A summer of travels 2011, part III of V: from Bull’s Blood in Eger to my rendezvous with Dr Wasabi Islam
Talk about a rough start, and a rude welcome to eastern Hungary. I was almost ready to throw in the towel within hours of my arrival.
I try to plan as little as possible when I’m on the road, though in the height of summer with limited accommodation on offer that can be a perilous endeavour. So from time to time I swallow my principles and book rooms in advance. Unfortunately, I was unable to for Eger, my next stop, and it was perhaps an ominous sign that I couldn’t get through by phone or email. I was particularly concerned because it seemed like a place with limited accommodation, and I was proved right.
I could really draw the story of my arrival out. It was one of those evenings that I have tried to purge from my memory, but then the negative experiences are also part and parcel of travel, right?
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” (Clinton Fadiman)
Long story short: after about a 4 hour train ride from Kosice to Eger, including the last leg on a tiny, one compartment granny train, I arrived in town and duly made my way into the town centre, to the place that I had tried to book. No luck. I ended up traipsing around for hours and hours fruitlessly looking for reasonably-priced accommodation. I was miserable, hungry, thirsty, cursing myself, my shoulders searing in pain from the heavy rucksack, my feet burning…I always prefer to find a place first before sitting down to eat and drink, but eventually I had to stop for a cold beer to calm myself down and take a breather. After hours of looking and bargaining, I eventually found some fleabag hotel – the kind where the front desk clerk doubles as something else and there are various other fripperies on offer – and crashed out cold. (Now, if I ‘d had more energy ;-))
The next day I was able to secure a nice room at my original choice, a delightful little place right in the centre.
First…no wait, second impressions
On that first night, despite my travails, I was well enamoured with Eger. I had come here to relax and drink lots of fine wine: northeastern Hungary is home to tokay, Hungary’s great contribution to the world of oenophilia. Though most varieties are of the white and sweet palate, there are plenty of darker, drier reds on offer and I was ready to soak up the atmosphere of Eger’s Zopf architecture – a transitional style between late baroque and neoclassicism found only in central Europe – whilst soothing my aching muscles after my hard work trekking in Slovakia.
Eger doesn’t feature highly on the so-called backpacker trail: it’s more contrived and touristy, where 95% of all the bars and restaurants are crammed together in the centre, with loads of terraces and streetside musicians. It screams tourist-trap and it’s swarming with Italian package tour groups. But amazingly for such a touristy place, almost no one seemed to speak English, nor were many people particularly friendly, which made it tough going after Slovakia’s charms. Even ordering something as simple as an Americano flustered most waitresses. I thought something like that was pretty universal, but what do I know.
Here’s the thing about travelling when not knowing the language: in Slovakia, where English wasn’t spoken, I had little trouble getting by with my smattering of Czech, Ukrainian and the odd garbled Russian word thrown in. In Hungary, where I knew little more than the basics (hello, goodbye, thank you, how much, you’re very beautiful and I want to take you back to my hotel room, etc), it was a struggle. But sometimes this takes a lot of the pressure off: you can just blabber away in English and mime in the hopes that you’ll be understood. Surely the Hungarians can’t expect many travelers to know their virtually unintelligible language.
(another massive pet hate of mine: travellers who don’t learn at least the very basics of each country they visit: utterly inexcusable and downright lazy, in my book.)
A brief, lazy overview of Eger’s history (or, the part that my readers will care about)
Eger was attacked by the Turks over the course of the 16th century. In 1552, they attempted to take Eger Castle. Around 100,000 Turks fought Istvan Dobo’s ragtag collection of 2000 bedraggled troops for over a month. According to legend (in other words, it’s all probably made up*) Dobo kept his soldiers happy by forcing red wine down their gullets. This gave them lots of energy, and with the wine streaming down their face and bloodying their beards, the not-so bright and easily duped Turks were convinced that the defenders were drinking the blood of bulls. Thus, the reason the red variety of wine is called Bull’s Blood, or Bukaver.
