My Hungarian Adventure is complete!
Today I've travelled from Hungary into Romania. My final destination in Hungary was Debrecen. I stayed in a guesthouse there and the host, Irena, was very sweet; I think mainly because I have the same name as her daughter. She has three children, one of whom works in London. At least I think that's what she was trying to tell me. We had a half hour conversation where she spoke no English and I spoke no Hungarian but it seems we are both masters at charades so...! Debrecen turned out to be a great place to finish my Hungarian Adventure. It was by far the friendliest place I encountered in Hungary and was the sort of place where you could just spend a day mooching i.e. what I did!
Debrecen has a number of interesting buildings which mainly included churches...
The Great Church above had great views from the top
But I also quite liked the theatre...
I also loved the fact that this place has one of its trees as a highlight!
Hungary has been an interesting place to visit. I'm glad I escaped it for a while in Slovakia and Austria but I wouldn't have missed the parts that I've been to. On the whole I've found Hungarian people to be exactly as the guidebooks describe them, which is reserved, but not unfriendly. I generally found that if I didn't bother smiling at anyone I fit right in, which I wasn't so keen on - when you don't speak a country's language, there is a big reliance on smiling so I didn't have a backup plan for non-verbal communication! Would I come back? I would say yes to Budapest for sure and I think I would combine it with a trip to Heviz, that thermal lake was amazing! But then I'd also do a weekend in Pécs too - so I guess that means overall Hungary gets a thumbs up from me 😊
And so as I said, I'm now in Romania. This border crossing was a little more exciting as we had our passports checked as we left Hungary and also as we arrived in Romania, where the border guard came and took all our IDs from us and promptly disappeared! This was more than a little disconcerting I have to say, but thankfully, about 10 minutes later he returned them us!
The leaves are really starting to change colour here now too. When I lived in America, in Autumn along with the weather forecast, we used to receive colour updates to let us know how close the trees were to reaching their peak colour. My friend Sue invited me to her parent's farm on the Minnesota-Wiconsin border which had a forest in it, the weekend the colours reached their peak. The beauty of the trees has stayed with me and I've never seen anything quite like it since, but I have a feeling that Autumn this year might come close!
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