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| Dobo Square in Eger. |
Day 9 (Saturday, September 13th, 2008)
I was woken up on the overnight train around 7:30 in the morning when one of the attendants brought me my rail pass. I finally reached the station in Budapest around 8:45. Once off the train, I had to find the nearest departure board to determine from which platform the 9:05 departure to Eger would be leaving from. The board listed the train as leaving 10 minutes earlier, so I ran to the train as I thought I only had a few minutes. However, when I approached the train I realized that it was still leaving at 9:05, so thankfully I had several extra minutes to spare.
The train ride to Eger took about two hours. From the tiny train station, I took a taxi into the center of town as I didn’t feel like walking the 20 minutes with my own two feet. I checked into my hotel,
Offi Haz which was located in the picturesque and quaint
Little Dobo Square. My room was located on the third floor of the building in a decently sized room that contained an internet cable and a small refrigerator.
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| My room at Offi Haz in Eger. |
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| Offi Haz in Eger. |
After dropping my bags off and freshening up from the long train ride, I walked into town. I was thoroughly impressed with the small town of Eger; the city was filled with beautifully preserved baroque architecture, clean streets, and many different types of cafes and restaurants to choose from.
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| Statue in Eger. |
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| Eger |
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| Eger |
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| Eger |
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| Eger |
I stopped in for a quick lunch of a sandwich and a slice of cake at a place called Radi Bisztro. My meal cost about $3 for both items!
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| Cake from Radi Bisztro in Eger. |
My first stop of the day was at the
Lyceum, which is a university that was built in the mid-18th century and is still in use today, with current enrollment around 2000 students. The school is best known for its 20,000 volume library and the
Astronomical Museum, which contains the famous camera obscura. Within the museum, I visited an interactive exhibit that allowed visitors to try out several different scientific experiments such as using air pressure to make a small ball levitate. Afterward, I walked up several flights of stairs to the outdoor terrace which provided panoramic views of the entire city of Eger and its beautiful surroundings. Next, I walked up the final flight of stairs to the darkroom containing the camera obscura. It's difficult for me to explain how this piece of equipment worked (you might want to Google it) but basically, a guide moved several levers around in the room, which would then project live images from the streets of Eger on a large table in the middle of the room. It was quite fascinating and interesting to watch, but I wondered what people would have thought of the apparatus over 200 years ago when it was first created. It probably seemed unreal and maybe even like magic to some!
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| Lyceum in Eger. |
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| Lyceum in Eger. |
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| Lyceum in Eger. |
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| Lyceum in Eger. |
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| View of Eger Cathedral from the Lyceum in Eger. |
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| View of Eger from the outdoor terrace at the Lyceum. |
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| View of Eger from the outdoor terrace at the Lyceum. |
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| View of Eger from the outdoor terrace at the Lyceum. |
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| View of Eger Cathedral from the Lyceum in Eger. |
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| View of Eger from the outdoor terrace at the Lyceum. |
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