Tapp's Travels

We’ve been home for weeks now – almost a month, even.  Boris is mired down by the most deviously, un-democratic processes (on both sides) and is going to find leaving the EU problematic.  Hurricane Lorenzo is threatening to hit Devon and Ireland (or possibly not, depending on which forecast you listen to!).  So it’s time to head off Eastwards.  This time we are going to Budapest and then cruising down the Danube to the Black Sea and back.

For everyone’s convenience, we agree to a night stop-over in Dorset to look after Jeremy’s household while he and Lucy go to London for an annual celebration party.  That’s not much of a problem, but does add a layer of complexity to the packing regime.  And makes the route to East Midlands Airport a little interesting.  In the end we elected to go cross-country via Salisbury, Andover (twice because I took a wrong turning!), Chieveley, Oxford and Warwick.

The rain on the M40 was so heavy and the cross-wind so strong that we began to think Lorenzo had accelerated and got us before our scheduled escape.  I must remember to turn off the fog lights this morning!  I guess, thinking about it, better bad weather before getting on a plane is better than just after!

Now, none of our departures from home is ever simple!  I had bought some executive smart plugs with which to control our burglar-deterrent lighting system.  The broadband at home has just been up-graded to fibre so everything will work at lightening speed.  Except the new router wouldn’t talk to the smart plugs.  And after two hours with out computer expert wouldn’t actually talk to anything!  This was on the day before we were due to leave!  Very frustrating.  Especially for Glenda who was trying to pack around us.  In the end we brought the old clockwork controllers back into service.  Packed the car and left.

Now all we have to do is find our airport hotel, deposit the car in their grounds and take the shuttle to EMA.  (Where is that by the way?  First time for everything!)

Easy!  But I’ve never seen a baggage label like that which appeared on one of our cases at Budapest airport.

Not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one. The last off that particular plane or the last bag ever for Jet2! Or was it the last one ON the flight out of EMA…

We even arrived in Budapest 40 minutes early.  Our first evening on the boat started with a drive the wrong way up the River to see the night-time illuminated sights…

The first morning (and we are going to lose track of the days!) excursion was to Kalocsa (pronounced “Kolosha”) the paprika capital of Hungary. We are already 120 kms from Budapest on the edge of the Hungarian plain. The wheat has been harvested and the corn is ready – acres and acres of the stuff. There are also huge fields of peppers – paprika!

Paprika has to be harvested by hand as the pods ripen sequentially and mechanical picking damages the crop. All the paprika farmers get pains in the back from bending over their plants all day long. Also their hands and mouth suffer from the burning spice effect of their crop – and don’t even think about them going to the loo!

This area is also famous for embroidery…

… Pink and orange are happy colours and worn by the young. Sad colours like black or blue are worn by old people. I’m going to get measured for a pink jacket like the one Michael Portillo wears!

On the outskirts of town we were taken to an equestrian show – Bakod Puszta. The horses are trained to ignore whips cracking all around them.

That’s supposed to make them insensitive to gun fire. They will even lie down so they can hide in the long grass alongside their riders only to leap up and into action when required.

The horses are all Hungarian half blood (Lipezar / Arab etc. crosses). The riders are all mad – especially the one that drives a pack of 10 horses at full speed while standing upright on the rear-most pair. Like I say, mad!

After lunch, we were despatched on three coaches to Pėcs (pronounced “Paige”) famous for porcelaine and centre of the glove industry and general leather work.

On the 90 minute journey we passed the “famous” building with two doors at Bonyhád. We were told that it was designed by an Hungarian architect (with an unpronouncable name) to commemorate twin ethnic expulsions at about the time of the Second World War. The Hungarian Germans who were expelled as “Nazis” and the Hungarians who were driven out of Transylvania at about the same time. Apparently the returning Hungarians took up residence in the recently evacuated German-owned houses. A little research into this bit of ethnic cleansing indicated that the situation was probably a great deal more complex than we were led to believe. Mass transport of Hungarian Germans (and subsequently of Hungarian Hungarians) to work in the Russian coal mines as “slave labour” may well have been a factor. Probably best not to delve too deeply – we are, after all, well behind what was the iron curtain here.

Miles of twin pipeline snaked alongside the road.  Every couple of hundred metres it deviated away from the road for 10 metres or so and then back again.  This looked like an anti siphon or perhaps a flow reducing system so we decided they were water pipes.  In the end they tracked off into the distant countryside to a power station.   The pipes conducted heated water to the local housing developments.

After Bonyhád, we climbed into the Meczek hills – not a mountainous area but one that includes the highest hill in the country. Apparently a development requested by NATO to include an early warning radar was blocked by the Greens because six trees and a rare colony of ants would have been lost. However, no such objections were made of the TV and mobile phone mast above Pécs. This is now the highest man made structure in Hungary. Obviously the Greens want to watch the Hungarian equivalent of East-enders and to be able to talk to each other on their I-phones!

Wow.  Internet.  This has got to go!