The next day was sunny again and we visited the Ópusztaszer National Heritage Park with the famous Feszty Panorama before we continued our journey to our last town in Hungary: Szeged.
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| Árpád Monument |
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| Feszty Panorama |
The Feszty Panorama is a circular panoramic painting by Hungarian painter Árpád Feszty depicting the beginning of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895. The scene took place in the Eastern Carpathians and depicts the victorious prince Árpád, leader of the Hungarians on a white horse, surrounded by the leaders of the seven tribes. On the bottom left, you can see the defeated original inhabitants. The painting is very impressive and well presented, truly worth a visit!
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| Votive Church (1930) and the Dömötör tower from the 11th century in Szeged |
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| Reaching Szeged at the Theiß or Tisza River |
With 966 kilometres, the Tiszar is the longest tributary of the Danube. In addition, the Tisza was the river richest in fish in Europe at the end of the 19th century. But in 2000 the river was contaminated by cyanide through the bursting of the Baia Mare Dam. An enormous fish death was the result. More than 1,400 tons of fish died. It was the biggest environmental disaster in Eastern Europe since the reactor accident in 1986 in Chernobyl.
Szeged is a lively university town with a lot of coffee shops and bars at the Tisza river. In 1879 a great flood had wiped away the whole town (only 265 of the 5723 houses remained). Emperor Franz Joseph visited the town and promised that “Szeged will be more beautiful than it used to be”. He kept his promise. During the next years, a new, modern city emerged from the ruins, with palaces and wide streets.
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| Coffee break |
The town’s products include the winter salami Szegedi téliszálami, the Pick salami and the Szeged paprika, which gives the Hungarian dishes their special flavour. This spice is abundantly used in the Szeged fish soup prepared only here. The German name for the Szeged goulash is misleading, as the original Hungarian name Székely gulyás goes back not to the city of Szeged but to the name of the Hungarian writer and poet József Székely.
We are now leaving Hungary and will cross the border into Rumania. Hungary was a great experience and there is much more to explore next time!