Grant and Barbara

D20 Trans Europa Holloko – Budapest

Big cities can be daunting. We last stayed here 3 years to the day, so the challenge will be to look confident we know what to do. The greater metropolitan area has 3.3 million people, a third of the population and more than Wales. The “city” is a smaller 1.7million.

The feeling of urbanisation starts about 25miles outside. The villages approaching that point start to feel like more holiday homes.

Good to see a sea of solar panels – though Hungary remains dependent on Russian gas (as does France).

The Danube looked a little brown – not quite the same ring for Strauss: “On the Beautiful Brown Danube”. 2001 might never have happened. The ferry crossing went You can tell it was a hot day and some brain cells overheated.

We get into Budapest via Eurovelo 6, then some “just go for it” crossing of traffic lanes in the centre. Just like locals, only slower. Then the excitement of a laundry hunt – hopefully I’ll be able to get into my shorts after the dryer cremation…….

2 rest days here, so plenty of time to do nothing. Ha!

Hungary, Trans Europa

D19 Trans Europa Szilvasvarad – Holloko

Kylie must have been here, doing the Holloko. It’s a 13 C village of some specific ethnic group which became a UNESCO site in 1987. Today the houses are holiday apartments – basically fine: younger people don’t want to live as there forebears and creating the “preserved” village became what kept it alive.

Which can’t be said about a lot of the former industrial sites and towns we went through day. Ex-coal mining, iron/steel buildings. Some tips. A lot like parts of South Wales Valleys, frozen” in time and deprivation. There are a lot of people, mainly women, cleaning the streets and ditches. I suspect not “My Green Valley” volunteers – more like a local employment scheme.

In between there are sunflowers, fields of wheat and forests. And hills.

Tomorrow to Budapest and a double “rest” day.

Hungary, Slovakia, Trans Europa

D18 Trans Europa Kosice – Szilvasvarad

Another border crossing, into Hungary. It’s at the top of a hill, like the last one. Maybe there was a strategy there. Today it’s a deserted outpost just outside a Slovakian Village.

Kosice – it hosts Europes oldest marathon, first run in 1924. Today if they run in one direction they’ll see a huge new Volvo factory being built. Then a US Steel plant, where Barbara is in her element spotting what’s going on that shouldn’t. It’s a stark contrast to the now silent and shut Port Talbot blast furnaces.

As we enter Hungary we spot another patch of Japanese knotweed. Get rid of it, now!

The contrast as we enter Hungary is pretty stark. The remote villages feel poor. That’s a judgement not a criticism – I recall in the UK the poorer communities give more to charity per head than others. The kids are curious about what we’re doing. The roads are a triffle bumpy here. Water wells and pumps dot the streets.

The fields are large – mainly wheat and sunflowers.

One town has fine murals on the apartments – perhaps the chemical factory just outside makes paint. It is part of a project to revitalise the city with vibrant street art. Certainly made us stop.

Slovakia, Trans Europa

Trans Europa: Kosice

A lovely rest day exploring a grand city centre. Predates lots of old British Cities which we think are old. Feels very accessible, friendly, with a buzz and also a bit of a [welcome?] edge – first time for a while there’s graffiti in places and a few homeless/beggars. More people smoking. So not tourist sanitised.

There are enough icecream, pizzas, other food, to feed the masses with the e-numbers they crave. I enjoyed.

The main church has a tower which has to be climbed. It dates back to 14C so has no lift. It is apparently the most Easterly Western style church of its type in Europe. I wonder, before Google – how did they know this – did someone visit every place to check? Gorgeous tiled roofs.

Kosice is apparently the first European city to have a coat of arms. There is no advice if it was designed by a committee or just a local dictator/chief priest. I’m sure the general rabble at the time were delighted with this, as they looked up from building the church tower. Or down.

I looked up famous people from Kosice. A few, most of which I don’t know including influencers (which is only a few syllables away from influenza). Martina Hingis is one of them.

The star attraction for all ages is the water fountain. The water moves in time to the music playing. Mesmerising.

Tomorrow into Hungary via the steelworks. Proper tourists.

Slovakia, Trans Europa

D17 Trans Europa Bardejov – Kosice

Slovakia – from the land of the Slavs – has a population of 5.4 million. Land locked, independent since 1993 – it has a rather complex history going back to the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary empire, WW1 carve up of Europe creating Czeckoslavakia and then the Velvet revolution post 1990 Glasnost.

Kosice is it’s 2nd City after Bratislava – it’s a steel town though the UNESCO centre is as far removed from Port Talbot’s as you can imagine. This is a Friday night and the traffic free centre is awake with locals.

Slovakia is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy. The country maintains a combination of a market economy with a comprehensive social security system, providing citizens with universal health care, free education, one of the lowest retirement age in Europe and one of the longest paid parental leaves in the OECD. Slovakia is a member of the European Union, the eurozone, the Schengen Area, the United Nations, NATO, CERN, the OECD, the WTO, the Council of Europe, the Visegrád Group, and the OSCE. Slovakia is also home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The world’s largest per-capita car producer, Slovakia manufactured a total of 1.1 million cars in 2019, representing 43% of its total industrial output.

Choices

Coffee stop

We got here via some rolling countryside, dotted with villages, churches and bins. Today must be bin day so there was a multiple array of coloured wheely bins – which change their colour by the area they are in. Like ours it is a modern way of keeping the brain active working out what is collected when and in what.

Polands colourful shrines are replaced with most austere traditional crosses. Reminds me of the Murphy’s Iron Nails story.

Tomorrow is a rest day to explore Kosice centre – and stock up on M&Ms in Lidl….