Puszta time!

So on Monday, we went to the South of Hungary. Puszta area, so to say. And that was noticeable; there were appearing more and more traffic signs for horse carriages next to the road. Our first stop would be Kecskemét; Goat-town translated. And we like goats a lot more all of a sudden, cause this place is gorgeous! Really our favourite so far. The centre is actually one big (well maintained and flowery) garden with multiple squares and beautiful buildings in seccionist style surrounding it. I didn't have a clue what seccionist style is, so I hope the pictures will explain it a bit. For me it looked really Gaudi-like; playful and colourful. The town has such a nice and relaxed atmosphere and the people seemed to be happy just strolling around with some big icecreams or sitting on one of the many benches along the car-free areas. The Hungarian icecreams is something though we can't appreciate that much. It's too sweet and mostly too fake. You really have to search well to find a decent shop....but we stick to the cakes (süti) which they are best at. Although lunch and dinner are also great of course, especially the daily lunch menus they have for a very good price. And so we had a nice 3 course menu including a drink for not even 8 euro per person. Unfortunately we realized just at that moment that it was Monday and many museums and sights were closed. Such a pity! Luckily it was great weather and we just loved the sight of this city. And we could visit the city hall with it's impressive ornamental hall, which is actually the biggest attraction here. We could even go in there by ourselves and be alone in that huge hall. Later we found out that we should have visited a guide to show us around and that the door should have been locked....oops! Misunderstood, but this way we felt like we had found our own treasure. We listened to the carillon playing, visited a little pink church and tasted some lovely local wines at the most beautiful terrace. Even resisted the great looking cakes there. We had a splendid time, just looking at all the beautiful things around us.

The next day would be real puszta experience time; going to the Kiskunság national park to learn more about the life of the shepherds and of course watching a super kitsch csikós show; comboys doing all kind of tricks with horses (and 1 donkey). So this day was all about folk and animals. We already had a nice encounter the day before with the cat of the owner of our airbnb; Cini, a big firm red-white cat which loved to be petted. He was purring super loud and really laying next to me (and on my foot) to get as much attention as he could and totally enjoy it. So cute! But although we were a bit afraid of the whole touristic set up of this puszta experience we were quite excited about it. Getting closer to Bugac (where the puszta, shepherd museum and show was) poppy flowers were all over the place and we saw those little windmills you see in westerns and carriages riding on the road. We felt far from Budapest now. The Karikás Csárda (yaay, finally a Csárda!) looked like it should; dark wooden pillars, white walls, thatched roof, some red flowers and dark blue tablecloth. We didn't have breakfast yet so we had the only thing which wouldn't be a complete meal again; some salad with bread. We realized we barely eat vegetables here...and we don't even rememer what fruit tastes like! Our tummies were really happy they finally didn't have to process meat. We decided to have our own walk in the park (instead of being taken by a carriage) and luckily it was not as hot as the day before (it was 11 and the show would be right at noon). At the Shepherd museum we got welcomed by some bagpipe music, played on the traditional Hungarian variant. The guy playing it was it traditional clothes and had a big and full moustache and loved to talk about that and the fact that men without moustaches are not real men. I couldn't understand what he said but still it was nice watching him, totally enjoying his show and the audience. The thin and wild looking dog that was with him was very shy, but came to Bogdán to be petted. We went to the part of the park where the show was, cause we didn't want to miss any of that. There were some benches standing there where all the visitors set down, but since it was noon and there was no shadow there, we decided to just stand under the tree that was close. The music started, the horses came out of the stable and the csikósok were starting their tricks and they were quite amazing. They could easily jump up and off the horses (all without saddles) even when the horses were galopping, they could crack their whips, there was one guy galopping 5 horses around at full tilt while standing on the backs of the rear two. And one guy could even carry his horse by its front legs!! And the horses were so relaxed and trusted their riders so much. That was really nice to see. They also looked great and seemed to have a good life here. I was a bit afraid that it would be too much. And the donkey was super cute too...and funny. After the show we could try to crack the whip ourselves. It looked soo easy, but you need some special talent for it. My special talent was to break it...while doing my best to have it make this nice electrical sound the whole thing broke in two. Well done Sofie!! It was time to see some other animals. The donkeys were so adorable and cute! And soo fluffy!! There were also racka sheep (with twisted horns) and mangalica pigs (hairy ones), but we didn't see the last ones because some terrifying blue/purple sky was coming towards us including thunder noises. It was cool to see though, above the still sunny puszta. But it was time for our last mandatory thing to do here; eating some gulyás from the kettle. It was delicious with juicy and soft meat and the portion for one was more then enough for the both of us. And we could finish it on the terrace in the nice open air, cause of course it just began to rain when we went back into the car. Perfect! We had a 2 hour drive ahead to Pécs, a city in the southwest. The roads to get to one of the few points to cross the Danube was very bad though. There were potholes everywhere and because of the rain it was difficult to see how deep they were. Bogdán had a hard time driving there, but luckily he could also drive on the great new M6 which was such a relief after the bad road. Slowly we left the palacsinta-flat puszta behind and we arrived in the super green, foresty and hilly Pécs area. Really beautiful to drive around and see the villages spread around these nice surroundings (for me, cause Bogdán had to concentrate on all the turns). While entering Pécs I already spotted some beautiful buildings with colourful rooftop tiles and there was one last challenge for Bogdán; driving on the super steep road leading to our apartment. That was something! Especially when we realized we had to walk this for the next coming days. But the view from our terrace was well worth it. We could overlook the whole city with all its towers and churches. We went downhill to have a first peak at the city and we were not dissapointed by the looks and style. We went looking for a nice restaurant and decided to go for the Balkan cuisine, since the border with Serbia is not that far away it should be good. And it was; some nice spicey sausages with lots of garlic and onion; yummie. A homemade and thus not supersweet baklava as desert and we were ready to make the climb back to our apartment. It was steep and we had to work our muscles, but it made me feel like I already used half of my meal for this; so that was great! And in this quiet area in a nice and cool room, we would defenitely sleep well. Ready to discover Pécs the next morning....

Btw; That night we saw that we just missed a big flood in Budapest with rain staying in the streets and people walking through with water above their knees. Really bad! We were even more happy to be on a hill now!