Hungary and Budapest: Eger and Holloko (6.11.25)

 

On June 11, 2025, we drove north of Budapest to Eger.  Eger is a charming town filled with Baroque buildings and topped by a fortress built in 1300. On our way, we stopped at Holloko, a living historical village where the wattle and daub houses of centuries past are filled with shops and restaurants tended by men and women in old-time Hungarian dress.  It is a UNESCO Historic site.

I visited a tiny museum displaying dozens, or even hundreds, of dolls, each dressed in the traditional dress of a different Hungarian village.

I bought a doll to add to the collection I keep for my grandchildren and greats.

As we traveled through Hungary, we kept checking with our grandson, Bryce Flindt, who recently returned from an LDS mission to Hungary.  When we forwarded a photo of the LDS chapel in Eger, Bryce reported that Eger was the first city he worked in as a missionary, and that he knew that chapel and the city of Eger well.

Hungary, like Austria, has many beautiful Baroque buildings, built during the 17th and 18th centuries.

This monument honors Dobo Istvan, the warrior who fought off the Ottoman Turks from Eger in 1532.  The Turks later took over Eger, leaving such traces as the minaret that still stands within the city.

We wandered through the fortress on the hill above Eger, and we wished we had more time to spend in the museum and with the guides in traditional dress.

In a bit of wonderful serendipity, we followed a sidebar in our Lonely Planet guidebook to the tiny town of Tard, where we found the Matyodesign workshop.  A Hungarian woman who is married to a Canadian founded workshops where women from the Matyo ethnic group preserve and profit from their hand embroidery by making t-shirts and other clothing for the international market.  By amazing chance, we met the owner, Rozi Vaczi, who took us to her shop, showed us her factory, and told us about her business.  Many of the women she employs are elderly, poor, or have disabled children which prevent their taking other jobs. I bought a black, hand-embroidered t-shirt from Rozi's shop.