Eger, Part II

Beautiful weekend in Eger! Liz, Kat and I toured the castle, ate marvelous pizzas and enjoyed the cobblestone streets before meeting up with Kyle. After our hostess returned to Eger, we saw her apartment and ate a delightful meal.

By nightfall, we were jazzed to make our first pilgrimage to the Valley of Beautiful Women. The nights are getting colder here, and we think the tourist-geared wine cellars of the valley are entering their low season, things were pretty quiet. I fear they might even close for the winter, which would be a shame. Each cellar comes complete with its own atmosphere, its own hosts. Different wines to sample, different music to listen to, simply delightful.

After many samples, we walked back into town to see to eagerly-anticipated "lava tube" dance club. The guidebooks simply rave about the unique clubs, one even called it one of the top ten sights in Eastern Europe! Such an odd connotation, we each apparently had our own vision of what a lava tube is. Liz envisioned a clear dance floor, with orange molten lava below. Kat pictured a glass tunnel with lava flowing above and around us. I feel I was more pragmatic in expectation, I thought we would find long tunnels of shiny, black obsidian - smooth and cold to the touch, with significant echo problems. All of our expectations, though, were met with disappointment. While it was rather unique to be dancing -- or blaspemying the night away, as we were directly underneath Eger's ornate basilica -- in no way did we feel like we were doing anything other than visiting another dank Hungarian club. Sure, there were different levels, but none met our grand expectations, however silly they were.

Guess it helped us appreciate the Sunday morning stroll through recently picked vineyards on the hills overlooking Eger the next day all the more.