Eger, to Get Started

On this trip we’re taking the Anthony Bourdain approach to hiking. That is, we’re as focused on the culture of where we are as we are on the task at hand. 

For Anthony Bourdain, it’s about the food. For us, we’re learning the culture before we lay our boots in the Hungarian woods. Also like Bourdain, a large part of our learning is about food. And wine. And more food and wine.

All of that is to say, we spent all day in Eger today getting ready for the walk to begin tomorrow.

Eger is a town of about 60,000 people a couple of hours outside of Budapest. Descriptions of it say that it has the feel and interest of a historic Hungarian town, without the hustle and bustle of Budapest. That’s an apt description.

It has a castle, cobblestone streets, an historic square, good shopping, great restaurants, and is a center of wine making. It has withstood Mongol and Ottoman invasions. It withstood Worldwar II, and the Communist control of Hungary It also has an historic hero.

That hero is Istvan Dobo. In the middle of the 1500’s, Istvan was the commander of the Eger Castle.  The Ottoman army, from Turkey was sweeping through d Hungary. They’d defeated the Hungary army, taken over 30 other castles, and were ready to move through the rest of Hungary.

Dobo Istban and 2000 other Egerites (Egerians?), including women and children, were defending the castle when the Ottoman army of over 40,000 arrived. After a siege of 39 days, including the good women of Eger pouring tar on the Ottomans from the ramparts of the castle, the Ottomans left. Eger was saved, and Dobo was a hero.

The downside is that the Ottomans returned 40 years later, sacked the town (sans Dobo), and ruled Eger for nearly 100 years.

Today there’s lots for a tourist to do in Eger. We chose to walk around a lot and just do a couple of things.

We went to the Beatles Museum. The museum has a tour which starts in a basement purporting to be an air raid shelter in Liverpool in 1940, and goes from there. Three floors of Beatle information, music, and memorabilia.  Actually, it’s pretty well done. I learned some, and remembered a lot. Why is it in Eger? It seems an Eger resident worked briefly with the Beatles in their early days. He’s now a school teacher in Eger. That’s reason enough for me.

After the Beatles, and a walk through the Market, we went to the Varos a Varos Allat (City under the City). This is a series of tunnels built as wine cellars under the church and surrounding streets. This network of tunnels was once 4km long and held the wine that the church took in as taxes.

Finally we got to the Eger

wine district. That’s a separate post. Then, after another in a succession of good meals we retired to the hotel to get ready (finally) for tomorrow’s walk.