Article Nine
Wednesday
We decided to take another car trip away from Hevis, this time away to the south. Hungary is a funny place, shat looks like hours of travelling, on the map but in fact, the countryside is so built up (along the highways) that all of a sudden, one arrives at his destination after only a brief time travelling. We called into Zalakros, another Spa town with many more, individual spas than Hevis and each claiming to have its own peculiar or special healing powers in the water. Around each Spa are ten or twenty hotels ranging from small 2* roadside establishments to giant 5* mausoleums dominating the landscape with their ten stories of ten apartments per floor…real eyesores!
We did encounter a rural problem in that we were getting very low on fuel…do you think we could find a service station? NO way…Hungary’s trunk (autobahn) roads have fuel and food/WC stops every forty km…country roads seem to only allow petrol sales in every third or fourth village and the exact location of the outlet is kept secret and hidden from the traveller! Finally, we staggered into Zalakros with only one mark clear (on the fuel gage) above ‘empty’. We have no idea if there is any reserve when we actually register ‘empty’ on the gauge?
Back home after another uneventful drive, simply looking at the countryside, houses and crops, etc, I trudged down to the internet café for yet another try. Guess what? Instant access to Hotmail but nothing new there. I tried to update my Journal website with all the pictures I have taken…now arranged into Photo Galleries about travel sections with many photos in each gallery.
Horror, I can find no way to up-load these photos…I ask the Journal to “attach a photograph” and tells me that it needs a Photo Gallery to access the photo of my choice…there is no way I can find which will show me how to ‘create’ a Photo-Gallery within my web(journal)page. So all these selected photos of our trip, now inside thirteen ‘photo-galleries’ will have to wait until I can find a way to ‘create’ a gallery within my web page!
Late today we caught a bus to the ancient fortress of Sumeg. We accidentally found this on our first excursion out of Hevis last Saturday and noted the huge castle on that visit. This visit was to witness a military, horse and warrior show about the 12th century Hungarians (descended from the ‘Huns’) who were superb horsemen and actually turned back firstly, Genghis Khan, and much later in the 1400s, the Ottoman empire Turkish brigades. In the meantime they became the dreaded ‘Huns’ which sacked much of Germany, Italy and all the Balkan states to set up the Hungarian Empire which was huge in its time. Later, by judiciously marrying their princess/princes with suitable others of noble blood, in the Hapsburg and Russian empires, the Hapsburg/Hungarian Empire was established and this lasted until the shooting of some Duke Ferdinand which started firstly the first World War, and secondly began the `collapse of the Hapsburg-Hungarian Empire. The rest is history with Hungary fighting to finally through out the Russians and gain full national sovereignty in the late 20th Century!
The arena was open air and about twenty ‘warriors’ showed their skills on horseback, with trowing knives, axes, spears and then bow and arrows, firstly from foot-soldiers then by mounted warriors. I am very glad that I am not of army age in some feudal army! Having to face such warriors either on foot or mounted would drive fear into the bravest heart. No wonder the Huns were invincible for over two hundred years!
Show over, we were shown into an amazing ‘dungeon’. This is a purpose-built, underground cavern consisting of four caverns in the form of a cross, one cavern being the kitchens and scullery area, the other three, seating for up to six hundred guests! Each cavern-arm is about ten metres wide with a curved wall and arched ceiling three metres high at its lowest point. Cavern length is about forty metres giving enough room for ten tables seating ten people at each side, that is, each cavern arm can seat 200 people! All-up, 600 plus entertainers and staff!
The whole cavern structure is made of arched brickwork with large, circular skylights built in aat regular intervals along the length of each cavern arm. Where the arms of the cavern meet is a stage for musicians or whatever is needed by the audience attending.
The provided ‘medieval-dinner’ first course was a vegetable soup served with thick, sliced fresh bread, The main course was roasted chicken, backed potatoes, baked sausages and coleslaw salad followed by some sort of berry-flavoured sponge cake. Bottles of white wine and jugs of red wine were readily available. The only catch, everyone had to eat with their fingers, although a spoon was provided for the soup course.
We were mixed in with a bunch of about 24 Irish ladies (most in their 60s) who play bridge together in Cork, Ireland. A most amusing group, which put on a sing-along show all the way home, about an hour of Irish folk songs, many of which neither Pat not I have ever heard before! And, they could really sing too! And now, after a jug of red and some beers, once again, tis time for bed!
