This trip to the East was prompted by a ridiculously cheap special offer arriving in my inbox. 4 days/3 nights in a small apartment with half board for 2 people for £60. I couldn't not take it. We left on Tuesday 27th November and returned on Friday 30th November. The weather was OK, but during our trip there it suddenly turned into winter. It got very dark and finally we were looking for a little box in the tracks of a mining excavator, on the ground, in a white-out blizzard. That wasn't funny, I can tell you.
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| Matyó Museum in Mezőkövesd |
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| Thatched peasant long house in Mezőkövesd |
We arrived at our accommodation in the dark, but the lady to let us in arrived only about 5 minutes after us. The apartment was real
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| Dwerelict chapel in the middle of a field |
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| First World War memorial |
ly cute, in reasonably nick and with adquate space and good, fast internet. She was very chatty and friendly and assured us that should we have any problems we can call her on the phone straight away. There were no problems, so we never saw her again.
The following day the sun shone brightly and we looked forward to our day of geocaching with anticipation. The only problem was the strong wind, which added so much windchill that we both shivered a lot. Still, we started with the caches in the town itself, fiollowed by a trip to the famous flatlands of Hortobágy, aka the puszta. Those vast distances and the fact that wherever you looked you saw all the way to the horizon, was mind blowing. We saw the bird sanctuary, the famous 9-arched bridge and a lovely old T35 tank from the battle of Hortobágy in the Second World War.
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| Mining machinery in a museum |
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| Roy in the snow storm |
Then we travelled back a bit, turned left and visited the town of Balmazújváros. Caching on that day was very successful and we enjoyed ourselves. The following day, however the weather seriously deteriorated again and it felt like night all day. In spite of this we had our most successful day. We did a large circle around the town of Debrecen where we have already gathered almost all caches a year or so ago, this time our circle took us about 20 to 30 kilometres away from town and there were some amazing places to visit.
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| 13th century ruined church tower |
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| 21st century train passing the ruin |
The sites included the town of Hajdúböszörmény, several old medieval ruins, an amazing memorial to the heroes of 1956, the tracks of a cute little narrow gauge railway, which unfortunately only operates in the summer, but we will be back to take a ride on it next time and another lookout tower.
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| Hajdúböszörmény's central square |
The last day was spent en route home in a roundabout way and the sites included a meteor impact ground, a derelict chateau, a couple of manor houses, this time is perfect order, another arboretum, the very small remains of a 13th century monastery, but undoubtedly the start attraction on the last day was a visit to a family of potters in the town of Nádudvar, who have made pots in that town for hundreds of years and I even bought a small vase from him.
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| Hajdúböszörmény's central square (2) |
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| Graceful church spires |
He showed me the process, how the pots are made by hand on the wheel, then allowed to dry naturally, followed by putting the pattern on by using a stone compacting the clay by pressure. Then they go into the kiln for a minimum of 16 hours of firing, followed by another day of lock down in the kiln, during which time the soot combines with the clay to give the Nádudvar pots their characteristic black colour.
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| Memorial to the 1956 revolution |
The funny thing was that his surname is Potter, which I think proves how long his family made pots, as it was at least 800 years ago that surnames appeared and one of the most usual ways to name people was using their profession, craft or job.
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| Autumn colours |
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| Lookout tower at Erdőpuszta |
We got home just as it was getting dark and collapsed in a heap by 8 or 9pm. Fantastic little holiday with lots to see and visit and collecting 36 geocaches in the process!
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| Fazekas István the younger at work |
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| Lots of gorgeous Nádudvan pottery |
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| Wood-burning pottery stove |
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| DIning table beautifully laid with Nádudvan pottery |
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