Virgil and Alice's Excellent Adventures: September 2014

We went to Nyiregyhaza one day to learn how to do Kezi munka (hand work) There is a lady in Sister Jensen's branch who does beautiful work. In the picture are the young sisters serving in Nyiregyhaza, Clara is the middle who was teaching us and in the back with me.is Sister Jensen. This is Sister Jensen's house were they live. It's beautiful!

A couple of pieces of her beautiful work.

OUR LITTLE JAUNT

There was one more city we wanted to see in Hungary before we left. Pecs is supposed to be the prettiest city in Hungary. So we got permission to spend the night because it is quite a distance. It really is a beautiful city. It is well-kept and has beautiful old buildings and pedestrian streets.

This mosque was built at the time of the Turkish invasion. It has since been turned into a catholic church. It seems everywhere we've been the major attraction is being renovated--and it was. We couldn't go inside but there were still lots of beautiful things to see.

We met up with the Pecs elders for lunch Elder Nyman's greenie area was Debrecen--we "gave birth" to him and we've kept track of him over the last year. Luckily he is now serving in Pecs so we got to visit with him and his companions. They are standing in front of the beautiful theater.

Lunch--for an appetizer we had cold pear soup with caramelized cherries. Yum! They make the best cold soups in Hungary.

The elders are standing in front of the branch building. Most of the branches in Hungary meet in an office-type space. We are fortunate in Debrecen to have a beautiful little branch house.

This is an old pharmacy that is now a gift shop and it had the most beautiful wood cabinets.

I don't go anywhere without my Rick Steve's book. It's my travel bible. The beautiful building in the background is the city building.

This is in the inside of a hotel that has secessionist architecture. It's all over Hungary.

The man that drives this little train is an inactive member. He told the elders he would give us a free ride and we took him up on it. It's about a 45 minute train ride and goes all over town to the main attractions.

This is a corner covered with locks. It is similar to that bridge in Paris that couples write or engrave their names on a lock and throw the key into the river--same idea here except no river.

A huge cathedral in Pecs. Inside it is completely covered with paint with ornate designs--really beautiful.

In the baement of the cathedral.

Saturday morning we went to Tettye--a park overlooking the city. On top is a statue of Christ.

Pecs has a huge TV tower that is very visible from all over. We went to the top in an elevator and we could see forever.

PALKONYA
The 2nd day of our excursion we went to the small village of Palkonya. Debbie Hafen said if we ever got to Pecs we needed to go to Palkonya because that is where Katilin, her daughter-in-law is from and her mother and brother still live there. Small villages are my favorite thing so of course we went.
They were awfully nice to us. They didn't speak English and we don't speak Hungarian but with a little help from Tyler and Katilin through Skype and a couple of other English speakers that were there, we got along fine.

This is inside their very picturesque round catholilc church.

The priests robes/

The bell tower on the backside. It was noon when we were there and the ball rang for a long time.

Palkonya is a wine-making village. It was harvest time when we were there and we saw how they squeeze out the juice. The machine below has a big vise in it that squishes the grapes and the juice runs out below and is pumped into barrels.