Hungary

Hi blog readers

Here I am back after the first beautiful days in Hungary.

Today we heard for the first time in our world trip about Belgium in the radio and television. But our hearts were broken after the sad news that 28 people lost their lives in a tunnel in Switzerland. So our thoughts were in Belgium and especially by the families the last days. After hearing such a news, we’re happy to be together with 3 friends and hopefully making the trip of our lives.

But now something more about the first days in Hungary. The flight from Slovakia was wonderful because we flew over the high mountains who were covered under a blanket of mist. Only the mountain peaks were visible. It really looked like a scene from a wonderful film. Also the plane was very special for us because the first planes to the first countries were commercial planes and now we started from a very small airfield in Slovakia to the Fertőszentmiklós Airport (also a domestic airport) in Hungary.

First of all, we were not very happy with our choice to take a plane for such a short flight because Fertőszentmiklós is located just on the border of Slovakia because it was also possible to take a bus from Slovakia to that place in Hungary, but now we know that small planes as cheap as a bus trip in Hungary, but they are faster. So these small planes we will use 3 times this week.

So now we’re in the North-West of Hungary on the border with Austria and Slovakia. In the small city of Fertőszentmiklós.  The name of the town came from the fusion of two smaller villages called Szentmiklós and Szerdahely. Here we enjoyed  the beautiful nature of this part of the country, so we did some walks in this untouched piece of nature and also some adventure such like an adventure park, kayaking and a nice mountain bike trip in this sloping nature.

Tomorrow, we will start with another small plane to the second domestic airport this week. So our second landing spot will be Nyíregyháza and this small city of 118000 inhabitants is located North-east of Hungary. So completely the other side of the country. This small city is quite close to Debrecen which is the second largest city in Hungary.

Tomorrow, we hope to see the real life in Hungary because today in Fertőszentmiklós we only saw the wonder world of Hungary with the beautiful nature. Of course we already came in contact with the poverty of this country and with some Roma Gypsies, but tomorrow we’re prepared to see the real Hungarian world.

To complete this blog, I’ll give some further information about the Hungarian economy when we are waiting in Slovakia for our next plane to Hungary. Hungary has 9.905.596 inhabitants; 92% of them are Hungarian, 2 % are Roma Gypsies and the other 6 % are unknown, so they no real nationality. This population is decreasing very fast with -1,9% a year.  I also wrote about the poverty, well the annual income per capita in Hungary is 9300 euro. In our regions this income per capita is about 35000 euro. But here, they’re not paid in euro’s, but in Forint. One Forint is about 0,33 Eurocent and this currency is very fluctuating the last years.

So now we will immediately go to bed because the first day was a very active day in nature and we’re all three exhausted!

 Good night everybody and I promise that one of us will write another blog this week about this beautiful country.

Stijn De Wulf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fert%C5%91szentmikl%C3%B3s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_Hungary
http://hungary.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary