Eger - Drinking the bulls blood

While in Budapest we decided to take a one night holiday out to the country to a town called Eger. Apparently a pictureque little hungarian town with great wines. sounded perfect.

The plan got off to a rather slow start when our train which was supposed to take two and half hours stopped (not at stations) about 100 times in the first hour. We really didn't think we were going to make it.. however this must be built into the timetable as we arrived there only about 30mins late.

We knew that we were going to have to up our accomodation budget in order to have a night in eger as its not really a hostel type of town, and we ended up at a lovely little pension right in the middle of the city where a lovely lady had some rooms. As far as we were concerend this place was like a hotel. . it even had sattelite tv. No time for that though it was already 12.30 and we had to head off to the wineries. unlike aus where we've had to go on wine tours, this place has one small road with about one hundred cellar doors.. (the wine has been shipped here from around the region).. so it was like a wine crawl.

The tasting concept isn't quite there.. but we could buy a glass of wine for very cheap.. and we quickly got lost amongst the cab sav's and the locally known bulls blood (a bit to sweet for us). Or favourite was a white wine which translates to 'little lady'  - lyankov. We purchased a few plastic kegs worth and stumbled back to our little pensoin around 8pm. making friends with others who had been doing the same thing along the way.

The next morning with sore heads (especially AC - his palette is only just maturing to wines). . we visited the famous Eger castle.. where the people of Eger won a battle against the turks who tried to taked over their town (the ottomans did end up getting them the next try though). and the lovely basilica, the second biggest chuch in hungary. Murals on the cieling were out of this world.. we tryed to capture it but was difficult.

Now back to budapest.. we missed one bus (full) so I was determined to ensure we got on the next one 1hr:30mins later. but a lot of little old ladys pushing who we obviously had to let in first.. made it difficult. i've heard in most places they sell you tickets before hand to avoid everyone just trying to throw themselves on the bus, but not here. Aah hungary :)