What, you didn’t think I was drinking real bull’s blood now, did you? (I know my sister was worried about this)
One other major feature: just outside town is Szepasszony Volgy, or the ‘Valley of Beautiful Women’. Eger’s red-light district, full of gorgeous scantily-clad Hungarian honeys eager to please foreigners for a reasonable price? No…a small, horseshoe shaped road featuring loads of wine cellars. Ho-hum…
Day 1: drank lots of wine. Normally I like my late afternoon/early evening beer to reflect on the day’s events and contemplate what I want for dinner, but Hungarian beer is lousy and I was in the heart of wine country. Some of the touristy trap restaurants were actually very decently-priced and I treated myself to various 6-wine samplers and cheese whilst people-watching. I took copious notes on the quality of the wines, but I absolutely will NOT be sharing those, thankfully. I promised no more overly elaborate food and restaurant descriptions.
Eger features one of the most enchanting, unique museums I’ve ever seen: the Lajos Kopcsik Marzipan Museum. Everything inside is made of, you guessed it, marzipan. I’m told that other such museums exist in the world, but this one had me mesmerised. Among the offerings were Venetian masks, a giant Euro coin, a chess set, matryoshkas, a massive wine bottle, a minaret, a gramophone, eggs, the Great Bell of Marzipania, and then the crown jewel, an entire Baroque-era room. These are just a small snippet of what was on offer.
A splendid place.
Back to the wine, but bear this in mind:
‘As I followed Hans’s zigzag and switchback course all over the steep city, it occurred to me that hangovers are not always harmful. If they fall short of the double-vision which turns Salisbury Cathedral into Cologne, they invest scenery with a lustre which is unknown to total abstainers.’ (Paddy Leigh Fermour, A Time of Gifts)
As I was sitting outside quaffing delectable plonk, I ruminated on just how pleasant the outdoor café life can be. But to be consistent with my last post, about the charms of cities year-round versus those places that ‘come alive’ in spring and summer, I ought to elaborate. For as charming as this place was, with its cobbled-streets, pedestrians-only areas and narrow, winding alleyways, I could have closed my eyes and been almost anywhere in central Europe, or even Italy for that matter. Don’t get me wrong – it’s especially nice drinking chilled white wine and taking in the surroundings, lazily watching people go by. But deep down I prefer the cosy confines of cafés and bars in the dead of winter, where I go for more than just the odd fleeting glance of passing lovelies. I’m more of the sit and stare inside type, where I can feel equally comfortable with my nose in a book. I sometimes prefer stumbling from café to café in the bitter cold, and then being to unwrap and warm up in some dank, dingy cellar bar. Sometimes, mind…
In short: I’m difficult to please and the grass is always greener, as they say.
After a couple of inebriated days in Eger, including a visit to the valley of hot sluts, where I did a mini wine cellar crawl, and a few hours of outside thermal bathing, it was onto glorious Budapest, one of my all-time favourite cities. Though I have yet to write about it on these pages, this was my 4th visit.
1. Sept 2002: in the middle of my pre-Edinburgh backpacking jaunt
2. August 2005: a couple of days just before the start of my teaching adventures in Lviv
3. January 2008: a post-New Year’s visit with my sister
Every visit includes a visit to Budapest’s exquisite Turkish baths.
The downside to being away from computers and the news: I arrived in Budapest and checked my email for the first time in days and to catch up on the goings-on. How things change in a hurry. Suddenly, Yulia Tymoshenko had been arrested, the stock markets were plunging (I thankfully sold off a good chunk before embarking) and London was under siege by rioters. But screw all that, I wanted more drink!
Here’s where I’m going to sound spoiled, but I can’t help it. One of the charms of coming back to a place that you know and love is that there’s no pressure to rush around and see and do everything. I can instead either revisit old culinary haunts or find some new ones. I wasted no time fleeing the internet café and finding some dimly-lit bohemian bar with peeling wallpaper where I could partake in some more good wine and catch up on some reading.
[question for discussion: places these days love to bill themselves as ‘boho’, but what exactly are the criteria?]
I went to Kiado Kocsma and fell in love with it. It’s at times and places like this that I start to feel sorry for myself and lament the fact that Kyiv is distinctly lacking in chilled-out boho, smoke-free places with good music and affordable good wine. If I were more ambitious and business-savvy, I might consider opening such a place, but I think that’s way beyond my means.
