The Beautiful Blue Danube, paprika, salami and St. Stephen

This past week, Sept 3 – Sept 7, we’ve had orientation. It’s been a week of traveling around Hungary by way of introducing us to our new country. Here’s the run-down:



Mon – Budapest. Opera House, St. Stephen’s Basilica (we’ve heard about a million-trillion times this week that St. Stephen was the first king of Hungary. We saw his right hand in the basilica!), lunch in Central Kavehaz & Etterem, castle district and general sightseeing






Tue – North-Western Part of Hungary. Archabbey of Pannonhalma, Eszterhazy Castle, Szechenyi Castle, Herend Porcelanium factory and museum including a cup of tea in their famous porcelain, stay the night in a hotel in Sopron.

Wed – North-Western Part of Hungary. Sopron sightseeing, Lake Balaton (nicknamed the Hungarian Sea. It was so cold, windy and rainy! Apparently a lot of the lake is really shallow so it’s fun for the kids), dinner in a csarda (fish soup – a bit too fishy even for me- & traditional music)

Thur – Southern Part of Hungary at the River Tisza. Opusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park (horse show. Hmm, I don’t know the appropriate historical terms but it was like a barbarian Hun jousting show. There were 4 people in their nomadic-looking attire and they were shooting arrows and waving swords while riding horses; bit insane really – kind of like the Renaissance reinactors who really get into their roles. The main guy, let’s call him Atilla, picked me to come up and learn to shoot an arrow [I had not volunteered byt]) I turned my camera to take a picture of Atilla and that's him aiming his arrow at me...scary especially since I saw him shoot a stray dog with an arrow before the show started, sightseeing in Szeged, Szeged synagogue (second largest in Hungary – considered the most beautiful by the Hungarians and me), salami museum ☺, paprika museum

Fri – Southern Part of Hungary. Visit to traditional Hungarian home & embroidery exhibition, sightseeing in the archbishopric town of Kalocsa, mini organ concert in the church (Liszt was the first to play the organ), the church treasury (including one of the three copies of the Hungarian crown. The pope has another one of the three and the third is also in Kalocsa.), library of Kalocsa (including one of Martin Luther’s personal bibles with his handwritten notes in it and a 30 year old model of the city church made of sugar), another paprika museum, wine tasting afternoon in Hajos.





*quick pronunciation guide regarding the “s”
an ‘s’ by itself is pronounced like ‘sh’ as in ‘sheep’. For example: Budape-sh-t and Sh-opron.
‘sz’ sounds like a plain ‘s’ as in ‘say’. For example: Szechenyi is pronounced [say-chain-ey].

*quick historical note
By the way, Mr. Szechenyi is a huge hero in Hungary. He was responsible for humungous works projects like the highway system, engineering the path of the rivers through Hungary, the uniting of Buda and Pest, the racing horse-breeding industry and the introduction of the flush toilet into Hungary (thanks for that!). The oldest and most famous bridge across the Danube at Budapest is the Szechenyi Bridge commonly known as the “Chain Bridge”.