Roadtripping: Hollókő, Vác, Szentendre

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Traditional folk dancing in Hollókő

I'd asked at work where would be nice to go to for the weekend, and because it was the easter weekend I was told that HollókÅ‘ was where it was at..so that's where we went! Off to Hertz to collect our little skoda, and off roadtripping through the Hungarian countryside. Holloko is about an hour away, and is a little medieval viallage which has been restored in its exact state, so is a bit like a time warp...if it wasn't for all the tourists! :) It's famous for its Easter celebrations and I can see why. It was amazing - two days of dancing and singing and folklore, all in traditional dress. It looked like so much fun! It was all about the twirling and jumping and thigh-slapping fun. Although the boys got a much better deal - the girls were just supposed to skip around in circles holding hands whereas the boys did all the twirling and jumping. Their master was this guy with a moustache sticking out about ten centimetres to either side of his face, amazing! And the whole village was selling crafts and goods....some traditional, some sliiightly less so, but couldn't resist a few goodies here and there!! :)

two days of dancing and singing and folklore, all in traditional dress.It was all about the twirling and jumping and thigh-slapping fun.

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The Danube bend

Sadly it was still freezing cold so we couldn't stand around watching them for too long. From there we drove on to Vac, a lovely old town along the Danube bend that is just really charming and colourful... and will be more so once the sun comes out! We had a wander around and then tried to find somewhere to stay. Now that was pretty hilarious. Tourist information understandably closed on Easter Sunday, we'd tried all the places in the LP already..but luckily there was a 24 tourist information number to call. Which I did.. and got about ten minutes of abuse!! Some woman ranting on in Hungarian "NEM tourist informatio, NEM. PRIVAT, PRIVAT and angry blaaaaargh" Becuase I was taking so long Ben thought I was doing really well with my Hungarian....hmmmmm, not so much. Finally we got through to  a place, again - Hungarian language barrier... impossible to convey the messgae that four people want a bed for tonight. Luckily I tried German and that was the saviour! I always forget that people speak more German than English here. So got a room, all no problem. As for directions: "straight on" from where we were. A few wrong "straight ons" later we made it to a slightly weird palce, floral smokey bedroom and reception in a dark bar, but we left to go and play cards at Momos along the river... At which we were the only people all night. And we got to sample some more Hungarian cuisine..... yeap, I think there's a reason why the Hungarian cuisine isn't world renowned. Tough meat seems to be the staple, and lots of potatoes...and deep fried veg. Ah but it was good fun, gab and I whooooped Ben and France's ass at 500!!! Teeheee.

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Chocolate cafe

The next morning we found the most glooorious cafe ever- the chocolate cafe on teh square. I have never seen a menu like it! About 30 different hot chocolates, I went for cinammon and honey white chocolate. So amazing! But sadly so sickly, it was just melted chocolate. And although I was in heaven I had to admit defeat before finishing it. For anyone that's curiuos we also got white chocolate passion fruit, dark chocolate mint and chocolate coffee.....yumyumyum.

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From Vac we continued on to Nagymaros, and took the little car ferry across to Visegrad. the ferry is so cool, it looks like a little lego boat, and is just flat. It looks so dodgy! Like one more person would make it sink below the water line. But all good, we survived, struggling against the current and arrived in Visegrad, famous for its castle. Weren't too bothered about paying to look at the castle but had a nice drive around the forest and coutry side around there to Szentendre. Now that place is just an incredible tourist haven. But understandbly so - it's all small narrow cobbled roads, old churches, horse and carriage to take you around, nestled along the Danube...it's pretty cute!

Check out the dude's beard!!
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The battle with Hertz

And from there back home....we thought we'd take advantage of having the car and do a big tesco's shop becuase that is the one thing about the supermarkets here, they are rubbish! there's one on every steret corner but they're all tiny and really only have the basics and alcohol! But even the big 24 hour tesco in the mall was shut on Easter Monday... and in fact we had a bit of a prang trying to get there! the underground garage was so badly laid out (and yes, it actually was but I admit I was also tired at this stage...) anywyas, I just drove stright into a curb bit that I hadn't seen and got a massive shock. It was all fine upon closer inspection but not what any of us needed after a long day. And in fact it looked like a couple of chunks had splintered off the front hubcap...ooopps! When we returned the car it was pretty funny because they didn't even look at the hub caps or notice that, but claimed that there was a scratch on the car. It litteraly was so faint it must have been cuased by a branch touching the car or something, it was ridiculous. They were going to charge 100 euros for  it - more than the car rental itself! I wasn't having any of that!! So although I got bullied into paying on the spot, I went back to the office and wrote a really long lawyerly letter using lots of long complicated English words to scare them (mwahaha) and literally five minuets later I had someone on the phone crawling at my feet offering me a full refund! My five years of training have come to good use after  all! :) I had to try sooo hard not to laugh when I went back to have the amount cancelled off my card!!