Tokaj

The wine buffs among us would have heard of Tokay, a sweet, fermented wine similar to muskat. News to us was that this wine originated in a place in Hungary called Tokaj. Tokaj became famous for it's wine in Hungary thanks to the Royalty's love of the wine. The special taste comes from letting the grapes dry a little longer on the vine and letting mould grow in the cellars where the wine is stored. Had some tastings, ate some cheese. All good.

Wine lesson over. All that rain from Slovakia was also happening in Hungary and the rivers were struggling. We saw lots of flooding during our border crossing and the rivers in Tokaj were also flooded - good to know when the hostel you are staying in is where these rivers conjoin:) and of course we were staying on the ground floor. I forgot about all this when i saw the showers. Unisex showers, no shower wall, curtain, or shower head. And Dean was so pleased at getting our cheapest accomodation... oh well. We managed to shower in between everyone else so our modesty is in-tact.

Like Zakopane, we managed a walk on our second day here. Although we had planned an organised tour (no such thing out here - this is purely relevant because I wore my casual, zero grip shoes). We followed a vague track but it was a little too slippery and full of mosquitos so we back-tracked, well-bitten. Taking on a second track, we were relieved to have found a much drier track. Half an hour in, all up hill, with yet another school group on our tails, the track got wet. And slippery. Being too slippery to turn back we kept walking. Letting the kids walk in front, as their teachers seemed to know something about this track (we had no idea how long this track went for or even where it ended up). Later in the track, up a very steep hill, Dean started slipping - teacher to the rescue. Still only half-way up the hill, because I am unfit and Dean has bigger legs, and I was slipping everywhere on my ballet shoes and feeling a bit grumpy, I admittedly enjoyed watching Speedy Big Legs dance a little. A little further on, we lost the school group and I lost my footing sliding right onto my butt in a pile of mud... hmmm, karma I suppose.

A little further on, the track was very vague (albeit drier), and all we knew was that we were high up on a hill with no sign of Tokaj and no idea of where we should be headed. So we turned back. Sticking to drier paths we took a couple of different turns, probably the ones we should have been on originally, and eventually were reassured we were on the right track back by an information sign. Breathing a sigh of relief, we read the sign. Being in Hungarian, all we could understand were the words and pictures of 'wild pigs' and 'viper snakes'. Hmm. I don't know how many of you have seen Lord of the Flies or Lost, but having seen both I am not a fan of wild pigs, especially not when we had been walking through long grass just like on Lost. Also, being an Australian, I know that one of the 9/10 deadly snakes of the world that we have, also goes by the name of Viper. I started walking a little quicker, especially through more and more long grass. I even forgot about my mud-covered butt as we walked back into town through the vineyards.

As you can probably figure, we made it through okay in Tokaj:).