Sümeg again on a Saturday

Today we are going to Sümeg: Tiel and me.

We were supposed to go to Balatonfüred, to visit some caves, but we missed the bus at 10.00AM, and the next one was at 13.24, so we decided not to go. We'll probably go there next week, though!

So, we are in Sümeg again (i.e. I am again, she's here for the first time ) visiting the castle and some nice neightbours that have free Wifi...

I would write this post in Hungarian (magyarul), but this blog must be in english, 'és sajnos csak egy kicsit beszélek magyarul...' ( it means 'but unfortunately I only speak a little bit hungarian...')

We went to the church in Sümeg, and literally there wasn't anybody there! Not even God...



Maybe you find that the verb tenses don't match, but that'll be because I am writing in on the run, that is, while the things are happening.

Here in Sümeg there's some sort of Medieval Fight, whith the justins and all that stuff, but we were a bit unlucky because as soon as we went up the hill, from where we could see the epic fights and battles, the show ended...! Lucky us! We'll check whether there's another fight somewhere else, and we will try to get there in time (as it should be)...

Now we have the extra food we NEEDED (like chocolate an cereals and a beer for Tiel) and we are heading back home by foot... It will be a two hour walk, most likely!

Kesthely

Today I am visiting Kesthely (it means 'castle'). It is the second biggest city in the shore of lake Balaton, the biggest lake in Europe.

Motor boats are not allowed in the lake anywhere, which gives to the lake the calm that the nearby villages deserve. That means all you see are rowboats, sailboats and other types of human powered boats.

But Kesthely isn't the only city I visited today. Since it is my first day off (Arthur still owes me one more, though), I decided I should visit this villages. I must say there are really touristic, and also that most of the tourists are Hungarian. First I visited Héviz, a town that only has a tiel-colored church and a circle-shaped lake no more than 100 meters of diameter. This "lake" turns out to be one of the best natural hot water springs on the world, ought to its high concentration of minerals.

From there I came walking o Kesthely, 7km, and here I ate a Lángosh, that is, a potatoe-based deep-fried bread that is usually eaten with Tejföl (sour cream).

Kesthely has a Palace (actually, they like to say it's a castle, but you'll see it's not), the one on the pictures:

Now I have to go, because I don't want to miss the bus back home!

Sümeg

Sümeg: Sümeg is a little town, but known throughout Hungary because of the castle. It's at the top of a very very steep hill.

It is a medieval castle, so I hope you didn't expect huge towers or tall buildings...




This is a view from the inside, in between the walls of the castle. It has a flat grass garden in the middle, where likely they'd have had lunch or dinner, or they would train for battle or whatever.



It is NOT the castle one would expect; it isn't big, nor pretty: It wasn't a king's castle, bur a feudal lord's, and it was built there because of the great advantadge that had for self-defense.





That explains the wonderful views you have of the surroundings:

While heading back to Óhíd, I came across two Austrian boys that were walking with their backpacks. They are gona be travelling for a year. Starting Today! That's crazy. I just met them on their first day!

They were going to Türje, the village where i found Wifi (remember?). So I was lucky I could help them, by explaining how to go (bus), that it wasnt far (about 2 hours walking) and that they needen't to worry, because they could easily get there on the same day.




Ten minutes later i found a Hungarian man (in his 40's) that also was backpacking, and asked me to take a picture of him and Sümeg's castle.

As I was arriving home, the sky had traces of purple in the horitzon... I thought it was worth taking a picture

Óhíd

On Monday the 1st I arrived to Óhíd ( it means Old Bridge). I expected a hungarian farmer, but instead I met Arthur, who's name says how english he is. That means "Hungarian 0 - 1 English"...

I had to wait for three days to meet another Wwoofer, and finally have some company!
Her name is Tiel, she comes from California (Santa Bárbara), and has been travelling for two months across Europe (if I remember well...)

The thing is that she found a book: "Teach yourself Hungarian"!! So now we have "Hungarian 1 - 1 English", and eventually I hope it will be "Hungarian 'n' - 1 English" ('n' equal or greater than 2)

She is with whom I spend most of my free time, and with whom i went for a ride with our bikes in order to finally find some Wifi...

We managed to find Wifi here, in a village called Türje, about 6 km away from where we live.

Let me explain something about this: we "live" means that, when you go WWOOFing, you work 30 hours a week, from 7AM (but we always start later) until around 1PM. From there on, we have all day for ourselves, in a cottage where we work (so we don't een need to 'go to work').

The owner of the farm, which is Arthur in this case, provides us with that cottage (with kitchen, bathroom, toilet, etc), food, blanchets, towels, and ocasionally takes us to visit some villages, to the Grocery Store where we will buy our food or to the beautiful Thermal Springs ( that means 30C swimming pools ) near Zalaszengrot!

And today, after the Wifi, we went to a nearby village, Nagygörbö (it means Big Church), where a German Family has a cottage where they sale their own Bier.

