Date: Second week in October 2006
Submitted by Karen
Travel Tip: We loved Hungary and would definitely go back to explore the countryside besides spending all of our time in Budapest.
When we got to Esztergom Hungary, my husband and I decided to tour it ourselves instead of going on the tour with everyone else from our Danube river cruise boat with Peter Deilmann. We were so glad, although we missed the big church on the hill where the tour went. Instead, we saw the small town in a places the tour wouldn't have taken us.
We had the whole morning until lunch. The first thing we did after leaving the boat was to walk towards the middle of town from the Danube. We encountered this quaint beautiful local church which was open. Then we proceeded down the street a ways where the locals were repairing a lot of the houses. Many of the houses still had bullet holes from previous conflicts. The small houses all were different colors of blue, white, pink and brown.
When we got to the center of town, we discovered a Farmer's Market that was quite huge. I have never seen so many beautiful vegetables as we saw that day. They were all so big and perfect looking. And the prices were so reasonable. It was too bad that we didn't have a kitchen to go back to and make our lunch!
There were so many different things for sale. I found a beautiful scarf that I wore all winter inside my coat and outside with a suit. The best part was the price. I paid ten Euros for a scarf that would have cost me two to three times as much here in the States. Although Hungary isn't on the Euro yet,the vendors were glad to take our Euros.
With my husband's German we were able to negotiate and had a wonderful morning looking and talking to the locals in their stalls. Most Hungarians speak some German, although,in the small towns of Hungary, English was pretty unknown among the older people we spoke with. There were many stalls selling Hungarian Paprika for a lot less then what I pay here. The town was fixing itself up for the influx of tourists they are now experiencing. It was one of those little places you would like to spend a month at, renting a place to stay and cooking all of those fresh vegetables every day.
There was a few local restaurants in Esztergom, but unfortunately, we didn't have time to try them as we had lunch waiting for us back on the boat.
Submit your own Eastern Europe travel experience: Submission form
