We woke up at 7:15am this morning. We had breakfast at the hotel, then headed off to withdraw some cash and get some water, as our part of Europe was starting to turn pretty hot.

Starting at 9am, we had a guided tour of Pest with a local guide, George. We saw the parliament building, lots of cafes, hero’s memorial city square, statue park, St. Stephen’s Basilica, a nice spa, and finally we ended up at the market. As there were so many things to see, we just passed by all these sights, with suggestions of what to see later. Pest was simply full of life and so many things to see and do.

See and be seen cafe.	Statue park on Pest side of Budapest.	Statue park.	Spa building.
St. Stephen’s Basilica.	St. Stephen’s Basilica.	Parliament building.	Market Square.

After lunch at the market, we went atop the Basilica with Marie. We walked around the top and took lots of pictures. From there we continued on to get some ice cream, then to a cafe, entered the Opera House, and ultimately ended up spending a lot of time at the House of Terror Museum. The last was a pretty tough place to visit, detailing nazi and communist dual occupation of Hungary. We saw and read about tremendous atrocities, on par with what was happening in the concentration camps.

Inside St. Stephen’s Basilica.	View of Buda atop St. Stephen’s Basilica.	Castle on Buda side.	Castle Palace on Buda side.
View of Pest atop St. Stephen’s Basilica.	Opera House.	House of Terror Museum.	House of Terror Museum basement, where attrocities were committed.
Buda Castle from Danube River.	Sailing the Danube. Elizabeth Bridge behind us.

Following this busy sight-seeing day we had dinner across the street from our hotel at a place called Bonnie and Clyde. They had really good thin crust pizza.

For the final act of the day, and probably the most exciting, we sailed the Danube on a big river boat as the sun was setting. There were lots of bugs around us, which was not pleasant, but aside from that, the experience was perfect. We saw lit up churches, castles and many businesses.

Back of Parliament Building, Pest side.	Freedom Bridge.	Elizabeth Bridge.
Buda Castle.	Parliament Building.

Following the mini-cruise, we walked back to the hotel with the group and turned in for the night.

We woke up at 6:15am so we could get some breakfast and be ready for the taxi driver to head off to Miskolc by 8am. After Peter chatted with driver, we were off. The driver spoke a little bit of Russian, a little bit of German, and Hungarian. For my part, I could handle French, English and Hebrew. Needless to say, the lack of, shall I say, “intersection of languages” made hand gestures, weird facial expressions and a lot of guessing a necessity. It was quite an experience though.

We drove through hills and valleys, all green, on a twisty road for about an hour. We covered about 55 kms (34 miles). The drive reminded me of Highway 1 in NorCal right where the road starts at the North end in Leggett and curves towards Westport at the coast.

Entering Miskolc.

Lots of high rise buildings in Miskolc.

When we pulled into Miskolc, practically the entire city was undergoing construction and digging of city roads. This was all over the place. We struggled to find my Grandmother’s old neighborhood, taking wrong turns and ending up in closed off 1-way streets.

At one point I suggested to the driver (I’m not actually sure how I conveyed this to him), that we might consider just walking there, because we didn’t have too much time; we ultimately needed to join our group for lunch later in the day in a different city altogether.

Park.

Mid-town Miskolc.

Eventually, our driver pulled off near a park in Miskolc, spoke to an elderly gentleman for almost 10 minutes, then we resumed our search. Finally, after more confusion, we ended up at Mikes Kelemen Utca, Miskolc- my Grandmother’s old street.

We got out of the car and Tobia took many pictures of the house. It was quite large, clearly fairly old nowadays, but impressive. Our taxi driver kept ringing the bell at the gate to no avail. He must have literally rang the doorbell a hundred times, and we were even ready to leave, knowing we wouldn’t be able to enter. But after maybe 10 minutes, the current owner, a lady likely in her 50s or even early 60s came to the gate.

Our taxi driver, current owner and I.

The driver chatted with her (she didn’t speak much English either) and eventually she turned to me and asked me “what is the family name?”. When I told her the name, you could see discomfort as well as recognition in her face. It’s not exactly clear how she and her older husband (who- if I can piece the broken communication together clearly- received the house, or maybe it was his parents that received the house) came to live in this house, but what was clear was that my Grandmother’s family was forced out of it and into the ghettos back in 1944. For this, I felt, she experienced a sense of guilt.

Mikes Kelemen Utca, the street where my Grandmother grew up.

My Grandmother’s childhood home.

Me in front of Grandmother’s home.

Side yard.

Fountain in back yard (June 28th, 2010).

Same fountain, 1944. My Grandmother’s family (she is the leftmost).

Still, it was nice of her to allow us to see the side and back yards, take some pictures, and appreciate that this was once my Grandmother’s family’s house.

We had just a little bit of time left after seeing the house, so the driver took us to mid-town Miskolc, where we walked around for 15 minutes, and even stopped by to eat at a bakery.

Ice skating rink just outside Mikes Kelemen Utca.	Mid-town Miskolc.	Mid-town Miskolc.
Mid-town Miskolc.	Mid-town Miskolc.

Group lunch at Jambor Vilmos Altalanos elementary school, Recsk, Kossuth.