Budapest

The last big city of my trip is Budapest. I was there for five days: from the 27th, when I arrived from Wiena, until the 1st August, when I go to the farm in Óhíd.

Thanks to Roxi and to her family, I am allowed to stay there the five nights, although Roxi left after my second night.
Thanks to this, I had the priceless experience of living with a Hungarian Family for a couple of days...!

Me and Tejföl

I ate Goulyás (gulash), had Hungarian breakfasts, meals, fell in love with Tejföl, visited the city from another point of view and with great people!

Now I am in Óhíd, where I'll be WWoofing for 25 days before going to the next and last farm in eastern Hungary!

Post-arrival days (in Wien)

Two days ago (on Monday) I ran into two Australian girls from the Hostel that I had just met during breakfast.
It was really fine to see them on the city center; I joined them and went to visit the Stadtpark.



What happened there needs to be told: a bird was being beaten by all the others, and it was really injured. So we scared the others away (or at least tried to, because they kept coming). Then we made the Birdie hide under a bush, and here's where the story starts: another bird yet came to bite Birdie, and when it did, I was just there and i grabbed it by the tail (i didn't expect I'd be able to), and then i just holded it like magicians do with their white pidgeons.

 I didn't think that the bad bird would be in shock afterwards, but indeed it was. As I left it on the ground, tried to move but just couldn't walk at all. I had to put it aside so it could relax!

And yesterday I went for a run. I had to wake up at 4:00AM, but I'll tell you why now.
I think I hadn't been to such a long run since my training before World War II... My guess Is I ran about 25 kilometers, and for me that's just more than enough for a day.
The thing is I wanted some pictures of the city without tourists. And I got them, except for a Panorama that simply disappeared from my iPod (it turned crazy).



 And finally, today, I went again for a run, but this time nearer: To Schonbrunnpark (it's about 6km away from the hostel... so I ran 15 today).
I must say I woke up later (well, about 5,30AM) so I could get there as early as possible (the park opens at 6AM). I have really really cool pictures of the park and the gardens, but, again, without tourists.
Schönbrunn (the palace and the garden) were the heart of the high class society whilst the Habsburg had political power.

From Schonbrunn (the palace) I can say quite a few things:


First of all is that they were so rich you can't imagine, and now you'll see why.

The palace has:

• 1400 rooms, which include guest rooms, tea room, piano room, concert room, chapel, another room with a pool table, dining room, lots of bathrooms...

• It hosted the Habsburg monachs from 1800 until the beginning of the XX century.

And about the gardens, well... they are quite big:

• The Great Parterre, which is a building located at the top of the hill (20 families could live there...) and was were they all met to discuss, have teas, etc.

• One of the monachs, who loved to go hunting, wanted to hunt in his own garden (and that's why, behind the Great Parterre, there is still a lot of garden, but without fountains).

• The garden has 32 scupultures (without names) that represent virtues and deities. It features two greenhouses, where the monarch (the same that love to go hunting; he was who designed the garden, and the 'this-and-thats') could plant his roses.

• The oldest zoo in the World.

• We can find huge Roman Ruins, which were designed and supervised (during the construction, so actually there are not old...) by an architect. It has the oldest Zoo in the World; the monarch wanted strange animals on his garden...

And just for the record: Today it's gonna be a long day. I'll visit Wien (Austria), and Budapest (Hungary)

Willkommen in Wien

Wiena will be like the greatest city I visiy on my trip. I'll be staying here for 4 nights, which is more that what I spent in Prague and Brnö altogether.

I have quite a lot of things to visit, like the Stephansplatz, Parlament, Rathaus (City Council), History and Nature Museums, etc.

I have just got here from Brno, and I'm gonna seize my time the most I can...

The city it's too crowded on the center, so much that gets hard to see local citizens there...
It's just soooo full of beautiful old buildings that it gets hard to think you've seen it all...



Another thing from Wien is that all the museums and "Mozart's house" and "Schubert's haus" and so on are really really expensive to visit (full fare would be 9 Euros... If they were alive, I'd pay that, but since they're not...)



Saint Freud Church



Stefansplatz



Natural and History Museum



Things are really expensive here, compared to what they costed in the Czech Republic... if you buy some bread, for instance, with that kind of almond traces, it will cost you here between 5 and 10 times what it had costed you in Prague or Brno...

Surprising too is the great brand of cheap hamburgers you can find on McDonald's... (Sorry, I had to tell you...)
Let's see... in Spain we have normal hamburger, cheese hamburger and chicken hamburger.
Here, you can find those three (the chicken one costs 1,30), but also Veggie Hamburger (for vegetarian people!! 1,50), Chiquen TS (which might mean Tomato Slice, I guess... 1,30), and also double hamburger (normal hamburger with two meat slices: 1.70), and double cheese hamburger (2,00)

I have a woman here complaining I've been using it for too long, so I give you a last picture and... I'll write again soon!