Things have been rather hectic lately, but what's new? The delayed caching in Zala, due to the flu/Covid, has put our last two trips away a bit too close to each other. Unfortunately, most things that could go wrong, did. First the weather was typically uncooperative, in having lovely sunny days when we were at home, and dark, depressing and cold ones when we were away. Secondly, my lower back, which I have had problems with since I was a teenager, started up in a big way and finally, I do not think I have properly recovered from illness when we started intensive caching. As a result, (I think), I did something to my right knee, which was jolly painful and is still not quite right.
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Ági and David on the dance floor
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So, no more whingeing, let's get on with it! Day after I last posted we went to celebrate Ági's 70th birthday in a lovely community centre close to her flat. It was so lovely to see upwards to a 100 people, from all aspects and times of her life coming together to celebrate her and to enjoy themselves in the process. The program was mostly about sitting around with people you already knew, and/or circulating and making new friends. It was all laid back a relaxed. Ági made a lovely speech, then we had food and drink, followed by 3 enormous and gorgeous cakes and the final activity was Scottish dancing, which takes a big chunk of Ági's life. Roy and I didn't dance, and that was just as well, as it was during this party that my right knee started misbehaving.
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The Children's Railway engine
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On Monday, and in spite of my dodgy knee, we went to get the final choo choo train's cache in the Buda Hills by public transport. The weather was reasonable and, thankfully, the most we had to walk was about 2 or 300 yards from the bus stop. We found it and even had a chance to photograph one of their locomotives, that has unexpectedly chugged past us.
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An old geodesic tower in the puszta
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A nicely renovated smock mill
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And after all this excitement, we packed up and disappeared in a Southerly direction to do a bit more geocaching. This trip was, thankfully, only 3 days, and the highlights this time were not the caches we found, but the accommodation and one restaurant/bar. The two overnights were in Szeged and Gyula. The first one is a large city, the second one a smaller country town. Originally we were going to stay two nights in Gyula, but while putting the cache list together I realised that there was no way we were going to get to Gyula in time on the first day. So I changed that booking to one night only and found a gem of a hotel in Szeged for the first night instead.
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Roy admiring the room in Science Hotel
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The hotel is called Science Hotel, in English as I have written it here. Pretty new, modern, laid back and with all comforts that we normally are not used to. It was a total fluke that I found the special offer and without realising how good a deal it was, (less than half the normal price), I booked it. It was while checking in that I realised that their basic price for a double room is 100 Euros, and we got ours for 42 Euros. It was great, but an even bigger sensation has happened, when having asked where they would recommend for us to have dinner, they suggested the John Bull. Obviously all the better places in Szeged have English names nowadays.
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Roy's steak in the John Bull
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My prawns in the John Bull
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It looked and felt like a British pub. We couldn't get a table, as it is so popular that even on a cold, dark and windy midweek November early evening they were fully booked. However, a really nice waiter suggested that if we do not mind sitting at the bar, we can have dinner there. That was a stroke of genius, as by the bar, we had the barmaid to chat with and generally take part in the social life of the place. The food was out of this world, Roy had a piece of steak that shut him up for ages. Apparently, they ship their stakes over by air from the US. It looked and tasted, Roy said, exactly like a Yankee cut, inch and a half thick steak would. I chose prawns grilled on skewers, with aromatic rice, and that was absolutely delicious too.
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The big wheel in Szeged by the Dome
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The Dome at night in Szeged
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The place in Gyula, albeit in a different price bracket, but was also very nice. The price we paid was similar to the one in the Science Hotel, but there it was their normal price. However, the building is brand new, it's decoration, furnishings and general atmosphere was also very nice. We had an enormous king size bed, with great comfort, and the dinner was spent in the first restaurant we came across, while walking towards the centre of town, and proved an brilliant find. We were the only customers, as it was still very early in the evening, but the waitress was an absolute gem. Born and bred in Gyula, she was chatty, friendly and the definitely the life and soul of the place. Roy had a fantastic, beautifully garlicky gypsy roast, and I had a combo of a large bowl of chicken noodle soup followed by a pancake filled with walnut cream and served in a large amount of dark chocolate sauce. Yum, yum!!!
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Gyula castle at night
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Nice autumn colours in Gyula
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After all this, I must tell you a few things about the geocaching, although we were a bit unlucky here in the flatlands, as quite a few caches were neglected, missing or in stupid places. In spite of this, we finally managed to get 20 of them, which for a bad weather, cold, November midweek effort wasn't too bad. The ones that I remember, (usually the really nice or the terribly awful ones), are the three highest points of the county caches, of which two was in the middle of puszta, forcing poor old Roy to drive miles on soft sand, which is not his favourite pastime. Still, we did find three of these and I have 9 left to get before autumn 2025, which will not be too difficult.
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Beautifully renovated chateau in Zsáka
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Other places we visited, without any particular order of preference were : a good few pretty lakes, churches, a beautifully restored smock mill, a crater lake made by an underground gas explosion, the puszta, a walk in the footsteps of Munkácsy, one of the most famous painters of the 19th century, a pretty chateau and a few others that escape me at the moment. Photography was dodgy when it was raining, but I still managed to get a few good shots to use here, on FB and in other online stuff that needs photos.
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Old brick church tower in Herpály
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We got home to BP on Thursday, slept there overnight and then came home to Bér yesterday. We did have a phone call from Pali while we were still in the South, that our pálinka mash was taken to the still and got distilled during the weekend, so today we will visit Pali and see if we can bring our hootch home to a happy Roy, who has missed it for so long. I have no idea how good this new distiller is, but no doubt, you will hear from me sometime in the spring, if it is drinkable or not. It has to rest 3 or 4 months to get clear and the taste to get refined enough.
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A typical shot of the puszta
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Must go now as my poor tummy thinks my throat had been cut. Must have breakfast and then get on with lots of jobs that had been neglected while we were away. Next post sometime next week, depending on how am I proceeding with catching up with my duties at home.
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