Eger: The highly acclaimed Hungarian town that fell short

When in Budapest, our hostel attendants could not stop raving about how beautiful Eger was; that it has an amazing old town as well as a castle that manage to hold off the Turks that is still standing, etc.

In reality, it is a relatively small town, with a pretty but relatively unimpressive old town, Europe’s northernmost, but slightly unimpressive minaret, and the remains of an old unimpressive castle. So, just in case anyone still has not caught on, I found Eger to be just a bit unimpressive.

Maybe I’m simply getting jaded by all the old towns and old squares. They all begin to look the same and you begin to compare them to one another, not just within an individual country, but also between the countries. And some places are simply hard to compete with, whether it would be Ljubljana, Split or even Sarajevo.

Maybe the weather had something to do with it as well. It was a bit rainy, quit windy and slightly chilly. This all resulted in a town that was virtually deserted. The cafes were empty, there were few people on the streets and there simply was a lack of any kind of atmosphere.

But there was the most quintessential element: a drive through McDonald’s window in a pedestrian only zone. As per Rob, these are designed for the Segue’s (those two wheel little scooters). According to me, that is the epitome of healthy living: not only are you too lazy to walk, but you are also too lazy to actually go into the McDonald’s.