15th of March, 2022.
Since my last dramatic experience with to pay or not to pay public transport in Belgium, I decide I would either pay to live the big capitals to where I could hitchhike, or walk. Checking how to get out of Budapest, I get that I would need to take a metro and a bus. Altogether it would be something around 6 Euros. The train to Eger it is 7. So I take the train, of course! I don’t want to use money as much as possible in my life, yes, but I am not stupid!
I buy the train ticket on the day before my departure. I have to exchange some money to do that. Please keep your eyes open for the exchange rates and commissions. Always ask first how much they can give to you according to the amount of money you want to exchange. In that way, you can know if they will charge you commission or not and if they are honest. I found a good rate and zero commission place two blocks away from the train station.
When I get to the station, even before entering, what a surprise! The number of Ukrainian refugees is huge! I knew there was a lot of people coming, but until you see with your own eyes you have no idea how serious the situation is. I see hundreds of people arriving from many different trains, all carrying their belongings. And by that, I don’t simply mean their suitcases, no. They are also carrying duvets, animal carriers and other personal belongings. They are trying to bring the remains of their lives with them.
Out of all this misery, something good: the care of the Hungarian government for them it seems great to me. There is a huge system of help going on for the refugees at the station. Dozens of tables, divided in categories like documents, health care, information, etc., filled with plenty of people are waiting to help the arrivals. I also saw some nuns carrying out food and snacks for the refugees. There is police all over the place and they are trying to guide everyone to what they are looking for. Voice announcements are made every few minutes, in different languages and including English, directing all the refugees to these different sectors which are designed to help them. I cannot tell much about the Hungarian government per se, but when it comes to the help they are giving to the Ukrainian refugees, I clap my hands to them. Just yesterday, Yuliia also told me that with her passport she can take any public transportation for free, plus to enter some touristic attractions.
The train takes about 2 hours to get in Egar. It is to a tiny and cute train station that I arrive. I have got directions of how to walk from there to the historical centre.
Because it is Hungary Day, the tourist office is closed. I ask in this small restaurant if I can drop off Hulk there for a few hours and a lovely lady guides me to their storage room where I leave it.
I go towards the castle, while passing for some historical buildings, churches and little streets with tourist trap shops. There is quite a lot of tourist in the restaurants and coffee shops. It is lunch time, I guess.
The castle is for sure the best part of Eger. I am surprised nobody has mentioned to me before. It is a bit of a mess, I admit, like when you get inside, until you understand what is part of the castle and what is not, it is a lot confusing. Plus with all the restoration going on, it makes the whole site even messier. But it still worth it! And I am not sure if it is because of Hungary Day or what, but it was free!
Another thing is, most of the times I rather to see the castles from the outside than from the inside. For me they just look much better from the outside, that is what “makes them a castle”. But in Eger Castle case it is the opposite: the outside it is so messy and almost not there, actually, that my favourite part was the inside. Both the castle and the museum, which was built as a Gothic Palace. The exhibitions in both of them are amazing! There is even a statue of young William Defoe in one of them! Just kidding! But the exhibitions are truly great, telling the history of the castle and the heroic battle against the Ottomans in 1552.
Apart of the castle, the rest of the historical centre of the town it is… OK. Although, they do have their own Central Perk Cafe! Unbelievable!
After taking my backpack back, I try to find someone in a church by the centre. There is nobody inside, but outside there are two young girls and I ask them some information about where could I locate the priest / pastor responsible for the place. They only tell me he lives in the nearby village, so I leave thinking about asking in the next church on my list. But because the girls were so nice, I decide to go back and ask them for some further help.
After I explain everything to them, they take me to a kind of dormitory from the church (?). But no luck there, I cannot stay. They call a priest responsible for the churches, or something like that, and we walk towards the administrative building for the churches. There we talk first with one priest and after with another. Since the beginning, there was something inside me telling me they would not help me. And they don’t. I think they are just incapable of understanding that I am simply asking for a roof where I can sleep under for the night.
To make things worst, the second priest try to give me some money! Dear Loki, if I had accepted all the money the church members have offered me, I could be rich by now! Because I refuse to take it, the girls do. They tell me they will give back to him tomorrow. Did they?
Walking outside of town, looking for a place for camping, I ask for food in two different places but get nothing. On my last chance, a gas station, when I ask for the left-over pastries of the day, the young man tells me they have a policy that they have to throw it away. I say thanks and I leave.
I sit in a bus station to rest a bit and I cry. The though that people can refuse to give you food only in order to throw it away it disturbs me too much. After a few minutes, I see the other person from the gas station, a lady, coming on my direction with a pizza box. It is her left-over lunch, a half very good looking cheesy pizza. She also gives me an alfajor. I cry a little bit again, but this time of happiness. Thank you so much, my dear saviour!
Looking for a place to camp it is a disaster! There are dogs barking everywhere I go and also some abandoned kind of caves, where it seems people used to or still live (?). As Gabi would say: “What to do?”
