Pecs, Hungary: Off the Beaten Path

We took the six-hour train ride from Vienna, Austria, to Pecs (pronounced paisch), Hungary, this morning.  When we boarded the train at 6am, we had a nice surprise of mountains of beer and eight half-drunk Austrian fellows in our compartment.  They turned out to be really nice, though, and Janine and I had great fun talking to them until they disembarked near Budapest.  We continued on into the countryside of Southern Hungary, where--I am happy to say--we have finally escaped the tourists!  Notice the lack of them in the picture above...and aside from the waitstaff and our hoteliers, who speak limited English, we haven't actually heard any other languages besides Hungarian and German.  Yay immersion :-)

Pecs is Hungary's fifth biggest city, but it only has 156000 people.  Very small and clean, it has a mix of Christian/Muslim architectural and cultural influences because of its location.  The building are lovely, and there are fountains and gardens everywhere.  We didn't do much exploring today, as we got here in late afternoon and it was very hot, but stay tuned--tomorrow should prove interesting!