I noticed a packet of cigarettes on the table in that last picture mate.
Is smoking allowed in these indoor venues?
By the way, terrific thread!
I hadn't really noticed as I quit 9 years ago and never got tempted again.
There was defo no smoking in the wee whisky bar or any other bars that I noticed. We went up to the street when my mate smoked a cigar.
I'll just hazard a guess that the staff didn't have much to say about smoking in a hall full of about 700 bikers
I see 3 people smoking in this pic.
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Lang may yer lum reek...
Next morning, Sunday morning, I was feeling a lot better than the day before, amazingly.
Missed breakfast, again.
Pissing down, again.
So we had some food and squared up our bills then got a taxi to Vienna Train Station, where we hired a car. We booked a BMW 1 but apparently cos we turned up 30mins after we booked it the BMW wasn't available and we got a VW T-Cross or something like that. The steering wheel was on the wrong side, and my Mate is Canadian. Boom, designated driver.
We had been told that Siofok at Laka Balatan was like the Hungarian Ibiza. Game on.
It was 250km to Siofok, we had the French MotoGP on, a full tank of gas, 4 bottles of water, a packet of smoked cheese, it was raining and we were wearing sunglasses.
Hit it!
MotoGP, or as good as it gets
Austria has a crazy amount of wind turbines
Would you believe, we crossed over into Hungary right on the last lap of the MotoGP and and lost 4G for about 10 mins before we could find out who won the race.
We stopped at a small cafe type thing in the middle of nowhere somewhere near Gyor. Although we drank plenty Staropramen on this trip, the draught of the month was Saporro. I'm ok with that, I had 2 cos I was starting to feel a bit, well, shite.
Rain...
We thought we were being pulled over when we came to a police bottleneck. Typical, just had a beer. Turned out Someone had stacked their bike under a crash barrier. No sign of the rider and it looked like a steep drop on the other side.
Then we saw a castle on a hill in the distance...
Castle of Csesznek
Csesznek Castle
The Castle of Csesznek lies in the Bakony between Győr and Zirc in the village of Csesznek. The castle was constructed after the Mongol invasion of Europe around 1263 in a period where many castles were built. The first castle was built by Jakab Cseszneky of the Bána clan. The first written mention of the castle is in a document from 1281 that gives Jakab Cseszneky's sons joint ownership of the castle. In 1315 the Csák clan conquered the castle. In 1392 Sigismund gave the castle and 31 surrounding villages to the Garai family. The castle was owned by the Garai family until 1482. Then Matthias Corvinus donated the castle to Stephen Zápolya.
Now, most people with follow the blue line from the car park straight up the road and in the front gate.
Not us.
We find a forest trail (yellow line) which takes forever, it's steep, wet and muddy, I'm rough as guts and I've got new shoes on. This also leads us to the backside of the castle where there's a bloody wall designed to keep idiots like us out. And you can bet your asses we both fell on ours coming down that grassy hill towards the entrance. We were the only people there apart from the gatekeeper woman and she looked at us like we had our underwear on our heads.
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Shit Castle, really.
But hey, I'm not in Scotland now.
Nice day out in the countryside at least. I always wanted to go and see all the castles in Romania. Stunning scenery as well.
Ever been to Blair castle in Scoti?
We used to have raves at Dunnottar Castle.
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Yea nice area around there in general. You have definitely put Aberdeen on my list.
We arrived in Siofok and it was a complete non-event anticlimax.
Like rocking up to the carnivals and it closed down years ago.
Potential horror/slasher film in the making.
With zombies.
Off Season.
Fuck, what we gonna do?
It's an hour to Budapest.
Hit it!
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You could make a movie with this thread Dirk!
Should have vlogged it and moneterised it on YouTube.
I'll through it all into a video at the end.
Brilliant stuff, Dirk. The nacho burger looks the bomb and the trails to enter the castle look hilarious!
To be clear, that was not a trail to enter the castle.
We had also realised at this point (after the short beer stop) that Euro's were not exactly common tender in Hungary.
The gatekeeper huckled us on the way out and we weren't quite sure what was going on. There was a money box in front of her so we figured there was a fee we dodged on the way in.
I think the currency was Forints.
I gave her 5 Euros and she was suddenly pretty happy.
Soaking wet, we threw our hoodies (that was the only garments we had with sleeves) in the back seat and made haste for Siofok.
We saw loads of road accidents in Hungary. Unexplainable ones mostly, including a mangled black Ferrari. Ouch.
Maygar madness
In most nations drink and drive is a no no , like here regardless of the laws it seems a GO GO
I had a few pulls of the Budapest police and traffic wardens, luckily in that era French plates were untraceable so binned the tickets
Great stuff mate spent 4 months at the bank HQ it was Forints (similar to Florentine Florin, Dutch guilder 2 bob etc)
Just checked my memory is working ok
The forint's name comes from the city of Florence, where gold coins called fiorino d'oro were minted from 1252. In Hungary, the florentinus (later forint), also a gold-based currency, was used from 1325 under Charles Robert, with several other countries following Hungary's example
Russia went from being 2nd strongest army in the world to being the 2nd strongest in Ukraine
You're a font of random historical information.
Hmm
No mention of the british ..Florin".
Irish subversiveness ?
Florin (British coin) - Wikipedia
Now cork it !
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I'm Dublin down on what I said, he's a font of useless information!
Fountain, Willy, fountain...
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