We have Andrea from Rear View Mirror to thank for our unique visit to the Hungarian city of Szeged today. She was lucky enough to enjoy it with both snow and sunshine! In 1879, the town was flooded and only 300 out of 5,500 houses remained. Most of the European countries contributed to its reconstruction resulting in one of the first examples of total town planning. Practically every style from the end of the 19th century is represented.
We arrived around midday and left at 3 pm with two parking tickets on our windscreen! The very nice girl in the excessively difficult-to-find tourist office said they she has been told that foreigners are not pursued for parking fines. Let’s hope so! There are different zones and you need to buy a parking permit from a newsagency. One day costs around 7 euro and you can park in any zone. That was the only negative point about Szeged!
We had an excellent “business lunch” in a restaurant called Alabardos Etterem es Borozo just near the Cathedral. We had a three-course meal, a glass of wine and coffee for 4000 florints for 13 euros for the two of us. I don’t think we have ever paid so little for a meal anywhere in the world!
One of the town’s main attractions – the mosaics in the New Synogogue was not open due to a special ceremony so we were not able to see them.
Another thing we noticed is that Szeged is a cyclist’s paradise. There are bike paths everywhere and bikes – along with horse-drawn carriages – are not allowed on many large streets. Unfortunately we weren’t able to try them out due to the low temperature – 11°C – and overcast sky. It even started to rain just as we got to the end of our visit. However, you can see lots of cyclists in the photos.
I did wonder why none of the main buildings are along the Tesza River but I guess it’s still subject to flooding.
I don’t know whether we’ll ever come back to this part of the world, but if we do, I hope we’ll catch Szeged on a warm sunny day so we can appreciate it even more. But despite the overcast sky, light and open spaces are synonymous with Szeged.
Exquisite architecture… what a beautiful place!
It certainly is!
So glad you liked it! The architecture there blows my mind. So amazing. The Reok Palace was my favourite too. We were there just after Christmas where we had a heavy downfall of snow and then clear sunny skies. It was incredibly beautiful. If you don’t mind me sharing, I wrote about it here: http://www.rearviewmirror.tv/szeged-hungary/
We really did love it. Snow and sun – what a lovely combination! And no, I don’t mind your sharing. I’ll add the link to the post.
And can you tell me about tipping here?
I think most Hungarians don’t tip much, max 10% in restaurants or they just round up the bill. Leave a few coins in a cafe. Similar to France I guess. Do check that service isn’t included as sometimes the sneak that into the bill.
Thanks Andrea. That’s what we’ve been doing. In fact, the restaurant in Szeged included it in the bill but the waiter was so helpful translating the business menu that we left a little extra anyway.
Except, possibly for Hungary – we’ll wait and see – your interesting travels confirm pretty much that Eastern Europe need not be on the list of missed places
I would put Plovdiv in Bulgaria which we went to on a previous occasion on the list of places not to be missed as well as Lubljana in Slovenia. And I definitely want to go back to Romania and discover more. We also enjoyed Budapest and Santender two years ago. I have to say that Serbia is a big disappointment though.
Szeged looks charming.
Its such a nice post.