There’s something magical about discovering new music in a delightful new place. I took in my surroundings and nestled into my chair to read and write. I was instead captivated by the atmospheric, moody, haunting but chirpy, reverby, echoing, shimmering, wobbling and hollow sounds of this, what on first listen I considered a mix of Arcade Fire, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and a subtle hint of Spiritualized (my music-writing days are long behind me, so you’ll have to forgive the rustiness):
A day when I really felt my age
Budapest was serving as a sort of crossroads for this trip. After a day of nostalgia and reminiscing, and a day before Dr Wasabi Islam’s arrival, I was off to the Sziget Festival, where I was eagerly anticipating Interpol and Pulp, back together and touring for the first time in years. I’ve never been much of a music festival goer – my only real experience was the V festival way back in 1997 – and so one day was about all I could handle. It was more than enough.
In my journal, the day after, was written the following: ‘…lots of freaks, oddballs, weirdos…lots of observations, details at another time…’
Mercifully, the passage of time has dulled my senses and I don’t feel the need to offer up further details. I don’t think I can remember any, to be honest. I felt old, though, damn old, surrounded by all sorts of young things with multiple piercings, tattoos and bizarre fashions. I got there early enough to explore the grounds, take in my surroundings and then quickly found a quietish place where I could drink some coffee and read. Yes, seriously: how cool am I?
Later in the day, as I walked around and checked out a few bands, I moved onto the wine and loosened up, even talking to one or two weirdos, including a girl from New York who was tripping out of her head and trying to convince me to make out with her boyfriend. He wasn’t terribly good-looking, so I immediately quashed that idea.
Interpol were great, Pulp were brilliant, Jarvis was in tremendous form, and I was shattered when it was all over and done with. Barring some unforeseen change of heart, that will be the last music festival I attend.
It was definitely worth it, though, especially at moments like this:
The next day, I was joined by long-time friend Dr Wasabi Islam. This meant the end of my internal ruminations, and the start of talking shit, ogling women, waxing philosophical, walking at a snail’s pace (if Dr Wasabi Islam walked any more slowly he’d be going backwards), and of course the choicest of bon mots, not to mention being forced to scarf doner kebabs for breakfast. We’d have around 10 fun-filled, action-packed, conversation-heavy days together before jetting off to Greece to meet Murad and Magnus. I had 10 days to play Boswell to his Johnson. And yes, that’s meant to sound dirty.
Dr Wasabi Islam was in heaven with the women of Central Europe. His neck swiveled around so often and quickly that he started to suffer from severe neck cramp.
Csendes, a grungy café decorated with skip material and trash art. Apparently this is the latest craze in Budapest.
We attempted to take in a bit of culture here and there – the House of Terror, the National Museum (we made it far as the gift shop), Buda Castle, Heroes Square – but it was mainly ‘people’ watching, liquid libations, paprika-infused meat and puerile conversation that dominated the course of events.
There were always funny run-ins with waiters. At dinner on our second night, while Dr Wasabi Islam complained about the inadequacies of European customer service, we encountered a waiter who was perplexed by our request for butter.
DR WASABI ISLAM: Can we get some butter, please?
WAITER: Uh, butter?
DR WASABI ISLAM: Yeah, for our bread.
WAITER: Uh, what is it, butter?
DR WASABI ISLAM: (miming a spreading motion) You know, for our bread?
WAITER: You mean, something to put on bread?
DR WASABI ISLAM: Yes, butter.
WAITER: But sir, you do realize this is a restaurant?
DR WASABI ISLAM: (baffled) Um, yeah.
WAITER: And you want butter?
DR WASABI ISLAM: Um, yeah.
WAITER: But it’s a restaurant!
DR WASABI ISLAM: Okay, don’t you have butter?
WAITER: But sir, this is a restaurant!
DR WASABI ISLAM: (flabbergasted, speechless)
WAITER: (grunting and storming off)
The waiter returned with butter. It was hard as a rock.
DR WASABI ISLAM: What’s with these Europeans and their hard butter? That’s one of my biggest pet peeves.
PEDZO: (chuckling, shaking head)
Most of his finest wit will come out as we scamper round the Balkans, but to whet your appetite, I leave you with this. On his romantic liaisons:
DR WASABI ISLAM: I’m not exactly a leper, but I’d probably have better luck in a leper colony. At least there there’s a captive audience.
* see Eric Hobsbawm’s The Invention of Tradition for more on this
Poor Dr Wasabi Islam
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