From Miskolc, we headed back the same route we took, but continued past Eger to Recsk. There, the rest of our group was actually visiting a school and meeting the teachers and elementary school students. Unfortunately, we missed this part and came right for the start of lunch. We had a very long table and our entire group ate the cafeteria food, which was fantastic.

After lunch the kids had a recess break and we got to hang out with them. At a loss for language and words with them, I realized nothing brings people together like a hacky sack. I pulled it out and had a nice circle following right around me as we kicked around for a good while. The kids caught on really quickly and we had a great time. When recess ended, we said goodbye to them and took some pictures. That, too, was a really nice experience.

Hacky sack group.

Walker had lots of admirers.

The hacky sackers and I.

Following lunch, we continued on to Egerszalok to a family owned winery. The country-side was beautiful over there and the whole wine tasting experience was so relaxing, so European feeling, absolutely full of life. The wine maker was celebrating his 60th birthday and there was a tremendous amount of drinking. In Napa Valley when wine tasting, you get small pours. Well, in Egerszalok they filled it to the level most restaurants offer you for a full glass, and there were about 6 rounds of drinking. Tony, the violinist accompanying our drinking, played some very nice music for us the entire time. After a couple of heavy drinking hours later, we continued on to Budapest.

Family owned vineyard in Egerszalok.

Beautiful country around Egerszalok.

Wonderful, lively wine drinking afternoon with music in Egerszalok winery.

My common football bond with Walker.

The bus ride to Budapest was really happy, just about everyone was in a drunken happy state. I was chatting with Walker, Tobia and Marie, and at some point Walker talked about why he doesn’t like Chuck Norris (Walker, Texas Ranger), which was understandable. He kept talking about how people made references and fun of him for this. But then he turned really serious and said, “the only man I hate more than Chuck Norris is Tom Brady”. Needless to say, that got an enormous laugh out of me (those that know me might remember my intensity/attitude during Tom Brady Super Bowls) and we were instantly what Anne of Green Gables would call “bosom buddies”.

Pulling into Budapest. Dog or sheep eating watermelon having to obey street signs.

Elizabeth Bridge above the Danube in Budapest.

About 2 loud and happy hours later, we reached magnificent Budapest in the evening, what I thought was the most beautiful place on the entire trip. We checked into the hotel, had some dinner at the cafe next door, and turned in for the night.

Tatra Mountains, Poland. Lots of 3 story, three generation homes there.

The day started out in Poland with breakfast. We hit the bus at 8am headed to the Tatra Mountains, at the South of the country, close to Slovakia. On the drive we saw some snow capped mountains as well as 3 story homes that had three generations of family living together, each on a different story.

Not much later, we reached Slovakia. There were many Roma (Gypsies) people and villages along the way. In particular, in Rakusy, we saw a fairly large community of them. They have generally not integrated very much into the local societies where they reside, primarily in Central-Eastern Europe.

We pulled into Levoca to have a picnic lunch with the group. There was a nice town hall there where we ate. There was also a large church- St. James Church. There was a young Roma girl walking around us, asking for food. We gave her some. After eating, I started (naturally) hacky sacking, and ended up hacky sacking with the young girl for quite a while. We could not communicate at all, but the little tiny bag with beads enabled us to share a cool activity together. Before leaving, I gave her our leftover food which made her very happy.

Levoca town square.

St. James Church, Levoca.

Group picnic lunch in Levoca town square.

Hacky sacking with Roma girl.

Hungarian country side.

As we had only spent half a day in Slovakia, I jotted down the names of some of the towns we passed by in our scenic, country-side drive through Slovakia. Harichovce, Spisska Nova Ves, Hnilec, and Dlha Ves. After the last village, we crossed into Hungary, crossing the border into Aggtelek. We had a bus stop just inside Hungary, and got to walk around a park with a mountain and some caves inside it.

Resuming the drive further south into Hungary, I saw signs here and there for the city of Miskolc in Hungary. My maternal Grandmother, the one who was in Auschwitz, grew up there until forced to leave in 1944 (she was 15 at the time). I had come to terms with the fact that it was probably going to be too difficult to go see her town and childhood home, on account of a lack of resources, language, and time to get there. I had already missed the opportunity to go to my other Grandmother’s city of Czestochowa, in Southern Poland while there. It seemed too difficult and there was too little time to do so. It was also far away.

But as we closed in on our final town for the day, Eger, Hungary, I saw a sign showing only 50km (~30 miles) to Miskolc. Fairly nervously I went to chat with our guide, Peter, who is Hungarian, about the possibilities of getting out there the next morning.

Well, after checking into our Eger hotel, I called my Grandmother in Israel over skype, chatted with her and my Mom, got all the address of her old home, worked with Peter and the front desk to set up a taxi, and was pretty certain things would work out tomorrow.

As a group we strolled through the town in the evening, on route to our dinner destination. For dinner we had goulash as well as a variety of other dishes, along with paprika, of course. Some of us stuck around to watch the soccer game between Argentina and Mexico, but I didn’t want to stay up very late because I had an early start the next day heading to Miskolc.

Eger, Hungary.	Minaret in Eger.	Town square, Eger.
Statue of captain said to have defeated Turkish invasion.	Minorite Church, Eger.	Cathedral of Eger. One of the largest churches in Hungary.

Ultimately, our jet-setting day included breakfast in Poland, lunch in Slovakia and dinner in Hungary.