Gyula Castle and Bath

Update --

1. The Hamburger Bar down the street from us also has pizza. There are a few other places that have pizza and burgers as well. Um, Hungarian burgers are fairly terrible. The meat is grey and loaded with a bunch of odd condiments but overall they are edible. The fries are good and the onion rings too. 

Ok, so the pizza window is just a walk up and order type place (there aren't any drive thru's, but if there were it'd be for bikes anyway). We walked up and asked the guy if he spoke English (although as we have recently found out, we've not been saying that correctly at all ..."beszel angolul?" means "do you speak English?" What we've been saying is "beszelek angol?" which means "I speak English?" So that means that everytime we have asked a Hungarian if they speak English we've really been asking "I speak English?" in Hungarian. That explains a lot of the queer looks we've been getting...not all, just most.) Anyway, the guy kind of told us to wait a minute and went and found the only English speaker in the place who came and took our order. Here's how that conversation went:

Him: How many people for this is?

Us: Two

Him: You want then a 30 centimeter?

Us: No, bigger

Him: Um, big is for 8 person

Us: Yes, that's what we want.

We walked home a half hour later with a pizza that was wider than the sidewalk...but it lasted all weekend! 

The next time, I ordered a half cheese and salami pizza (for Meliss) and half everything. Mental note, do not EVER order a pizza with everything in a foreign country. Nuff said.

And on to the blog...

-------------------------------------------------------------

We knew that Gyula had a castle but we purposefully avoided it for a few months because our daily lives were so different it was enough. By October, we decided it was time to go check it out. We were still living in Sarkad so we took the bus to Gyula and then walked down towards the castle grounds. Along the way we bummed around and took some pictures of Gyula itself.

Here's a nice one of a church in Gyula

Still teaching the classics, I see...

And the weather on this crisp Autumn Day...

That's right, Kilometers and Celsius

By the way, it just got all the way up to 14 degrees C today (March 1st) so we have officially survived our 1st Hungarian winter. 

From the bus station to the castle is a good, long walk and what with the picture taking and stuff we decided to stop in for lunch at a place along the way. We walked in and the place was packed, which is a rarity anywhere in Hungary from what we've seen and then all of this stuff was happening...

By the way, we made sure to ask the waiter before taking these pictures if it would be ok and he gave us the go ahead, so we did (thanks to our phrasebook--but we didn't really ask "can we take a picture?" -- we said the Hungarian word for "picture" in a questioning fashion and made the international sign for a camera, then said "igen?" So, basically we said, "picture? yes?").  

The above is probably a lot like what happens when my parents and their friends go out to eat in Florida so that made us feel good.

Now, we quickly surmised that there were actually two parties going on here. The group in the other room was some anniversary (we think) and the group in our room was a birthday party. The dancing in the other room was pretty awesome but so was the most dangerous birthday cake candle ever.

Pretty neat -- except now Meliss wants one of these for all of her b-day cakes. 

We don't know if these people were scattering because they were getting ready to sing or if they were in fear for their lives. Either way, we enjoyed the festivities whilst splitting our chicken salad...

Afterwards, we looked up how to say Happy Birthday (Boldog Szuletesnapot), paid our bill, wished the man of honor a happy b-day (they were very gracious about our pronunciation), and headed out to the castle. 

We had just got out the door a few steps when we heard someone yelling at us from the restaurant. Well, we heard somebody yelling...then realized it was in English...then realized that it might be directed at us. We turned around to find the younger couple that were sitting at the table calling for us to come back. We walked up to them and the guy asked us (in broken, but good enough English) to come in for a piece of cake. We told them thank you but that should be for family...but they insisted and so back in we went. 

We had our piece of cake (Meliss didn't like it so I had two pieces of cake since we thought it would be rude if we didn't finish it...but I liked it so that was easy). 

This was them - b-day boy in the middle left

After we took this picture, they asked us to get in a picture with them, so we did. That means that some (extremely nice) random Hungarian family has a birthday picture with the two dumbass Americans in it. 


Plus, we just thought we'd stand behind them for the picture but the lady in front "asked" Meliss to sit with her (on the same chair). As soon as they took the picture the lady behind her asked us, in very good English, "So, where are you from?" We felt like morons...but that was about the extent of her English so it wasn't that bad. We said our goodbyes after a bit, thanked them profusely and headed to the castle.


The castle sits in the middle of a big park. The thermal baths are in this same park complex area as well. We don't know what this signs says (hell, we can't even pronounce any of the words) -- we assume it says something about a castle and thermal baths ahead.

Trolley at the entrance of the park -- the castle is just to the left and the baths are straight ahead on the right

The castle was originally built in the 1400's and is now the oldest surviving original brick castle in Europe...or something very close to that.  It seems castles in Europe are a lot like baseball stats -- y'know like such and such a player is the best hitter in baseball...on tuesdays...at night...on the road, etc. 

