Trip to Europe

Peter and I have recently returned from our trip to Hungary and other countries in Europe (August to November, 2007).

In August we attended a beautiful wedding in the rural town of Facankert, near Szekszard. It was a typical rural wedding, where the groom, his family and a musical band, marched from the edge of town (800 metres) to the bride's house. There they knocked on the bride's gate and asked for her hand in marriage, three times. A "nasz" Master of Ceremonies helped the bride and her family to repeat the appropriate poetic words for taking leave of her home. All interested neighbors attended the opening ceremonies at the house and had food and drink. When the leave-taking was over, the bride and groom left the house in an open five-horse carriage while the best man and matron of honor followed behind in a four-horse carriage, and all other guests in their vehicles. The entire entourage consisting of the two carriages and about 50 cars went to the city hall and then to the reception hall. During the reception many courses of food were consumed. There was music and dancing until 5am in the morning. During that time there was also the bridal dance and some light hearted entertainment.

Peter and I then travelled throughout most of the rest of Europe for about 2 months. We visited Italy (Venice, Rome, Florence, Pizza, etc), France (Nice, Cannes, Marseilles, Lyon, etc), Germany (Stuttgart, Munich), and Austria (Salzburg, Wien) and Norway. When our Eurail Pass expired we lived in Budapest for 5 weeks attending a marvelous Hungarian School called Inter Club. Peter had classes 5 days a week and I had classes for 3 days a week. It was enough time for me to realize how badly I spoke "Magyarul". It also made me realize how logical albeit difficult the language is.

On the weekends we went to Visegrad and Tokaj. We attended many terrific entertainments in Budapest. We also regularly went to Tanc Haz. This is now very popular in Budapest and is good fun as well as great exercise.

If anyone is interested in Eurail passes please call and we would be happy to relate our experiences.
If anyone is interested in seeing a beautiful rural Hungarian wedding on DVD we would be happy to share it with you. Living in Budapest was one of the highlights of our lives as it is a vibrant, live, and fun city.

Cathy Blazkow

Vissza az SZ.M.-Online oldalra