Cak wine cellars

So what is wrong with a visit to Cak wine cellars? No wine. And no cellars.

This is where the locals stored their wine, not in cellars underground as is traditional, but in these little huts. They still produce wine, but unfortunately they only do wine tastings for large enough groups. And we were not large enough. Ah well. 

 

An especially half-hearted attempt at dummy to show the local costume. Do the modern bucket and fire-extinguisher really count as accessories?

Open air museum

There has become a certain fashion for open air museums. They have a twofold value, being both a place to visit and a way of preserving buildings that otherwise hold up progress by existing. If you need to build a road through you can dump your inconvenient bit of history here.

Now first thing to be said is this is not a popular tourist attraction, well not on the day we visited. And they didn't do much to make you welcome - not even to make it easy to fond the place. However, this sort of made up Hungarian village had a sort of charm, and made you glad you weren't a Hungarian peasant.

 

Ah, those were the days, when you could entertain kids by giving them an egg to watch

In the afternoon we visited Szombathely, something of the local metropolis. Pretty squares.

Lockenhaus Castle

One doesn't often go to a castle for lunch. And we had to turn back for this lunch break as I needed my passport, it was across the border in Austria. But unlike yesterday's, this was a proper castle with a suitably gory history behind it. Its most famous (no, here the word has to be infamous) was a queen who went a little beyond even the eccentricity associated with nobility. She apparently thought that bathing in virgin's blood would keep her skin looking young. Seemingly peasant girls going missing didn't arose too much suspicion back in the day. As skincare goes, probably no less effective than Oil of Ulay, but harder to acquire these days.

A genuine Iron Maiden

Useful instruction manual if you need to torture someone

Transit to Koszeg

Adrian and Erika were kind enough to drive to Austria to pick me up by car to take me across to their place in Hungary. First stop was for lunch at the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt. Or rather lunch facing the palace. Very smart it was too.

Good as the food was, the most memorable point were the toilets. The horse theme. See what I mean?

Then onto the little tourist town of Rust. Never heard of it? You should have done. Nice place to while away an afternoon.

 

"You look like Twins, from that film", says Erika. So that makes me the Danny De Vito character. Thanks.

The town is famous (well locally it is) for its wine, so we had to stop for a glass or two in one of the many wine cellars

 

Our next stop was at a lunatic castle. Well it was the project of an eccentric architect who died with it unfinished. A fantasy castle but not a fairy one, and sadly unfinished so as much building site as tourist attraction. 

One more stop, well only a short walk from  the castle, was a war cemetery. Landscaped, extensive and covering more than one war. What more can one say.

Dinner was near Koszeg. It was notable more for its location than food (fair) or service (not as good as fair). But the view on the lakeside was pretty stunning. Especially as the sun went down.