emiGrants: Funeral, lots of geocaching, Xander's 6th birthday and Municipal Elections

The day after my last post turned out to be quite expensive, but we survived. Somehow I managed to forget to pay for the refuse collection for the last two quarters, so I had to catch up, plus I finally paid the balance on the cruise, so that is now paid for. I also finished writing my cache list for our journey to the Balaton and then in the late afternoon we went into town.

Cellars at Etyek

Some more cellars at Etyek

On Friday we had a sad happening. One of our good friends lost her mother recently and we went to attend the funeral. There were not too many people there, I would say about 40 or so. But the atmosphere was lovely. There wasn't too much religion and what there was felt genuine. Some people made speeches about her, some colleagues and members of the family. We had a little chat with Tibor and Klári, plus their children who are now grown up and still very nice.

Saturday was a surprise day, as I decided to go geocaching and Roy, having succumbed to the temptations of going for lunch at the Rókusfalvy afterwards, came with me. We went for three fairly recently placed caches close to BP in a Westerly direction. First it was a little well down a dark valley, then a 3 parter in the town of the restaurant and finally another 3 parter, following the line of a recently restored old railway line with a small train in operation not too frequently.

The little railway engine with two wagons behind it

The well was very easy, although I had to watch my knee as the stream side was muddy and slippery. The first 3 parter had a theme of wine cellars. There were gorgeous old nicely restored ones all over the place. This town was mostly settled by Germans prior to 1945 and the building style, both of their homes and their cellars, was very distinctly German. In recent years one of their rows of cellars became famous for the picnic they organise every spring, with lots of lovely food as well as wine. It is now called the "Gastro Lane".

Roy on the terrace of the Rókusfalvy Inn

Finally we started on the little narrow gauge railway, which was difficult to find first. Later we got extremely lucky as I found an engine with two wagons waiting to leave at one of the stations. As it was leaving, I even managed to shoot a short video of it. After this one we returned to Etyek for lunch. The Rókusfalvy Inn has long been famous for both its food and drink. This time, somehow I was less impressed than before, but it was still very pleasant, if a tad expensive.

Avenue of pines in Keszthely, planted by Mary Hamilton

Sunday saw Ian arrive with the post and we had a little chat, followed by me wishing him good luck with the roller blind repair man on the Monday. A few hours later Mariann turned up for her fleece, which she left in my car the week before after she ran for her bus in Gödöllő. She also sat down with me, trying to do some work on the computer and GPS to show me how to download caches onto my GPS and also tried to do the same for maps. This one proved a bit difficult, so I think I will have to pop up to Mariann's place in Budakeszi some time to finish off the session.

Gorgeous bush in autumn splendour

Another lovely riot of colours

And then came our 5-day outing to Badacsonyőrs for geocaching. It started brilliantly, with quite a few caches gathered, which included some hiking ones, me climbing up to tops of large hills to see out of a variety of look-out towers. However, as we arrived at the B&B we were told that there is no such thing as our booking, so in spite of her assurances, the owner of the place had done the dirty on us again. In the summer I could understand, but this time it was criminal to do this to us. She offered an alternative in Tapolca and being late, getting dark and both of us being tired and hungry, we accepted.

First of many lookout towers on this trip

The place was an absolute dump. Large house with 1 bathroom for everyone, dreadful state of some of the walls and floors, no soap, no towels etc., etc. We both treated it as a joke, which was a very successful strategy. The only saving grace of the place was its ridiculously cheap price, although I would have much preferred having to pay more and staying in a decent B&B. This was now the second time this had happened to us by the Balaton, and we decided that we would not come back too soon.

The five days of geocaching had plenty of highlights and a very few low lights. The countryside was persistently gorgeous, scenic, photogenic and generally very pleasant indeed. The weather was mostly good, although towards the end we had some rain. We found a reasonable Italian restaurant in Tapolca and ate there most evenings. We realised that while the B&B was a dump, its location was much better suited to the trips I planned, as it was totally central to them all. We were caching first near the lake, later we ventured further afield into Zala County and en route home into Somogy.

Another lookout tower

As most of them were multi-caches plus my week knee, the total ended up as 28, which is not high for 5 days, but this time we concentrated on quality, rather than quantity. Churches and chapels dominated again, but we had a mill (albeit closed), then plenty of mountain top look-out towers, some remnants of old, now closed, railways, memorial houses and museums, and one very special town where I climbed three hills, the last one being the biggest. The views were generally to kill for, both North inland towards the mountains and South towards the lake.

Lake view from one of the lookout towers

One day we even visited Robert, whom we have not seen since we had him over for dinner months ago. We had a lovely chat with him and he insisted that the next time we are in the area, we should stay with him and not risk the dreadful B&B experience again. We might take him up on his kind offer and I think the best would be to try to tag him onto our next visit to Pityu, who is also very near. We'll see!

Balatongyörök church

On Friday we came home and today we celebrated Xander's 6th birthday. I haven't spoken with him, but Roy managed a short Messenger chat wit him. We are also getting ready to vote in the Council Elections tomorrow (Roy in town, I in the village), after which I will have to come back to town for the long awaited ultrasound examination of my knees that had to be postponed last time.