Opera, theatre, geocaching and making truffles

Last Saturday I left Roy behind and went into town for culture. In the evening I attended the first opera of the 2017/18 season in the Erkel Theatre, which for this season is the only opera house, as the real one is being refurbished. Kati managed to remember her performance this time and so did I. The heat has returned and being in town was pretty hot again.  In the evening, when in mid/September you would expect to have to wear at least a jacket, I walked all the way to the theatre in one flimsy summer dress and was still hot.

The feast at the royal court in Bánk Bán

I saw an excellent performance of Bánk Bán, an opera by Ferenc Erkel, and all of it was first class. I hardly knew the performers, but they were very good and even outstanding in one or two cases. The setting, costumes, scenery and direction were OK, although I cannot stand the director, but not for any artistic reasons. He is an extreme right wing moron, who is loved by the government and can't do anything wrong as far as they are concerned. Thankfully, in an opera his politics did not dominate.  Except, of course, using the overly emphasised patriotic stuff, which are definitely his cup of tea and which most of the audience lapped up.

On top of "Chimney Rock", site of our first cache

I don't normally mind, because Bánk Bán was written in the 1840's and first performed in the early 1860's and its emphasis on patriotic themes had a revolutionary content then, being against the Hapsburgs and for Hungarian independence.  However, nowadays this out and out breast beating nationalism does get up my nose.  Never mind, the music was superb and I had a really good evening.

One of many beautiful views in the Pilis

On Sunday I went on a geocaching hike with my friend Zsuzsi to the Pilis Mountains near town. The plan was to pick up 5 caches by walking up the highest mountain in that range, then drop down half way on the other side for another cache, finally ending up at the very top by the lookout tower. The return trip was on the first side, where we picked some more caches up and finally arrived at some lovely caves prior to descending back to Zsuzsi's car. It turned out to be a bit longer than expected at 14km with 700 metres of climb, so we both looked a bit exhausted at the end.

Zsuzsi waiting for me while I climb all over the rockface

The caches were actually very interesting, fun and in one case, positively lethal. The first one was on the top of a rock pillar, the next one on a pretty lethal rockface, the next one in a valley, this time with no danger whatsoever, then we climbed back to the top through some tatty, uncleared, undefined and unmarked trails, where we did scratch our heads a few times about which direction to take.  The paths on the ground outnumbered those on the map by about 5:1. Still, following a rough direction on the compass made sure we never strayed too far from the general direction we needed to follow. Finally we arrived at the top, in the middle of a now long abandoned military base, where they used to be in readiness to launch rockets at the wicked West coming to overpower them. The lookout tower provided some nice views, which were slightly spoiled by some aggressive flying ants.

Autumn crocus

We returned on a glorious sylvan path on the other side of the mountain and tackled the last cache by  two caves, which were up a short but pretty steep and rocky path. We met a hiker there who became very handy at helping us up and down that lethal rocky path.We were both home by 7pm, but apparently Zsuzsi couldn't eat, she was so tired, but I just had my leftover sandwich and some tea.

The lookout tower on top of the Pilis

On Monday I decided to visit another cache site, this time in town, but up in the hills on the other side of the river.  The heat became very oppressive again, but the walk to and from the bus terminus and the cache was not too bad. This gets me to 1009 caches, which is now higher than my target was for the end of the year. I obviously am doing a lot more caching than planned, but I am enjoying it and it definitely helped and still helps not to miss orienteering too much.

View from the mouth of the cave

On Monday evening I went to the theatre for a performance of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt: a Parable. It was pretty good, although in the light of many pedophile scandals in the Roman Catholic Church of many countries in the last few decades, somehow the philosophical niceties of this topic didn't grab me half as much as it did the audience round me.

King Béla's spring where my cache was

Finally, I came home on the early bus on Tuesday morning and was indoors for a nice breakfast with Roy by 9am. Yesterday I finished the list of caches Mariann and I will search for at the end of this week and generally was trying to catch up with undone stuff.

Doubt: a Parable

Today we did a bit of cooking, with Roy making a delicious veg curry and I made some truffles. We need to take some presents to our kind geocaching friend who offered to drive us on our middle day in his area and invited us for a chat and supper, so most of the truffles are for them, while I will probably also take a bottle of Roy's pálinka and Mariann is bringing a bottle of wine.

Mrs. Patissier busy making truffles

29 truffles with roast hayelnut in the middle

Tomorrow we are off to town and I will post again sometime next week as I have the time.