Our first morning on the boat! As always, we begin with the short story of breakfast; a great but simple start to any day. Omelets seemed to be the name of the game (for me at least ... shocking!), supplemented by the 24-7 coffee service. Note that the lines in the dining area really started forming around 7:15, so getting there early was a great move! Omelets aside, there were also many options for muffins, pastries, fruits, cheeses, spreads, and items to be ordered from the kitchen.
Then, we headed out on our first excursion at 8:30, opening with a 20 minute bus ride to the small village of Kalocsa. Of note, we were far from anything resembling a city at this point. Instead we were in the Great Hungarian Plane and farms stretched as far as we could see. The most notable crop was clearly the sunflowers, but there was also some corn and others we made little note of. The other named crop of great importance is the paprika, but frustratingly, we have still not seen where any of this legendary herb being grown?
At last (it wasn't that long) we arrived at our first stop, the small village of Kalocsa. It was a cute town, with a color palate that permeated most of the structures, a pale
yellow finish was applied to most of the houses, the palace (I later learned that the word "palace" is used much more liberally than in western Europe), the cathedral, etc. And with that in mind, we headed straight to the cathedral! It was notably larger than one might expect for a town of this size, but also far smaller than those you'd see in the more populated cities. Some of the prominent features of this cathedral included an organ with over 1000 pipes, and the claim to fame that composer
Franz Liszt often came to practice here (a statue of him stood in the gardens outside). This is also the fourth iteration of the same cathedral, having been destroyed time and again through incurring invasions, and always rebuild. They are currently working on an adjacent museum built among the ruins of the former foundations.
Once inside we enjoyed a color array that we were not as familiar with in cathedrals.
White walls with hues of pink and light gold. It was a much brighter space and felt more open than some of the cathedrals that we were more familiar with seeing. Once inside we were given time to browse and explore, before taking our seats in the pews for a musical performance from a local artist. She played 4 songs on the piano, and sang, and it was a lovely time. But, we did little else in this village so afterwards we walked back to the bus. As we walked, and passed by the palace (basically the mayor's house) we learned that the archduke here had a passion for collecting rare books, and owned an extensive library of one-of-a-kind books.
Our second stop of the excursion came after another 20 minute drive or so, but it was
well worth it and one of the cooler stops we had on the trip. We traveled to
Bakodpuszta, home of the Bakod Horse Farm (I recommend opening the link and watching the 5 minute video included to get a sense of it). This was a local farm of horse trainers, a historical trade in the area. But, they didn't simply "train" horses, they taught them to do tricks! We watched a variety of performances (unfortunately the ground was quite muddy - but at least we were served snacks and drinks!). This started with the huge oxen pulling a cart. We then
saw the riders have their horses lay down, or sit ... like dogs! This was followed by the horsemen playing various games on the horses and demonstrating their control of the whips (don't worry - not hurting the animals!). We also saw a variety of different styles of carts that would be pulled by different numbers of horses. Then, the finally was a single rider standing on the back of two horses with another 10 leading the way! After the show we had about an hour in which we were able to explore the barn, pet the animals, and go for a carriage ride in their fields. Petting the animals was pretty great...
We returned to the cruise ship for a break – little more than an hour – before we headed back out for our afternoon excursion. We departed at 1:30 and would not be returning to the ship … here. Instead, our route would take us south and inland, and we would then meet up with our ship again in the evening at a more southern port.
Our second excursion was also a major highlight of the trip. We would be traveling far inland and southwards to a winery for a tour and tasting and then a cooperage where
we'd see the barrels being made. Unfortunately, this began with a
very long drive, and thought the scenery continued to be a beautiful combination of sunflower fields and rolling hills, many of us fell asleep. But, when we finally arrived we had a chance to stretch our legs, and then hop into some jeeps to take us up some trail roads into the grape fields. The views were amazing (though there were times that the drive felt unsafe). Then, as we were sampling
our first two kinds of wine, the whole growing and harvesting process was explained to us. For such a small crew it was amazing how many acres upon acres of land they were using. Then, some incoming storms hastened our return from the fields but we then got to explore the wine "cellars" which were actually long caves dug into the local hillsides. Apparently these caves could be found at family homes throughout the region as a common way to store cool items. We sampled four more wines, and had some snacks, before we moved on from the venue.
Our final stop of the day would then be a local cooperage, nearly 30 minute drive away – and the sister company of the vineyard. We received a full tour that described the process of making a wine barrel. While we did not see ONE barrel completed from
start to finish, we did see all the steps done on some barrel. This included:
- Splitting the felled logs
- Sanding a finished barrel
- Attaching the metal rings
- Cutting and assembling all the slats
- Heating and bending the barrel so that it holds its shape
- Having a hole drilled and sanitized
- And being tested for air-tight quality
The process was both fast and enlightening, and all together impressive! The speed of the workers, the custom tools, and the efficiency of the whole process was amazing. And, simply their comfort with manipulating wood, fire, and steam to bend the boards was so cool to watch!
Upon leaving the cooperage we had one final trek on the bus, another 30 minutes a Danube port closer to our current location (I regretfully missed the name of the location). Here, we re-boarded, and before long it was time for dinner. The main courses of note were a mushroom ragout and some New York strip steaks (classically local ... hah!).
After dinner we attended and played a trivia game at the ships bar/lounge room, this one titled “And the Top Answer Is.” This was a fun twist on trivia as being “most correct” was not important, rather it was important to guess the answer that was guessed by the most teams! In otherwards, have the most popular answer. Then, in the end, we won!
Finally, after great excursions and with trivia victory in hand (and the booze that came with it), it was time to head to bed! I hope tomorrow is just as great, but honestly, maybe a little shorter, two full excursions was quite a lot.
Nautical Term of the Day: Scuttlebutt
“A ‘butt’ was a barrel. ‘Scuttle’ meant ‘to chop a hole in something.’ The ‘scuttlebutt’ was a water barrel with a hole cut into it so that sailors could reach in and scoop out drinking water. The ‘scuttlebutt’ was the place where the ship’s gossip was exchanged.”
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