Monday 22nd Szeleste to Sarvar

Still walking across a feature called the little Hungarian Plain, so continues to be very flat. Not so many trees today, bit more open, and incredibly hot. Shorter walk, just 22 kilometres, got away from the "castle" hotel in Szelestei by 8, so was in Sarvar in time for a late lunch and an afternoon in the shade.


Castle Hotel

I'm following the blue and white markers, which are brilliant, but also have a GPS trail on my IPhone which I downloaded from from of the Hungarian web sites that specialise on the walk. I don't have any maps and because the route meanders you get a slightly weird feeling just following the signs because it's a very meandering route. You often seem to be going backwards and your sense of direction, which gets mislead especially when your in trees, is constantly telling you something must be wrong. Slight panic just out of Szelestei when the GPS trail conflicted with the signs but of course, in the end, the signs where right.


Massive fields




Ploughed footpath

More examples of the huge scale of agriculture here with the fields which seemed to go on to the horizon. The same "farmer" also helpfully ploughed up the footpath (if my farmer brother reads this I know that technically it's "dragged" not ploughed). This sort of landscape definitely has it's attractions and on a cold day in the winter is probably amazing.

Slightly more unnerving is the tendency to use white asbestos debris to line the forest trail. Conscious that I have a number of Hungarian readers at the moment and don't want to cause offence but most English walkers would be seriously put off by even the mention of asbestos.



White Abestos

Saw three Trabant's parked in a line as I walked through the streets of Sarvar: a standard saloon, an estate car and a coupe. The coupe looked the best.



Trabant

Sarvar itself is a spa town, an important tourist destination and has lots of hotels. Like Kozeg it has multi-coloured stucco buildings which are being carefully restored. The central feature however is a castle and my gasthof is right next to it.


Nádasdy Castle

PS. Really Great to hear from you again Nancy and thanks so much for your kind sponsorship. Can't promise to be enjoying every minute but definitely most of them!

9 comments:

  1. Hi John,

    I am a native Hungarian and I beg you not to consider at all that you have Hungarian readers, too. Don't deflower the innocent although sometimes hurting knowledge we can harvest from your holding mirror in front of our biased minds. I hope you got what i mean.

    Enjoy wandering in this country, as we do your post.

    Cheers,

    Zoltan

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  2. http://ketvandor.blog.hu/

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  3. Hi Zoltan, thanks for your interest and yes I understand what you mean. I am just a bit nervous sometimes and leaping to conclusions based on too little information. One thing though, it's very hot!

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  4. Hello, wanderer! :-) I'm a Hungarian guy who last kilometers of the tread is in Blue, a few kilometers ahead of you ... Currently, due to the heat Káld I'm in the pub! Then in the late afternoon I would go only half the Hosszúpereszteg-Szajki lakes more .. maybe I'll see you too!? All the best on the road ... ;-) A. Gábor

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  5. Hi John,

    I am Zoltan again. How could I help you with increasing your confidence? What kind of information do you need exactly?

    I have access to many kind of information, but alas they are written in Hungarian, so simply forwarding them to you would make no sense at all.

    I could send you my contact details like email address or even mobile number, if you have any email box you have access to these days.

    I am almost fully out of my holidays budget, but maybe I can join you in the weekend of 3rd and 4th to tread the path together.

    PS: I have got no special fellowship with God, thus no help with the heat, which will last presumably until next Monday.

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  6. Hi Zoltan

    Just gone through my schedule again and providing nothing goes wrong I get to Budapest on the 5th. As you can imagine I'm desperate to get home. What would really help would be for you or one of your friends to let the places I think I'm going to stay at know I coming. If there are lots of places I would rather just turn up, if there is just one place (based on my research in the UK) I would rather book. if you don't mind I will send you the list.

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    1. Hi Zoltan

      Hope you don't mind me contacting you again after all this time but an American couple have been in touch with me and are going to walk the Blue Route next month. I was wandering if they could contact you for some advice. I have talked about them on a recent blog http://www.johnhayeswalks.com/2013/01/another-trip-along-blue-route.html. Nick's email address is npandolfo@gmail.com.

      By the way thanks for all the help you gave me

      Best wishes

      John Hayes (E4walker)

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  7. I dont mind, but I dont want to publish my email address. Pls confirm it in your public post that if I give it to you in a comment, you will just use it but do not publish it.

    Zoltan

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  8. Hi Zoltan

    My email address is on the web-site, just email me at that one, no need to publish your email address

    John

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