Györgeous Györ (I know that's terrible isn't it, my apologies...)

So as you're all aware, since Wednesday I've been in Györ. This is a lovely city, which initially seems as if it should only be classed as that by virtue of it having a cathedral, as the centre is quite small but it does suburbs very well! So in actual fact it's quite big, but the centre is lovely. Györ has an Audi factory here where they make the Audi TT ❤️ (my favourite car). Like both Budapest and Tata, it has beautiful old buildings and in a way, reminds me of Bury St Edmunds. On Thursday, I spent the morning mooching round the town and saw the Benedictine Church...

The Maria Column...

Szechenyi Square (no photo of this per se - sorry! The column above is in the square...), Bishop's Palace...

And Györ Cathedral... 

I have been in many religious buildings in my time, and their opulence never fails to astound me (for a whole range of reasons which I won't go into here). Let's just leave it with they were beautiful.

That morning I was also (in my mind) super brave!!! Many people have said how courageous they think I am doing a trip like this, but having done my last one I must admit to being a little surprised by that comment. I knew from my last trip that actually systems aren't hugely different in other countries to those in England. OK you get some issues like the train ticket situation in Tovaroskert but the principle of taking the train from A-B is the same. I guess for this trip, I hadn't realised just how tricky the whole lack of speaking the native language could be! For some things, like buying a train ticket, from a machine it's easy - they convert it to English so it's easy to work out what you want. But for other things, it's less so and as such, for the first few days I've been here it's definitely inhibited what I've done. Not on Thursday morning though! I finally decided I had to just brave it and if I got it wrong then I could always shrug my shoulders and say 'English...' to explain it all away. And it felt good. I had a cup of coffee at a street cafe, which was delicious. I went into an ice-cream shop and semi ordered in Hungarian until the woman serving me realised I was English and wanted to practise her language skills on me as she is going to Dallas next year. I then struggled a little at the Post Office where the system is nothing like in the UK (there's always an exception to prove the rule!) and you have to select the service you want to get a ticket to join the queue. Again, no amount of google translate was going to help me here... So I do admit to leaving the Post Office, sans stamps, and walking 10 yards down the road before giving myself a stern talking to ('for goodness sake Andrea, they're just stamps!!!') and so I went back, realised there was a separate part that sold stamps and purchased...10!! (I didn't want to have to figure out another one for a while!). But boy was I proud of myself! So much so, that I decided to have what unfortunately turned out to be the most awful slice of pizza for lunch. And as I was on a roll I also went a bought a watch battery (mine had died, this wasn't just a random whim) and got chatting to a guy who had worked on farms just outside Swansea and in Dorset and was delighted to speak to an English person (who spoke the pure English of the English, rather the hard to understand English of the Americans - his words not mine! Apologies to my American friends 😆) To save my feet for Friday, after my highly successful morning, I then headed back to the hostel to read my book and mooch for the rest of the day so not really a lot to report from Thursday afternoon.

Today (Friday) I have been to Pannonhalma Abbey. From the first time that I read about the abbey I knew I wanted to visit it. Something about it really appealed to me - I don't know if it was the history (it dates back to the turn of the 10th century) or the fact it has a strong educational links - there is a school attached (where they get the choice to be involved isn't the workings of the abbey or not, it's not a religious school) or the fact it's been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1996 but I wanted to go. So I did! 

This was my first experience of the not-so-modern Hungarian train network...

The trains make Virgin diesel trains seem like the height of luxury (anyone who's heard me moan about having to catch one of those trains knows my feelings about them!). But it got me there which is all that mattered!

The abbey is on the top of a hill so you can see it for miles around. 

That also means that to see it, you have to climb a big hill! Which I did. And was it worth it? Hell yes! If just for the view alone!

There are four main parts to the abbey that you can visit: the basilica, crypt, cloister and library. I fail you a little for this, because I really didn't take many photos inside the abbey at all. It somehow just didn't seem right. Those I did take I have posted below.

I really loved this place and was so pleased I went to see it. The basilica was really more my sort of style than any of the other churches etc. that I've been into. There was a reverence about it that was more understated and yet more honest and so felt real. Don't get me wrong, it was still seriously impressive, just not so in-your-face. The bronze doors in the pictures above led to the church and the animals depict the failings of man. e.g. The peacock is vanity, the rabbit is meekness etc. The final picture above is of the ceiling in the library. This was the most incredible room housing over 400,000 books. It was truly remarkable. 

There was also a exhibition on of living spaces which was incredibly heart-warming. I took a picture of the description, I hope you can read it but when I read the bit about parties in the kitchen, it made me laugh out loud (well I'd had to be quiet in the rest of the building so it was allowed!!).

After wandering around inside, I then went for a walk around the arboretum and lavender fields - lavender oil is extracted on site and both the oil and the lavender itself are products sold by the abbey, along with wine!! (sadly no tastings on today 🙁)

From there I went to the Abbey museum and gallery (which was closed) and to the abbey cafe (which wasn't) and had a coffee and cake which was delicious - it was lemon and apple and the layer of grated apple meant it wasn't too sweet which I really liked.

From there I headed back to Györ. When I'd been wandering around town yesterday morning, in one of the squares it looked like they were setting up chairs for a music event, so I decided to go check it out and I only went and found myself in the middle of the Györ Palinka Festival!! Palinka is traditional fruit brandy made in the Carpathian Basin and comes in pretty much every imaginable fruit flavour.

So with a Kobi-dog inside me to line my stomach...

I started with a glass of black cherry Palinka...

..and stopped at a glass of black cherry Palinka! There were many to chose from but I figured out pretty quickly I don't want to be on my own whilst drinking the stuff! It was pretty lethal... But what really made it was the music. This picture says it all... 

But with a glass of Palinka in hand, it was just really good fun!!