Crossing 'flat' Hungary

Location: Pecs
Km on the clock: 2,136

My stay in Budapest went by really fast. Although I was pretty tired and exhausted from my 135 kilometers ride alongside the Danube from Slovakia into Hungary, I managed to join a free walking tour. I learned a few fun things about Hungary on this 1.5 hours tour.

1. There's a Michael Jackson Memorial in Budapest. You should think it's a life-sized statue, but not. It's just a random tree plastered with lots of pictures of him. He stayed at the Kempinski Hotel when came to play a concert in Budapest in the early 1990's. Since then many Hungarians are huge fans. So they wanted the government to build a memorial for him. However, the Hungarian law doesn't allow to build memorials for people that are alive. Thus the people helped themselves and simply put pictures on this tree which is just across the street of the hotel.
2. The first McDonalds's in Hungary was opened in Budapest in 1988. The people didn't know what kind of food place McDonald's is. The only thing they knew was that there'll be a new western restaurant. Their expectation was that it'll be a nice and fancy restaurant because that was their image of the western world. So they dressed up nicely for the grand opening, like they would go to the opera. Well, I'm not sure if their expectations were met that day. Just paint your own picture of how they must have felt when they got served soggy burgers and oily fries. :D
3. The translation of the Hungarian word and national dish goulash is cowboy.

I had the pleasure to meet with Marie from Neue Zeitung - Ungarisches Wochenblatt for an interview the next day. We talked about my first weeks experiences of my cycling the world journey and the reasons of why I'm actually doing it. Here's the link to the full interview (German only). Again, thank you Marie for the opportunity to meet with you and thank you Neue Zeitung for publishing my story and thus supporting my fundraising campaign.

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Ein Beitrag geteilt von Chris Fritze (@fritzechris) am Sep 26, 2019 um 12:27 PDT

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At the end of the interview I asked Marie for recommendations of things to do and places to visit in Hungary. One of her recommendations was to visit the city Pecs. German settlers arrived there in the late 17th century and still today Germans are the largest minority in Pecs. This was something that sounded interesting to me since I didn't even know that there was a German minority in Hungary. So I set off in direction Pecs and wondered if I'd find some notes of German culture in Hungary.

Since Hungary is mainly a flat country it was a rather easy ride to Pecs. I cycled via Siofok at Lake Balaton and went further down south from there. There were countless of mirabelles trees aside of the road. The fruits weren't 100 percent ripe yet but already eatable and thus a great free snack along the way.

Pecs is located in the southwest of the country near the border to Croatia. The closer I got to Pecs the steeper some road sections got. At some point the road had an incline of 12 percent and before I entered Pecs there was one last longerish uphill section. A few days earlier someone said to me: "The whole country is flat". Well, I'm sure this person has never been in this area before. :D However, bombing downhill into the city was fun.

Just outside of Pecs I found the first note of German culture in this area. It wasn't anything significant. The word "Deutsch" was written in big letters above a window on the facade of a house. Left and right of the window were paintings of huge beer mugs. I guess that's proof enough for German culture in Hungary. :D

I couldn't find anything else significant "German" in Pecs itself. I asked at my hostel and some locals if they knew anything about the German minority and if there are places that I could visit to learn something about it. But they couldn't help me either. It rather seemed that they didn't even have a clue what I was talking about. I'm sure there are places to visit but since I stayed there for only two days I used the time to explore the city.

Pecs is Hungary's fifth largest city and is the home of the country's oldest university - founded in 1367. The old town is a beautiful, calm, non-touristy place. There are many little museums for literally anything - arts, mining, agriculture, etc. Most significant is definitely the Mosque of Pasha Quasim at the old town's main square. Even there were barely any tourists. It kind of felt like I was the only tourist in town.

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Ein Beitrag geteilt von Chris Fritze (@fritzechris) am Okt 11, 2019 um 3:03 PDT

My original plan was to go to Serbia after cycling through Hungary. But since I didn't plan to visit the southwestern part of Hungary, I decided to take the "shortcut" via Croatia. So I left Pecs after two days and pedaled in direction Republika Hrvatska.

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