Blogjaim angolul vannak irva, mert kanadai baratoknak irtam oket. Ezert elsosorban bocsanat.
Hungarian Restaurants
We ate out almost every day, many times with friends at places recommended by them and occasionally in establishments that I researched on blogs and in guide books.
One has to be careful, having lived in Canada for long we no longer have much tolerance for the richness of most food served. Also portions tend to be large so avoiding overeating can be difficult.
The restaurants that I blogged tended to be better. I selected some of the top ranked Hungarian restaurants. To most of the locals these tend to be expensive and ‘portions are small’. This class of restaurants usually serve that I will call the “Nuevo Hungarian cuisine”. A transformation of national cuisine goes on similar to what has happened in France some 20 tears ago. The chefs working in these restaurants all have international experience; emphasis is on seasons, on superior local ingredients and presentation. You have to eat 2-3 courses because portions are smaller.
The Csalogany 26 in Buda and the Enoteca Corso at the southern city of Pecs fall into this category, and we loved the food that they served.
Trip to Pecs, South Hungary
We went with the train from Budapest for one full day. I reserved room (for a Saturday night) in the Hotel Palatinus. The train is slow, takes 21/2 hours; the distance is some 200km. We traveled 1st class; the return ticket cost was $ 50 for two.
Funny things can happen Saturday morning on the train. A few people had to be moved out, these did not have 1st class ticket and pretended not to know. A mild but drunk man boarded somewhere at 10 am, he did not even know which direction the train was going, evidently he wanted to go direction Budapest that was in the opposite way.
We got into the only taxi cab available upon arrival, an old Mercedes with a mafioso looking driver. We agreed the fare will be 1000Ft ($5). It was a less than 5 min drive to the hotel and no problems with the fare stated. He filled in the time with acid tales of local politics…more on cab drivers later.
Pecs is a pleasurable side trip from Budapest. Its small town atmosphere, the possibility to walk to almost every sight, lower prices for hotels and restaurants make it worth. The sights are the old city itself, the Cathedral, the museum of the Zsolnay ceramics/porcelain factory and the museum dedicated to the painter Csontvary. The city is surrounded by hills covered by some of the best vineyards of the country thus opportunities for wine tasting visits are abound.
In addition to above for me the special significance is that my family originates from Pecs. The first Littke founded a champagne factory in the 1850s, thus qualifying to rank the family into the 5 or so prominent families of the town (others are owners of porcelain factory, glove manufacturing and such).
There are no longer any Littkes in the city; a restaurant is located in the factory where champagne tasting is offered. The family residence close to the factory is now a kindergarten. There is also a street named Littke.
The champagne factory is now run by a Swedish Hungarian and the Littke name is no longer used. As a result people’s common reaction upon hearing that I am a Littke is disappearing. In my adolescence most adults hearing my last name inevitably the asked back: the champagne Littke?
For the first time I visited the city cemetery where graves of the prominent families are located in one row at the entrance, Littke’s included, and are wonderfully maintained by the authorities.
Revisit of the area where we (40 years ago) illegally hiked across the Iron Curtain, into Northeast Italy from Yugoslavia
We took a night train from Budapest to Venice. From the station we walked to pick up our small rented Fiat Punto and drove North East towards Udine and Cividale the border region.
This region of Italy is called Friuli, an excellent wine growing area. The locals (and their cuisine) and the architecture have many influences from Slovenia and importantly from the Astro Hungarian Empire. It is also thankfully free of hordes of tourist.
The countryside is hilly, green with forests and vineyards, the white snowy peaks of the Julian Alps are clearly visible. Discovering old towns, hiking, bicycling is what the few smart visitors do.
There were many big and bitter battles between armies of Italy and the Astro Hungarians in the 1st World War in the mountains, and hundreds of thousand of lives were lost on both sides. One can revisit the battlegrounds; many are in eerily beautiful settings on top of green but barren mountains.
I booked a room in (a mountain top) 14th century monastery called Castelmonte, close to the border crossing site that we were to revisit. In the evening when the day visitors were gone one could hear the chant of the Trappist monks through the open windows.