Plus, Gyula Castle is only able to say "oldest surviving original brick" because when the Turks invaded in the 1500's -- the people tore the castle down brick by brick, hid them, and then rebuilt the castle after the Turks had been ousted. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a castle/fortress if you're just gonna tear it down when somebody invades...but I guess they had their reasons. Anyway, it is a small castle with a pond that was part of the moat right nearby, so it made for some nice pictures. 

The sky was angry that day, my friend

Maxfield, do you see anything interesting in this pic? 

The castle keep

Don't know who this guy is...what's the rule with feet up/feet down/boots on?

Torture rooms start on the left

And into the castle...

Having already been to the castle in Eger, we decided to just go to the highest point first once we got inside and work our way down.  The first level brought us out onto the walls surrounding the castle. From there we had to make our way around to the tower itself.

Us with the tower behind us

Looking down into the castle -- those spikes look dangerous but I think they are just to keep pigeons away

Halfway across

Looking down from the other side

And looking out from the castle walls before heading up the tower

Once inside the tower, we had to start climbing. We didn't think it looked that big but spiral staircases spend a lot of time going sideways and not a whole lot of time going up...so there were several flights of these.

For Sarah, Downward Spiral?

But we finally made it

The tower wasn't very large but from the top we could really see just about everything. The following are pics from each side of the tower -- one of them looks into Romania. Supposedly, on a clear day one can see  the mountains off in the distance.

From where we walked in...

Down into the castle...overlooking Gyula...possibly towards Romania...I can't tell

After a long "discussion" about which direction Romania was, we went to check out the rest of the castle. Basically, the rooms of the castle were set up in a rectangle on two levels surrounding the inner courtyard.  One side seemed to be the living quarters and workrooms (they had pamphlets in each but only in Hungarian...and sometimes German). 

Not a lot to say about this stuff

This was the lord of the castle's bed...they must have been tiny people back then

Giant piggy bank

I told Meliss that if this started swinging on its own we were leaving

The second floor on this side was more of the same...

A look down into the chapel

As we turned the corner we finally hit some stuff that interested us...mainly the armory and torture chambers...

Not the most imposing of poses...

Especially when you aren't any bigger than me.

The following are pics of the weapons used to both defend and attack the castle...I am not claiming that they are in any chronological order.

Swords found on site

So the weapons were pretty cool (the display in Eger Castle was much more extensive though -- but they didn't allow pictures).  This castle isn't very big and a good third of it is devoted to prisons, torture, and executions.

From the bottom left to about where those folks are standing at the far end were all torture rooms...and a bakery

Ah, I wish...

The idiot's guide to torture.
One would think it'd be obvious what all of these devices are for ---
but there were some of which we just weren't too sure.

Guesses? 

I think we could figure this one out

Gadzooks!

Ooof

Double oof. This should have been hanging in that Romanian church

The standing rack -- arms behind your back and then pull up.

Blurry cause I took it -- Meliss says she wants to get a rack to just stretch a little.
Yep, I think I would help out with that.

Or, you could skip all the stretching and just go straight to the spiked rack

How much would you give to go out this way vs that hanging hook or wheel of death?

Or this way...

I hope they had their tetanus shots, though.

Thumbscrews

The ol' ball and chain

Literally

And to burn them alive

Ok, that's not true. But this is the first room you get to after all the torture stuff and it takes a second to climb back out of that mindset. This is just for cooking...or is it?????

Ok, it is.

Bacon drying

And sausages

Meliss wants to get these plates when we get back home

We walked around a bit more and we both tried on a replica helmet and held a sword.  Both were heavy...but not as heavy as I thought they would be, if that makes sense. Still, I wouldn't want to walk around all day wearing a suit of armor. 

I'm no sword-ologist but I'm pretty sure this is the correct form.

Meliss really wanted our picture in this (she loves these things) but we couldn't find anyone to take our picture.
And we totally would have switched roles and it would have been hilarious. Oh well.

We did get this picture though...

The castle is only part of this park though -- just a bit down the street are the Castle Baths. We have not been there yet. People here swear by their medicinal value and whatnot. It is on our agenda for the future and we will report back.  

Until then, here is some guy leaving the bath.

And yes, Meliss was scared to take this guy's picture so I had to go sit and pretend we were taking a picture of me... because it's such a scenic spot and all. I am sure this guy had no idea what we were doing. 

He was just going to his car to get a sandwich. Castle in the background.

Meliss and I were just talking yesterday about how we are starting to get used to stuff like this. We have to force ourselves to notice how strange it is to see like 35 bikes on the sidewalk and road every morning...or horse carts (yes, Gyula has a few as well) clomping thru town...or those Trabant Soviet era cars that are still everywhere.  Anyway, that's it for the castle day.

Next up: Kolbasz Festival in Bekescsaba.