Regec

A real castle - and a very cold day, about minus 2.

Some snacks for the walk would have been great, but the village store was the social hub and no one was in any hurry to shop. Too much to talk about, including these two strangers looking for Kerekes. The daylight hours were too short to waste so we went on our way.

The uphill climb was broken with spells of jumping on the frozen puddles to break the ice, and skating on those that would not yield.

We climbed the mountain from a small village, through oak forest and after exploring the castle went down the other side to Regec. Both of these two villages are more prosperous and cater for tourists.

The castle is slowly being restored, faithfully, to original plans of 1293. The view is amazing. Original settlers in Hungary lived in towns, but one of the kings realised how vulnerable they were and in the 13th century embarked on a scheme to settle outlying areas and building castles as lookouts, so that prospective invaders could be detected. All the castles were built on rocky outcrops, and it must have been a mission getting all that rock up there.

I'll settle for some central heating. It was cold!