Our last morning in Slovakia dawned sheer gold, full of promise for the adventure of exploring another new country, our last country for this year. We had so enjoyed the young energy of Slovakia, the verve and vitality, the pride of building their own land anew, the bold steps of the Bratislava leaders to bring cultural events into public spaces, the beautiful and kind people, speaking English and German as a matter of course and welcoming us into their country. What would Hungary be like?
As always, it is the meetings with people which have the greatest impact. We had met Bela in Schlögen already and had promised to contact him as soon as we were in Hungary. He has a big boat named Liberty and an enormous heart and he drove out in his jeep to meet us at the marina in Neszmely. Over the course of some hours, Bela proceeded to teach us how Hungarians drink beer (not like the Germans, let me assure you) and when we withdrew to his boat, he educated us in the fine art of drinking Hungarian schnapps. They are not to be sipped prissily, but rather knocked back in one go with courage! Eventually we made it back to our own boat without mishap. The next morning Bela collected the three of us, Liz, Johannes and Markus, and took us up to his vineyard to inspect his cellar and try his own special wine. We parted with fond hugs and a promise to visit another time.
Our next stop was in the beautiful town of Esztergom. We stayed in the well-known little marina of Attila, who is also a friend of Bela! The view from the marina is as pretty as any we have seen on this journey, basilica, church and castle making a harmonious picture together.
We spent two days exploring Esztergom, visiting the castle museum, making sketches of the interesting buildings, chatting with local people as well as we could manage without the language. On our second day, we discovered the ¨Cat's Staircase¨, crazy winding way which led finally to the basilica again and a beautiful view of the Danube.
Almost too soon, after a violent storm in the night with startling lightning and crashing thunder, we left this lovely place and travelled further. The weather changed and became cooler. Night seemed to reach us earlier! The Danube became much wider and the mountainous landscape wilder.
Vast stretches of mountain were covered in forest, with no houses to be seen. We were on the way to Visegrad. As rain made the driving harder, and night began to fall, we spotted a little marina, maybe not the one we had planned on reaching, but a safe and friendly haven after all where we gratefully tied Sulina on to the jetty. The friendly owners made us welcome and the following day saw us hiking up a pleasant simple mountain path to the fortification and castle of Visegrad where we spent a few hours exploring the area and looking at the exhibits.
The next day we had reached the Danube knee, where the river changes direction and we found ourselves going south instead of east! The river splits into two parts and we had chosen to travel on the Szentendre arm as we wanted to visit this town. It was so quiet and peaceful, the Danube reduced to a slender river, similar to the Main, wildlife fully in evidence, fishermen and the occasional canoeist enjoying the water and Sulina putt-putting along, until we came to Szentendre.
Szentendre! The most visited town in Hungary after Budapest! It is like a Hungarian St. Ives, artists' colony, readied for the tourists (not so many because of Covid but many more than in most places we'd been). We strolled around and did some drawings, enjoying the street music and the colourful fronts of the buildings as well as the crafts. We had an interesting meeting with a ceramic artist, who had won the 2nd prize in Budapest for potters. Her work with ceramics was very fine, but she also did traditional Hungarian pottery with modern variations.
Her name is Szente Krisztina. And I have a new muesli bowl!
There is so much to see here that we may spend another day in Szentendre, but before too long, can you believe it?, we will be in BUDAPEST!
