Valley of the Beautiful Women
We made a quick one night detour to Eger, Hungary to visit one of the most famous wine-producing regions in Hungary, and experience the tour book hype for the “Valley of the Beautiful Women”. It was a little different than we expected. The Valley, instead of including the picturesque vineyards we expected, was little more than numerous wine cellars carved out in rocks.
Part of the valley – showing a few of the cellars
The most famous wine from the region is a red wine called “Bulls Blood,” supposedly after the residents of Eger drank it during a victory over Turkish invaders. We had a fun time “cellar-hopping” around the valley, tasting different cellars’ variations of the wine. The cellars were all very cool on the inside, being literally carved out of the hillside, with the wines offered dirt cheap.
Jami with a bottle of Bulls Blood
My best wine tasting expression
Egészségedre!
The cellars each had numbers from 1 to 48, probably a way to help tipsy bulls blood-drinkers remember where they were. It also made it easier for locals to recommend the good places to us. Some were elaborate caves with facades; others little more than metal doors on caves.
One of the cooler wine cellars
This one was a little more sketch
The most entertaining aspect of the trip actually occurred on the train ride out to Eger. About half way through the trip the train came to a stop at a station and 3-4 passengers all started yelling at each other and the conductor. Station officials were called over but appeared to do nothing; at one point multiple passengers paid money to another passenger. This lasted for over 45 minutes, as we sat nervously in the middle of the entire dispute. To make it worse, right before the fight the conductor had just told us that our tickets were not good enough. As we waited to see if we were going to get kicked off the train, the fight blew up and the conductor kept out tickets in his hand the entire time, as he ran around dealing with whatever it was. But after 45 or so minutes, everyone calmed down, the conductor gave us our tickets back without comment, and the train continued on its way…