Eger

Eger, the home of Bulls Blood, the famous Hungarian wine, so how could we possibly go past this one? OK, so we have been getting comments on how we always seem to have a glass of wine in hand but the only campground in Eger was in 'stumbling' distance from over 30 different wine cellars so how were we to resist ;)

En route here from Poland we whizzed back through Slovakia and into Hungary, and along some of the smaller roads barely marked on our map book but thankfully TomTom knew the way and we passed some magnificent countryside and little villages I'm sure not many tourists have ever tread. It was quite incredible to see how the features and even colouring of the people in the villages we passed changed within such a small geograpy. It's just amazing how much more of the world this expanded European Union has opened up for us.

Minorita Templom - Baroque loveliness in downtown Eger

The town of Eger is a lovely baroque city with a grand castle perched above it. It was here that the Hungarians of 1552 halted the Ottoman advance into Europe, and on an Hungarian language tour of the castle that we accidentally ended up on they were very keen to show off all the tricky defences they had in place. Most of that was through the sprawling catacombs of the castle which made for good effect, especially considering we were down so deep underground and we weren't quite sure when it would end or how to get out!

Detail of Dobo Istavan and his mates routing the Turks in 1552. Not very nice at all.

Secret stash of weaponary inside the catacombs

It was also during this siege that the infamous Hungarian Bulls Blood wine got its name... The defenders of the castle were badly out numbered so in a final push to see the marauders defeated, captain Dobo fortified his soldiers with red wine. The Turkish invaders seeing the red stained beards believed that they'd been drinking bulls blood instead (to increase their strength), and according to legend were well terrified. Easy mistake I guess??

View of Eger from the castle

Dobo Istvan square

Sharon in the campaign tent

Here's a surprise - Europe's northen most remains of the 16th century Ottoman invasion

An alfresco evening

Funnily enough, during our two day stay we also met the most British travellers of our entire journey so far. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that in this town you can bring your own empty plastic water bottles of any size and fill wine by the litre right? And sure enough, although we had our own little wander around the wine cellars of Szépasszony völgy (the attractively named 'Valley of the Beautiful Women'), had a little tasting here, and another there, and finished off with the most delicious goulash ever (although in Hungary goulash is actually a soup not a stew), it took our newly befriended English campers Kim and James to show us how it's really done in these here parts. On our second night, with the desire to make a little more effort on the wine front, and with them all empty from the nights before, James produced two empty water bottles and off the boys went to hunt and gather. 15 minutes later they were back with 4 litres between them for the grand sum of €8!! And a long night ahead...

Szépasszony völgy

Deliciousness in the shape of not 'Goulash'

Auschwitz-Birkenau

I don't really think either of us possess the eloquence required to give a true impression of this place, so I think we'll let the pictures tell the story.

Although, there's just a couple of things that we'd like to share.

Firstly that Auschwitz is actually made up of three camps, two of which are still possible to visit today, Auschwitz and Birkenau (ie all that remained at the time of Soviet liberation, as the Nazis attempted to destroy all evidence once they realised the war was about to end). Auschwitz was originally considered a 'work camp' for Polish prisoners of the Nazi regime, before it was expanded for the purpose of extermination. Birkenau was designed later in the war to function purely as an extermination camp, capable of holding up to 200,000 victims at a time. They had only managed to build "accommodation" for 100,000 before the Soviet liberation.

I guess the one thing that stood out for us is the sheer scale of Birkenau. Remnants of barracks and the barbed wire fences that enclosed them stretch out to the horizon as far as the eye could see, separated down a middle aisle by the remains of infamous one-way railway line. We were told you would need 2-3 days just to properly visit Birkenau alone.

Auschwitz

Birkenau

Krakow

Here we are again in another city that we have long been keen to visit, yay!

After a lengthy drive from Spis Castle and through the Dukla Pass, we crossed the border for our first visit to Poland and headed towards Krakow. Quite a round about way to get from the Slovakian High Tatras to Krakow it must be said, and the very poor conditions of the Polish roads made it even more tenuous. But well worth it once we got there.

Parking up and getting ready to explore!

