Hollókő

My journey to Hollókő, or: the day Emily came face to face with just how little Hungarian she knows.

Hollókő is small, and not easy to get to. For those attempting to use public transportation, it can be done (I did it!). But you must get to the VolanBusz station by 8, because this is the only bus that will take you there. There is a complicated train route, but it involves a bus/train/taxi combination, while this is a much easier direct route. There is also only one bus back to Budapest (the website alleges that there are twoat 15:00 and one leaving at 16:00... FALSE). It leaves at 16:00. This becomes a factor when what starts out as a seemingly gorgeous day suddenly turns into a biblical storm, but you have gone inside all of the shops and random museums Hollókő has to offer and you realize you still have an hour more than you realized to kill. My recommendation: while walking into the village you pass a big cafe (free public bathrooms in the back, FYI) that makes very nice lattes and which may have the only English-speaking residents of Hollókő working inside. It also has wi-fi. Just saying.

Okay, so anyway! According to a 2001 census, Hollókő (which means "raven stone", I believe, in Hungarian), is considered an ethnographic village and has preserved the layout and many of the buildings from its original incarnation in the 13th century (although obviously many have had to be rebuilt or restored along the way). It has about 390 residents. ITWhich is obvious once your rickety old bus rolls up on this village (not town, VILLAGE). It's tiny. But there is enough to do to justify the 2.5 hour bus ride both ways, there is a fantastic old castle up on the hill above the village, complete with creepy mannequins dressed in medieval garb and great views of the rolling Cserhát Mountains, there's a nice walking path/forest area behind the village which I recommend exploring because even though the bus drops most of the days' tourists off at 10:30 in the morning, none of the shops are really open yet, and there is the village itself, which has  interesting shops, traditional restaurants, some very terrifying and some very banal museums. I hit up two museums, the castle, took a walk, entered most of the shops, ate some lángos, bought some postcards and some souvenirs for the fam, had a coffee, wandered up away from the oldest part of the village to take a look at the cemetery, and still had time to stand around waiting for the bus back. 5.5 hours is plenty of time.

Take note of how the sky looks here at the beginning of the day, when I'd just gotten off the bus and am wandering around, and then later, when I've returned from my walk up to the castle.

Beautiful morning (except for that stupid car and the stupid construction guys working on the stupid roads! Stupid public works!) but no shops were open, so I found a road behind the village and decided to try my luck.

This was, at one time, a picnic area. It seems.

Clouds in the distance? They won't trouble me, surely!

Idyllic.

Ahoy! A castle. I tried for a little while to climb up this hill and approach the castle that way before I realized I was, like, deep in tick territory and decided to just go around and use the stairs/trail up to the castle like everyone else.

Sighted!

Fun fact; műemlék means monument. I learned that because after seeing about two dozen times every I went in Budapest I finally thought to look up the word in my English-Hungarian dictionary. Handy!

Beautiful rolling hills. Is that a dark cloud rolling by? It'll pass. Surely.

Some history on the műemlék.

Oh... okay. This room was walled off by a SERIOUS wooden and metal gate, even though (and I cannot be sure of this) I have a strong suspicion that these clothes are not ACTUALLY from the era of this castle but are instead merely reproductions. Again, I cannot be sure, it's just something about the felt-like appearance of the head coverings that leads me to posit this.

Gah, alright Hollókő castle! Enough with the creepy medieval dummies everywhere!!

The chapel.

Castle selfie? Also, I lost one of these earrings at some point during the day. I got them during my travels in Chile, they are the copihue flower (Chile's national flower), and I am STILL a little upset about losing one. I loved those earrings. Rabble rabble.

King of the castle.

Um, was that thunder? No. No. Just... a very big truck. Out here. In the forest.

Climbing back down in the village... okay, no. That was definitely thunder.

Cool broom collection, bro!

Uhhh...

Baszd.

Okay, fine, I'll hide out in this creepy baby doll museum for a little bit (student admission costs about $1) and hopefully the storm will pass...

Oh. My. God.

What have I done.

(Clearly a female doll with a mustache pasted on.) 

My name is Talky Tina and I don't think I like you. 

My name is Talky Tina and I think I could even hate you.

My name is Talky Tina... and you'll be sorry!

My name is Talky Tina and I'm beginning to hate you.

My name is Talky Tina and I'm going to kill you.

  

Come play with us....

 

For ever and ever and ever...

What exactly is happening here? Doll face lift gone wrong? Burn victim? Elastigirl? What's wrong with your hands?!  What's wrong with your face??

This was my hell. Fucking dolls. Shudder. By the time I finished this ordeal it was still raining so I went into a few other shops and then visited the Posta museum. Honestly, unless you've got a raging, uncontrollable love for the history of postal services that place was not worth the very, very cheap admission. It's just one room with like, an old Posta uniform, some posters, a printout information packet (all of the plaques are in Hungarian) and some photos of letters/postage stamps. You'd be better off just reading the Wiki page on it.

After the trauma of the Baba museum and the boredom of the Posta museum the storm had passed, so I walked around and checked out a few more of the old houses and shops within (all the Hungarikum crafts you could want you can find here!). There's a nice market in the entrance to the village as well, with some different candy/food options and some toys for kids, if that's what you're looking for.

Tiny, tiny chapel.

I ended by walking up to the cemetery (it was closed, but there was this interesting alter set up at what seemed to be just a normal house across the street) and then got some coffee, and that was that! All in all, an enjoyable if slightly nightmare-inducing day.