the so-called cottage cheese salad here is more like a Turkish Halloumi, rubbery and chewy, but nonetheless, nice.

Gary has gone for pork. Nicely presented.

On the way back to Dora, we go through the Basilica, which we didn’t have time to see this afternoon.

It looks very lively at this time of night.

A few youngsters are having a few drinks right next to it (‘botellon’ we used to call it in Spain).

We drive Dora out of Eger and sleep for the night. Another exciting day is waiting for us tomorrow: a thermal cave .

Good night.

SM