Water everywhere

Welcome to Hungary, the country of water.

We have had another rough night. Last night we stopped at this unfinished road hidden by the bushes, which had an adjacent unpaved track to it. This unpaved tracked looked abandoned. We were wrong. Quite a few cars and trucks drove up and down until late and started early this morning. The good thing is that no one has come and bothered us. We have just got a few stares “what the hell are you doing here?”

Today we will visit Pecs, a town in the southwest of Hungary. Another sightseeing day.

We also hope to buy an internet data card. We tried yesterday at Szeged but when we arrived at the T-Mobile shop (the larger Hungarian operator) the shop had already closed, it was only 17.00 . We thought that that was a bit strange, considering every other shop in town remained opened until 19.00.

So, we have just parked Dora and, fortunately for us, there is T-Mobile shop just across the road. The shop is packed with people. We are given a number at the entrance, as if you were at the butchers or a doctors surgery. This is incredible. How can they have so many people waiting when there are at least 10 staff members on the floor?? Some of them seem to be watching the others, or just playing on the computers, they certainly are not dealing with customers! GDR

Finally, our turn. The pre-paid deals they have are not very good value, plus you have to pay for the SIM card. They try hard to persuade us to buy a two years contract, even though we have told them we are only going to be in Hungary for three weeks. This is why they have such massive queues of people, they spend a long time with each customer trying to sell them something they don’t want. We ask why they don’t offer the pre-paid deal we have seen on their website. “You can buy it at Media Market cheaper than if you buy it from us”.  This is crazy. Have these guys any sort of commercial sense?

In case you don’t know, Media Market is a IT retailer and they have a shop in a shopping centre 10 minutes down the road.

Also in the shopping centre, there is a Telenor shop, a small internet operator. A staff member is immediately available for us, smiling. He advises that their pre-paid internet card is not good value for us. We are better off buying a post-paid internet card, which can be cancelled within a month, with no penalty fees. “As you are only going to be here for three weeks, I can activate it now and cancel it for you thereafter”.

Excellent. We have bought a data card with 5GB, for only €10, including the SIM Card. One question for him: “Is T-Mobile the old state operator?” “Yes”. That explains how inefficient and uncompetitive they are.

Two hours have gone by but at least, we have internet. We have a quick lunch in Dora and go off sightseeing.

We’ve heard that Hungary is sitting on an massive underground pool of water. Hot springs, oversized lakes and natural thermal baths are scattered everywhere in the country. That is what we will be doing here: go from one spa to another, as the country lacks hills or mountains.

So, talking about water, guess what we find on the way up to the main square: a fountain, with a quirky, undulated shape. From behind, it looks like an angry cobra, ready to attack.

From the front, I am not sure. It makes a nice photo, though.

A mini-canal comes out of the mouth of the fountain to carry around the edges of the square. Beautiful concept.

Guess what we find as soon as we arrive at the main square: another fountain.

This one looks like a bull ring, made of brown marble, with nice symmetric patterns on the inner circle.

The pigeons are waiting for the bull to come out of the stables.

We skip the visit to the mosque church, as we have seen enough. We continue to walk around this large and pleasant square.

We leave the mosque church behind and walk down to the synagogue. This one we visit, as we haven’t seen that many so far.

Guess what: another fountain. This is the third. This one is also quite quirky, a stairs-fountain.

You have to be quite creative to come up with different fountain designs in a medium size town. The scene and sound of the water create such an soothing and relaxing effect…

Pecs has a reputation of having a mild climate. Not today, a nasty storm threatens on the horizon. It is going to dump in a minute. Luckily we are well prepared; we both are in our shorts and T-shirts, whilst the wet weather gear is all nicely packed in Dora.

And the fourth fountain. With this one, music is constantly being played. The water has been synchronized with the sound of the music, giving the impression that it dances, absolutely lovely.

Vegetables and flowers are planted right next to that fountain. Herbs such as rosemary, thyme, dill are grown with other colourful flowers (sorry I can’t give you details of those, I don’t know that much about flowers). The combination of both creates a really nice pattern as well as an intense smell.

The fifth fountain. Similar to the ones we have at home. Some sort of mythical animals have been carved in the stone.

Rather weird and disturbing. We pass this fountain quickly to get out of the way of people who are trying to take a selfie.

The high street is covered permanently to protect people against the hot summery sun. Today we will be protected from the rain.

We saw something similar in Badajoz, Spain.

Fighting against increasing strong winds, we arrive at the Synagogue.

Like the Mosques, Synagogues lack images. The place is well lit, with big windows and large lamps. It could well accommodate a few hundreds people.

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Gary is forced to wear a hat, which I am sure it has a name, but what do I know.

These cults have such strange traditions. The bizarre thing about this one is they give you this ridiculous bit of black paper, stapled together. The paper is really waxy and therefore continually slips off the head unless you hold it there. Such a useless piece of design, or maybe just a cost saving measure. Does this really appease their god? It must be one fickle and pedantic individual if it does! GDR

I don’t have to cover my legs or my arms, unlike in Mosques and some Orthodox churches.

The €2.00 ticket also includes an exhibition about the history of the Hungarian Jews. That reminded us of the shocking trip we took to Auschwitz a coupe of years ago with my brother and Nuria. I think everyone should take the opportunity to visit that place, to remind ourselves of what human beings are capable of doing.

This lack of portraits are made up with beautifully simple geometric designs, still too decorative for me, but such a vast improvement on the horrendous gaudy nastiness in christian churches. They still cannot resist plastering the place with shiny metal though! GDR

Luckily, we’ve missed the storm but it has turned out to be rather cold. We move on quickly to visit one more church before we get back to Dora.

We come across a weird sight. Thousands of padlocks have been locked to a fence. It must be the way couples demonstrate their love here. Conveniently, you can buy your padlock next door. We don’t need to do these silly things to prove anything, do we baby? says Gary rightly.

Behind the padlocks, there is the Basilica of St Peter.

Pecs is done. So let’s go.

And we made the right decision. As soon as we get in Dora, it starts to pour down again.

It feels like being back in the UK.

We drive northwards to Lake Balaton, to see more water. But that will be tomorrow.

It is now 19.00, time to call it a day, by a large, abandoned field, close to a cows farm, quiet but smelly.

SM