Cloth Hall, focal point of Rynek Glowny - the main square

Krakow was once the royal capital of Poland, and is crammed with medieval buildings, cobbled alleyways and Europe's largest medieval market square measuring something like 200m x 200m. It is filled with all sorts of interesting legends and remnants of history, quite nicely intertwined with modern day life. My favourite would have to be the hourly bugle call played from the highest tower of the very large St Mary's Church in the main square. The melody, which was played in olden times as a warning call, breaks off abruptly to symbolise the moment (according to legend) when the throat of a 13th century trumpeter was pierced by the arrow of an invading Tatar (Mongol). Nice touch in the 21st century huh.

St Mary's, with the trumpeting tower top left

Town Hall Tower

Poland is also the home of the famous composer Chopin, and so his legacy can be seen, heard and tasted throughout the city. Seen and tasted in the form of a commemorative vodka displayed in many a liquor store window, and heard wafting from many a street performer. We spent a very enjoyable evening sampling some of his aural legacy, along with a smattering of Mozart and Bach by a string quintet in St Peter and St Paul, one of the many glorious churches in the old town. In fact music was something that seemed to punctuate our visit to Krakow. Following the classical concert we ambled out into the main square to be greeted by the sight and sound that is the Polish Beatles, rockin' and rollin'and head shaking their way through such classics aas 'Hard Day's Night', 'She Loves You' and 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand'. I was quite transfixed by the hair actually. I couldn't work out if it was truly real or just wigs. Pretty impressive either way. One thing about the Beatles though, it's amazing just how easily their music cuts right across the generations, evidenced by the sight of children and their parents, young lovers and oldies all getting jiggy together, right there in the main square of Old Krakow town. Amen.

Church of St Peter & St Paul

Free live music, although of a completely different calibre, had been on offer the previous night too. We happened to be in Krakow on midsummer's night, and in accordance with tradition, the city was gearing up for the Festival of Wianki, where young maidens were going to prance around wearing a circlet of flowers before throwing them into the river (or at least that's the understanding I got from the waitress at the bar in the Sheraton where we had seeked refuge to watch an America's Cup race). And in order to get the maidens and everyone else in the midsummer mood the city fathers threw a giant outdoor 80's concert. The young chap at the information centre had very proudly shown me the set list and I was absolutely overwhelmed to see my own personal 80s favourites Bananarama on the play list!! Unfortunately though, the songs they had chosen to play for their two song set were more than a little before my time, and once we were back at the camping and safely sheltering from the cold in Wickse, nothing could get me out into the city again...not even a (potentially lipsynched version of 'Cruel Summer'.

Art for sale in the Old Town

Another highlight of the city was visit out to the salt mine of Wieliczka. Now normally a mine of any sort isn't such a massive drawcard for me, but Eric was chomping at the bit, and given my enthusiasm for the mockup at the Deutches Museum in Munich, I thought I should give it the benefit of the doubt - especially since it was going to be financed from the 'culture budget' and not the entertainment one. Once we and the 30 others on the English tour had manually descended the 135 odd metres into the bowels of the operation - or at least as far as they allow you access too - it was a different story, it was thoroughly amazing! They have been mining here since the middle ages, if not earlier, and we must have walked for at least 2km through this fascinating subterranean world. In almost every chamber there were superbly carved culptures hewn out of the salty rock, and even more compelling were the chapels (the miners over time had become devoutly religious, working as they did in such a dangerous environment). The largest and most glorious of them all measuring 54m by 17m and 12m high, complete with incredibly large chandeliers, crafted out of salt crystals. The chapel is regularly used for Sunday services and they also hold weddings here - can you just imagine!

Salt sculptures recalling the history of the Wieliczka salt mine

Chapel of the Blessed Kinga

Salt sculpture

The High Tatras

After Bratislava, the main highlight of Slovakia has to be the beautiful countryside, in particular the mountains. And so it was that we found ourselves heading back to the ski fields... only this time we'd be happy to find the pistes bare and not a snow flake in sight!

The High Tatras (on a good day!)

The High Tatras are a narrow range of mountains bordering Slovakia and Poland which happen to be the highest in Eastern Europe. But they are only a mere 25km wide, soaring up from plains extending out to the north and south and, do actually appear to have just been plonked there quite out of place. The sight of these 2,600m plus mountains rising from the flat countryside below is supposed to be very striking, but the drama of it all was diminished somewhat by the rain clouds that seemed to be clustering around them the whole time we were there.

