The dream comes after the big wine tasting, which was in the other cellar, the one that belongs to Imre. Imre of the big smile, the expansive gesture, the beginning of each sentence with Kedves Vendegemek, or something like that, meaning Dear Guests, for the 30=odd of us are squeezed into his cellar, measuring something like 20' x 30', with about 10 wooden casks containing 250 liters each, stacked on them a number of 50 and 25 liter barrels, plus three stainless steel tanks each holding something like 500 liters. Imre has a day job, not sure what, but the land he works is some kind of family holding, winemaking a family tradition, and he does this little wine tasting gig for private groups. Besides the cellar, there is a covered picnic area in the middle of the grapes, vines growing over the roof and all, and we are served a tasty but heavy and somewhat salty stew of wild boar (shot personally by Imre, though Lajos assures me that he did not kill the boar on the premises of the volcano, for that is a protected nature preserve), with side dishes of pickled green tomatoes and, as I can best recall, onions, plus a slice or two of beer. And wine. And mineral water. Eva , the organist, sits across from me, and she has instead a plate of noodles with sour cream and some kind of powdered cheese. Perhaps she is vegetarian? Plus wine, of course.
The day has been fiercely sunny. After the tour of the city hall (former benedictine monastery, some of the decorations have been retained, Saint X , Saint Y, the Redominifcation of the blessed Sulomitaritians, the Valutpta of Saint Schomiatoria, patroness of the Celdomitians, etc etc, all of which we admire and oo and aa, and uh and hum, we also get a tour of the CHURCH, which was built in record time of XXX years, and was erected because of the miracle healing of a stone worker, who was injured while helping to excavate a site of a natural spring, but who recovered so quickly and so completely after his prayer to the BVM , that all were amazed, and then hundreds and thousands came to the well, so a pilgrim church was erected, and of course it needed monks to help take care of the pilgrims and all that, so Brother Odo (statue of whom, complete with grape cluster and vine sits in the park and gazes directly at the church, for whose construction he was primarily responsible) came from Austria to help out, and now we have the church, the protection of the BVM somehow being mysteriously and not-really-discussed-about-hushed-overly absent during WWII when the bombs fell and smashed a lot of the place (but one bomb did not explode and of course that is a miracle indeed).
What to say about a somewhat tacky, somewhat gloomy, somewhat seen-better-days place that just reeks of early 19th century piety? Perhaps that it has a wonderfully kitschy Schatzkammer upstairs, filled with historical bits and mementos and a wide variety of votive offerings. Primary among the offerings were little silver legs, it looks like someone took a sheet of silver, about 2" x3", and used a wood carving of a leg, and hammered the silver sheet so that it created a bas relief of the legs. So there were legs, and arms, then there were little pairs of eyes. I wasn't sure about the eyes, so I asked one of the other people I was with, I said, these are eyes , aren't they, and they said, yes, what else could they be?, and I said, well, maybe they were breasts? I kept looking, but found no votive penises. Apparently you didnt go to the BVM if you wanted help in getting it up.
There were a lot of votive paintings, Now that would make for a wonderful exhibition. My favorite was one showing a husband and wife being rescued from a tumble of their wagon into a into a river. They were trapped and in despair, until they called on HER for help, and sure enough, help arrived right away. Watson and the Shark it isn't, but you can see how much they share a Sitz im Leben.
After the Church we went back to the hotel, then reassembled for the attack on the Saghegy=the volcano core. This basalt cone apparently supplied cobblestones and building materials for NE Hungary all the way to Vienna and down to Budapest. We assemble at the hotel, caravan to the base of the volcano, park at the trailhead, then unpack all the picnic lunches. Well, I hadn't brought lunch, was not in the loop so to speak, but i had gone to buy some bananas, so I had them to offer. Beautiful summer landscape: we are about 200 ft or so higher than the rest of the landscape, gazing eastward across fields pointillated cream yellow (just=mown wheat and hay fields) and deep green, interspersed with rust red splotches of tile roofs, with a horizon about 20 miles off to the north, east, south, and everything except our volcano core and another one off about 10 miles to the southeast as flat as central Kansas.
Lunch starts with the group singing a Grace. Then palinka is offered (i refuse, also the wine being passed around, saying not till evening, never in the afternoon, in very broken Hungarian) And then the hike. DAMN it is steep, jeez, i thought we had driven close to the top, no way.
Huff, puff, and then the sun starts to hit me and I am sure glad I didn't have any wine, and I am soooo thirsty, all that Hungarian food is filled with salt, and all I have left is about 1/3 of a plastic coke bottle I filled with tap water before we left the hotel. The core of the volcano is about 1/2 mile across, I climb up what I think is the rim, but it isn't, there is more, and the pathways are broken rock and no I am not going to try that, thank you. Did I mention the sun? There is little shade to be had, we are baking. And no it is not 100 degrees in the shade, only about 90, but there are no clouds anywhere and the sun is just plain fierce.
Ultimately we work ourselves around to the eastern rim of the cone, where there is a memorial. I will have to look up more on Google, but this is a Trianon memorial, and for every Hungarian the word Trianon is burned forever into the national psyche. Trianon was the treaty the Hungarians were forced to acquiesce to at the end of WWI, and it redrew the national borders and shrunk the area thereby circumscribed by about 2/3... sort of like all of Texas being reduced to just the area east of Ft. Worth, losing out on the Edwards plateau, the Big Bend, and the Panhandle. Of particular sensitivity was the loss of territory in what is now in Romania, the land beyond the forest, Transylvania, where there are real mountains, not the 3000 foot stubs that are all that remain inside of today's borders. So Trianon was what made the Hungarians side with Adolf in WWII, or at least not actively oppose him, because they hoped that in the Greater Order of things these lands would once again be returned to the Magyar peoples as their birthright. After resting a while in the shade of this memorial, we organized for the trek back, the choir sang a song and then the national anthem, and we headed back down the hill.
Soon back at the hotel and time for a shower. Oh, the hotel doesnt provide soap? Hmm. Well, sorry bout that folks, right now all I can do is a rinse job, but it is refreshing, and then we head out around 6 pm for the bus ride to the wine tasting.
Soon back at the hotel and time for a shower. Oh, the hotel doesnt provide soap? Hmm. Well, sorry bout that folks, right now all I can do is a rinse job, but it is refreshing, and then we head out around 6 pm for the bus ride to the wine tasting.
,
No comments:
Post a Comment