The Mátra is home to Kékestető, the “Blue Peak”: at 1014 meters, the highest point in Hungary. This makes it the world’s 168th highest national high point, a few places behind the highest points of alpine Bangladesh and Ireland. I think Holland, at 180, is cheating a bit by including some Caribbean volcano to represent them, but maybe little Saban children have to wear clogs and stick their fingers into dikes. We used to have much higher peaks here in Hungary, but the Triple Entente shipped them abroad in 1920. Slovakia and Romania, I bet you don’t have cold beer waiting for you at the top of Mounts Gerlachovsky and Moldoveanu though, do you?
Today we will finally get around to scaling the Kékestető and enjoy some of that cold beer.
After depositing kit at the cottage, we are off. The expedition gets off to an ominous start as at the base camp in the village of Parádóhuta the local pub is closed for lunchtime, which means that the team has to commence the ascent unsupplied and unfortified. Predictably, dissent breaks out at 400m as to whether the little creatures jumping around in the woods are all frogs, or if some of them might be toads. At 600m, there are no trout in the trout pond. Frantic pleas are arriving from Budapest via mobile telephone to abort the mission so that Rob can hurry back and shore up the cricket 11 with his spin bowling. (No one called for me to rush back. Must be a problem with my phone.) We break for snacks and mull our next move. It is decided to proceed, and an hour later we are standing on the roof of Hungary.
Unfortunately, the Kékes has no treeline, so the only view in summer is where they have cut a couple ski slopes. But you get the general idea. Suitably refurbished with a couple pints of pulpy Borsodi lager we make the descent without being snowed in or being eaten by wild boars, and shortly are gorging on Palóc Soup, Sztrapacka (the Hungarian version of Halusky, the Slovak national dish), and other hearty deep-fried mountaineer fare at the fine Parád Kisvendéglő, where the cook is inspired, but the mountain air makes her sleepy and she likes to go to bed early, so if you get there anywhere after 7 pm, will pace your meal and the payment schedule thereto accordingly.
The next morning we hopped the bus to wine-mecca Eger – which is, I think, the most pleasant and colorful of the smaller cities of Hungary, although there are a couple that I don’t know so well, such as Pécs. Here we have a Baroque old city center surmounted by a big castle. Not the dainty Austrian-type castle for princes and princesses to waltz in, but a working castle that you can use for keeping Turks out. Which the good citizens of Eger did in 1552 when most of Hungary had fallen under Turkish control, 2,000 of them, including women and children, held off a siege against the entire Turkish army, forming the basis for one of the seminal works of Hungarian juvenile fiction of what I guess would be a rough equivalent of Huck Finn in terms of literary importance. Of course, the Turks came back a few decades later with a bigger army, and built this delightful minaret, which is, I believe, the northernmost architectural remnant of historical Islam in Europe. I climbed it once, years ago, but went wobbly trying to force myself to make the circuit around the narrow ledge, especially since the railing only comes up to about my hips. Today I prefer to enjoy its fine proportions from street level.
After enjoying the Saturday morning downtown vibe for a bit, it’s time to head to the City outdoor baths – pipes weren’t working properly in the cottage so we could still use a good scrubbing and of course a soak for sore kékes-climbing legs. I say the Eger baths are better than our equivalent outdoor facilities in Budapest, with the indoor baths being a separate kettle of fish that you pay for separately and I think are housed in that Turkish-looking building. We just visited the outdoor part - you could spend all day here, sunning, dipping yourself in the variously-heated and chilled pools, do a couple laps if you feel energetic and get a decent hot lunch at one of the café kiosks. Load of Poles here – I guess if you live on the fog-shrouded shores of the Baltic then northern Hungary looks vaguely like a Mediterranean holiday destination. Poles and Hungarians claim to have a historical affinity for one another, so, welcome Poles, drink up. The café counter-girl even asked me if I wanted “chleb” with my bean soup, in a slightly less irritating polonized variation of the irritating tendency of marginally-educated Hungarians, upon determining that Hungarian is not the first language of their interlocutor, to pepper otherwise normally-complex Hungarian sentences with any of the 50-100 basic English words or phrases they have mastered. It was good soup and chleb though.
Now we are clean and fed and it is time to commune with Bacchus, in a restrained fashion. Rob has hooked us up with a tour of Kovács Nimrod Winery. Nimrod is kind of an interesting character, a Hungarian-American businessman who used to head the primary cable company here before moving fully into his wine business. Anyway, wines that he used to make under the Monárchia trading house are now made under his own name, and this is where they make them. Nimrod’s not around but marketing manager Orsi gave us the tour of cellars and cool wine-making machines that go “ding”. Then it’s off to the tasting room.
NK is consolidating the Monárchia line. First we are duly impressed by the new table-wine line being sold under the EGRI label. In Hungary there is a real shortage of reliable high-quality everyday bottled wine priced around 3 euros, compared to say Austria or Italy where it’s easy to find good wine at that price. Blame it on the communists but the scale goes straight from plonk to overpriced lower premium. A few companies have been moving in on this area – notably Törley with its dependable Szent István Korona line of inexpensive quality wines from many different growing regions around the country, both international and Hungarian. In any case, it’s good to see an addition to this sector.
Then we tuck into the premium selections. The thing about Eger and Hungarian wine in general is that our wine-growing areas correspond in latitude to Burgundy or Washington State, which means that in northern Hungary we are about around the northern limit for growing red wines in any kind of quantity. Which means that Burgundy varietals turn out pretty well here, as the opening chardonnay proved. Then we went on to a syrah that surprised me because I think of it as a robust southern grape, whereas this one was light and spicy. Then we tasted a couple of the famous Egri Bikaver - bulls blood – a cuvée made from various combinations of different local grapes grown in the region, and a fond memory of Americans of a certain age from their penny-pinching bohemian student days, although I wasn’t overly impressed by either of these samples.
The finalé was another burgundy grape, an excellent pinot noir with all the right combinations of earthy and fruity flavors. When I first tasted pinot, it was when I was in my early 20s and just starting to dabble in wine and pinot, as such, was starting to gain popularity in the US. But it was all California pinot and I hated it because, with all due respect to California as one of the world’s great wine regions, it simply got too much sun and tasted like it should be served in a jam jar to spread on toast. Anyway, since tasting pinots from further away from the equator, my views have changed and Hungary is one of the places that has real potential to develop this grape, says I. Just look at that fine clear brown hue!