View through the storm ravaged forest

It has a very similar feel to that of National Park, our local ski area in the North Island of NZ, which is based upon a rather large (volcanic) mountain which also appears to have been dropped there in the middle of it all, rather like a pimple. The sleepiness of the resort was another similarity, as were the open fields of grassland around Tatranska Lomnica, the village we stayed in. However this was not always the case; this vast area was previously covered in quite mature forest that was almost entirely destroyed by a huge storm in 2004. What's left are the gnarled and mangled tree stumps, looking like a giant had just come in and trampled all over it. Most of the logs were removed to be used for their timber, with the stumps being left in place. It's quite a sight, and it's hard to imagine the forces that must have been required to tear these trees apart. And quite hard to comprehend that the damage from this one storm is going to need 100 years to recover.

A very depressing sight

At a few points along the Tatras there are lifts to take people up the mountains, normally to ski in winter, but they also run in the summer months for sightseeing opportunities. At Tatranska Lomnica there is a two stage gondala that rises to 2600m from the township at 800m. Unfortunately the top half was absolutely clouded in so there was not much point going up for a totally obscured view! Plenty of treks left from the half way point at 1900m so we took a one way ticket up and then intended to trek across the mountain to a waterfall and the back to Lomnica via a different track.

The view at mid station

The information center was surprisingly blase about treking in the alpine regions and this came as quite a surprise knowing that mountain conditions can change very rapidly. After some very vague directions of which tracks to follow we ended up treking to the wrong waterfall and actually getting tantalisingly close to the Polish border too, by heading up a 2000m pass. So what was billed as an easy 4 hour walk ended up in a 6 hour sunset trek... The scenery was well worth it and we had a great day out in the fresh alpine air, but our legs were definitely going to pay for that the next day!

Crossing the snowline, en route to Poland!

The waterfall we were supposed to reach, several hours later!

Early morning in the High Tatras

The next day brought more walking on our exhausted legs around the remains of an amazing fortress, Spis Castle, that is famed for managing to hold out against the Tatars (Mongols to you and I) in the 13th century. Although parts of it are in ruins, it is still pretty much intact and had a great exhibition inside, displaying some rather gruesome torture instruments and ancient weapons. I even got to fire an antique musket pistol!

Spis Castle - the largest in Europe

Bang!

From there we cruised up to the border of Slovakia and Poland, via the Dukla Pass which witnessed some severe fighting during WWII. Today Soviet and German tanks, and the occasional gun emplacement still line the road, left in situ following the Soviet liberation of what is now Slovakia at the end of the war.

Eric the Liberator!

Bratislava

In a fabulous case of coincidence, it turned out that our friend Cath was going to be in Bratislava on business on the exact date we were planning to be in the Slovak capital! She was able to change her flight to arrive from London on the Sunday afternoon, ahead of her Monday meeting, allowing us to have a great catch up and our very own private tour guide.

One night in Brat

A bit early for your Monday meeting Cath!

Bratislava is a very quaint little city, the development of which is happening right under your nose. In the couple of years Cath has been coming here she reckons it has changed so much, with EU and foreign investment flooding in. Quite disconcerting nevertheless for a giant Tesco to be the focal point of the commercial district!

The main square

Man at work

It's Tesco, but not as we know it!

We had great fun barhopping through the outdoor cafes of the old town and noting how sophisticated it all seemed - not exactly what we were expecting from a nation shrugging off its recent communist past. But I guess that's the point really.

The old and the new, cheek by jowl

Hmmm, what were they thinking?

As with Cesky Krumlov, the city seemed to have survived the worst of the war - and ensuing communist rule, with its 18th century Rococo buildings and sidewalk cafes lovingly renovated in pastel hues. However you don't have to look far to see some really heinous buildings of obvious Soviet design. In fact you only need to turn your gaze across the river from the ancient castle to see row upon row of institutional concrete housing blocks known as Petrzalka, and the so called 'New Bridge' over the Danube, which quite obviously resembles a UFO... Big Brother is watching you!

The Soviets destroyed a good swathe of the old town in order to create this road

The so called 'New Bridge'

A tiny snapshot of Petrzalka, which seems to go on for miles

It was really great to catch up with Cath and enjoy a night out in the big smoke, but it was soon time to climb back onboard and head (quite literally) for the hills...