Kevin & Karyn's Hungarian Adventure 2012: Wine Tasting & Sopron Tour

10/13/2012

So much history to share and cram into 2 days. First Esterhazy Palace, Grand Lunch, Pan-European Picnic Reunion, now onto Wine Tasting w/ tour of wine cellar and City of Sopron Tour. Sopron is a city in western Hungary that is near the Austrian border and not far from the 1989 Pan-Euro Picnic from previous post.

Raspi wine bottles

Raspi Wine Cellar

http://www.raspi.hu/fotogaleria.html

Raspi Vineyard has a Restaurant along with their vineyard and since this was arranged by our wonderful Fulbright tour guide (English/Hungarian speaker) we were treated to a tour of the Wine Cellar with the Hungarian speaking owner. Delightful, informative, passionate, and down to earth are just a few of the words that come to my mind about the owner during the wine tour. Dinner was also amazing, fresh squash flowers adorned the presentation of our food.

Csaszar Csirkemell (Warm Caesar Salad) w/ squash flower

Castle Wall protecting the original city and Church

The WalkingTour of the Town of Sopron in West Hungary is loaded with Historic Buildings, Castle Walls, Catholic Churches, Jewish Getto with a portion still preserved, Princess Courtyard, Roman Road Ruins just to name a few of the sites we visited. The Roman Amber Road was the main transportation for Amber from the South all the way to the Adriatic Sea. Our tour guide was able to give us the background on all the historic buildings in such detail. She did a wonderful job of sharing detailed facts and giving us an opportunity to visit inside many of the buildings.

Roman Ruins & Roman Amber Road on the right Side of picture

Jewish population in Sopron has existed since the 13th century and has been tumultuous, sometimes favorable and at other times exiled from living in the city. Treated as second class citizens their houses and synagogues had to be built set back from the street fronts. We were able to tour inside the maintained Medieval Synagogue and Mikveh built in the early 14th century. Women were not allowed in the same space as men and had to view the services from narrow slits in the next room. This kept the men focused on the prayer services.

For more details see - http://www.cometohungary.com/sopron-medieval-synagogue.html

Gate to Historic Jewish Synagogue in
Sopron, Hungary

Niche scrolls in Mikveh

Narrow openings for women to
view the prayer services

Medieval Mikveh

Then we headed to the Catholic "Goat" Church which is reported to have been given the money to build by a Goat herder whose flock found a bag of coins. This is the church were several Hungarian Kings were crowned during their coronation.

Robed Madonna on the Facade of the "Goat" church

Baroque style inside the "Goat" Church

We finished the day with a bus drive to the Pannonhalma Benedictine Abby in Pannonhalma, Hungary just 20km south of Gyor. The Abbey was founded in 996 A.D. and is magnificent to see in person. Words and pictures cannot adequately describe the intricate detail of the Baroque decor of the interior of the Basilica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonhalma_Archabbey