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'