Eger

We decided to take a one-day trip to Eger, a town about an hour and a half east of Budapest. It wasn’t a long trip, but Ronin was able to get in a short nap.

We walked from the train station up to the center of town, and went inside the Egri Szeplőtelen fogantatás Nagyboldogasszony Ferences templom, a.k.a., a Catholic church. It wasn’t on my list of things to see, but since it was open we stopped in. It was a pretty little church and across the street from Fazola-kapu, an intricate iron gate.

We continued on past the Great Provost’s Palace and across the small river, where we saw a unicorn statue! Of course we needed pictures, and Willow got a picture all to herself with her favorite animal.

Our first scheduled stop was to the Eger castle, and we made our way up to the top of the ruins. There was a huge well and the kids dropped a rock down to hear it make a splash. The castle is at the top of the city, so we could see down into the town. At the highest point were these crosses, and Willow asked if this was where Jesus died.

The Dobó István Vármúzeum was a museum about the history of the castle. The castle changed hands several times, and there were displays of both western-style dress and weapons and Ottoman-style dress and weapons. There were several dioramas, which of course Ronin loved.

So…this picture needs a little explanation. This guy in costume came out to the courtyard of the castle and started yelling something in Hungarian. Then all the people in the courtyard got up and started following him. So we followed him too, thinking that they were going to do some sort of reenactment in costumes. He took everyone down into an underground area that had exhibits set up and then began talking. And talking. And talking. All in Hungarian of course, so when the kids got noticeably bored we tried to leave. However, he had closed and locked the outside gate! We were locked inside this underground exhibit area with a bunch of other people and the guy giving a tour. Forty-five minutes later, the tour was finally over and we were let out of the underground area. It would have taken us about 10 minutes to go through the entire exhibit instead of almost an hour. I felt so bad for the kids!

After we left the castle we walked down the street of the town and saw this other guy in costume selling wine. The kids didn’t want to get too close though because they said maybe he was going to lead us down into a creepy tunnel and leave us there! We walked to the Eger minaret, which is only one of three surviving minarets in Hungary from the Ottoman era. The mosque is long gone, but the minaret still stands. Going back across the river we saw several statues, including one of a little boy helping a girl up the stairs, which of course Ronin and Willow had to replicate. The Eger Eye is the big Ferris wheel, but it would have cost us almost $50 to ride so we decided to skip actually riding it and take pictures with the Eger sign instead.

We then moved on to Dobó István tér, the main square in Eger. The Christmas market was getting set up, but unfortunately was not yet open. We went in the Church of Anthony of Padua, which was another pink and white marble church. Willow wanted to take some time to pray.

Our walk across the town took us past several impressive and colorful buildings. We also passed a water trough with four water spouts. I wonder if this works in the summer, since all of the public water spouts have been shut off for the winter. We tried to go in the Lyceum library and Astronomical Museum, but it closes at 1:00 in the winter, so we missed it. I couldn’t believe it closed so early, and this was a bummer because I thought the kids would really like it.

The big church in Eger is the Basilica of St. John the Apostle, which was under renovation but we could still go in via the side door. We couldn’t see much of it because it was blocked off for the renovations but there were some huge pillars to one side and I thought it was interesting they had the screen placed right in the front so that it covered up a lot of the front of the church.

It was about a 25 minute walk, but we made our way to the Valley of the Beautiful Woman. Here there are over 200 wine cellars, many of which are lined around a central park area with a playground. JonPaul and I went into a winery, tasted a sample or had a glass, then came out to check on the kids playing on the playground, then went into the next winery. We made our way around the square, drank entirely too much wine, and then had a delicious dinner. The kids got to play on a playground, we got to drink wine, and everyone was happy. We bought some wine to take home; even a bottle of good local wine was only around $6-7! It was a great way to spend the afternoon in Eger.