You can reserve rooms in many church establishments in Italy via monesterystays.com. The Catholic Church owns much prime real estate and nowadays monasteries and convents are not filled with priest and nuns, so they converted some to accommodate tourists.
The cost is less than it would be at comparable commercial establishments and the only drawback may be the curfew at 11 that apply at some locations. I note that we have stayed later in Venice at one of these also. Both stays were very satisfying, clean rooms with bathrooms in historic buildings at prime locations.
Fourty years ago Slovenia was a province of Yugoslavia. Slovenia is now an independent country, part of the EU and the currency is euro. The border crossings are left abandoned no longer in operation.
With our Fiat Punto going up and down (on roads not shown but on the most detailed maps) it did not take long to find the field where we stepped on free land on 8:20 pm May 30 in 1969.
The border here is a creek called Judrio in one of the many valleys called Natissone. The steep side on the east is Slovenia and we walked down from the top across fields, forest and bushes as the bird flies 40 years ago to reach this point. It looked now a bit menacing and treacherous, and that it ought to have been quite an effort what we did at the time. In fact Maria blamed me as being reckless and taking high risk 40 years ago….as though she wasn’t full and equal participant in those events!
After finding this spot and walking around the few farm houses that at the time took us in for the night (there was nobody around at this time) we drove into Slovenia and up to the top to find where we started our hike down. This was more difficult to pinpoint, I imagine the road running along the crest might have changed since. Then we drove down to on the Slovenian side to the staring point of our escape, into the small town of Kanal, located alongside the Isonzo River. Not much seemed to have changed here. We had dinner at the very same restaurant that we ate 40 years ago prior we decided to walk to the top and wade down to cross into Italy. It seemed like a very substantial effort after dinner even for persons who were 40 years younger.
More on restaurants
I usually do a thorough search of potential places to eat out on the internet, partly on rating websites such as Michelin or Zagat, partly on travel websites of newspapers and on “foodie” sites such as chow.com etc. so I’ll be well prepared in places we stay.
When traveling though inevitably we will end up at “unlisted” places…where there is no prior information with me. I want to describe how we dealt with one situation in Cividale Italy, where we became very hungry at lunchtime.
We parked the car in the centre of this small town and I decided to ask somebody.
There was a small bakery close by, people lining up for fresh pastries and buns. I decided to go in and in my broken Italian and mostly in English I asked where a good restaurant close by may be. Well this did cause quite a discussion…opinions differed…I was hoping that no fist fight would ensue. Finally a strong willed matron took leadership and recommended one. I asked her to write it down cw the address on a piece of paper I had for this purpose.
Armed with the address we tried to drive to it…got lost would have been better to walk. With the paper I asked a gentlemen pointing at the paper. He said no it was Tuesday and that place was closed. I asked what restaurant then would he recommend, he named it and we had him write it down.
So now we are going to this one, walking this time…but lo behold we meet the women who recommended the first one. She looks at us we say apologetically that the one she suggested was closed. Oh yes she yells but looks at the recommendation we’ve since received and strongly disproves. She recommends another one, yet again changes in direction until finally we do arrive, have our meal, and indeed it was a very pleasant place.
The final taxi ride to the Budapest Airport
We ordered the cab the day before for a very early time, 4:30 am Sunday morning. The final two days we stayed at a friend of mine. They live up on the hills of Buda, the most prosperous part of the city and on diametrically opposite furthermost side from the airport. Or plane was leaving a 7:00 am.
The taxi was there on time in fact waiting, the driver sleeping in his cab. We woke him up. With the sun rising we began by descending empty streets through the sleeping hauntingly beautiful city, and then crossed the Danube River. As always a conversation with the driver started. He had lots to say. His bitter responses can serve as a gage of the mood how the population feels nowadays; not good…it was saturated with strong criticism of the politicians and the rich.
Nothing is good: the new subway line should not be built the way it is, traffic should be kept out of the city, that building should not have been demolished but converted to house the poor… and so on… an endless stream of negatives.
I add that during this entire tirade he was often driving at twice the speed limit, the limit being displayed on his GPS was visible to us. He raced over empty streets, passing the few vehicles even where passing was not allowed and following others inches from behind if passing was not possible. An unforgettable experience it was.
Ottawa, 05-July-18
