The walk to the ceremony
Hungarians Never Stop!
I had the great privilege to be invited to a ship friend’s wedding in Transilvania so of course I went. Michael and I split up in Budapest on Tuesday, he flying to Barcelona to the ship, and I flying to Tirgu Mures in Romania. This area of Romania is 50-75% Hungarian as is the bride who grew up in the area.
I was hosted to two nights at their new house which is a long term renovation project. The amount of work that’s been done is incredible. I had heard about the progress for some time and was very pleased to finally see it, live and in person. It sits among many small farms so the scenery is pastoral
Rural Romania
and calming except for the d–n dove that woke me up 5am every morning. Had I a gun, it would be lying legs up in the yard.
each day the guest list grew until there were 26 staying in or around the house camping. Meal time was a blast with conversations in Italian, Dutch, Hungarian and me in the middle. Lots of laughing, eating and drinking. What better testimony that people who have never met can become friends over a meal. Maybe we should feed the Syrians and see what happens.
Thursday the caravan drove about 6 hours from the house to a small mountain village called Boros Patak. Our home for the next three nights was a grouping if small cabins with one, two or three rooms
My accommodations at the top of the hill
and a bath grouped up the mountainside. I tell you I felt like an old Heidi when I climbed up one afternoon to find two goats by my front porch. The gentleman who Built the place collected all these little buildings from the area, broke them down and rebuilt them on the mountain. It has several public buildings where the wedding ceremony and reception were held for around 100 friends and family.
The day before the wedding my new friend Avril and I took a walk to the next village and after 7+ miles returned sore feet but a good sense of accomplishment and some fruit for lunch.
Shopping for melons in Borospatak
The day of the wedding we were assigned to put the floral centerpieces together WCC we did in an underground Hobbit type wine cellar where it was quite cool, a welcome relief from the 80 degree day. And I would like to say we did an admirable job as well.
Just before 3pm the horn blew summoning all to the bride’s house to hear the groom answer several questions from the bride’s sisters. Fortunately, he answered correctly and was given the bride by her mother who gave a lovely speech about her new son in law. From there we all walked down the mountain to where they became legal before the deputy mayor. They are such a lovely couple, happy tears were shed.
Drinks and snacks started here. At 5pm the first course, a mouth watering antipasti, was served. Then the progression of eating/smoking/dancing began. 7 pm soup, dancing, 9:30 pm meat and veg course, dancing, sweets table set out to snack on, dancing, midnight wedding cake served, dancing, cabbage rolls, dancing and around 1pm I bailed. The rest of the crowd were eating and dancing until 4-5am. Did I mention alcohol was part of this celebration? Definitely the best and longest wedding I’ve attended.
Wedding ceremony
Sunday was time to leave for me so we had a 5 hour drive to Bucharest so I could fly to Nice to pick up the ship today in Monaco. However, a tornado blew through town and the ship left 3 of us on shore so I am currently on an 11 hour train journey to Livorno to meet the ship tomorrow. Subject for another post.
Moral of the story? If invited to a Hungarian wedding in Transilvania, accept, but be sure to bring your dancing shoes. All the best to the lovely couple.
Living in an Inside Cabin 