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While waiting to leave Sopron, at the train station I noticed they had one of these old arrivals and departures boards that made the, "clack, clack, clack" bit every time it updated the trains coming and going. It made me a bit melancholy as I love these boards, despite having no understanding as to how they actually work. Quickly, they're being being replaced everywhere with the digital systems, which are admittedly more efficient and quiet. But with these swerve in to modernity, we're losing a piece of travel history that I for one really liked.       Maybe it's an Old World sense that they imbue or maybe it's how the clacking of the board matched the clacking of the rails so well, but they just fit in with what I always envision travel to be. But, the times are changing and I suppose it is one less noise that we are leaving in the analog/digital hybrid that was the 20th century. But we can't be without sound though, as we are replacing the clacking of these boards with the beeping, ringing, and shouting of the mobile phone at the station. It is disharmony to say the least.

The one thing that immediately stuck out in Sopron was the vast jungle of dentist offices everywhere. I mean, even the apartment we were staying in was on top of a dental office. It was a bit weird, but not as weird as being on top of the plastic surgery clinic in Brno.       So what gives? Well, Sopron sits on a peninsula of Hungarian territory that juts in to Austria so much like San Francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, Sopron is surrounded on three sides by Austria. This made things no fun for them in WWII. The other big thing is that Hungary is still on the Forint and Austria is on the Euro. Because of this, the exchange rate is very much in favor of the Austrians and thusly, they all cross the border to get dental work done. Apparently it's somewhere around half price.       This is not really anything new. The British have been doing this in Zagreb, Croatia for some time now where even the cost of flight and hotel makes taking the trip to the Balkans a good value.       The end result are all the dental offices we saw, as well as other therapeutic services. Once we figured it out though, we did realize that the vast majority of "tourists" we saw in town were actually cheap Austrians on day trips. As for real tourists like us, there were quite few, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed Sopron a great deal.

As far as small, enjoyable towns go, Sopron (pronounced Show-prone) has to be one of the more enjoyable places I've visited in quite some time. Having just come from Brno, the immediate reaction would be to compare it to that town, but that would be a misnomer as Sopron is quite different. In size, it's a town of about 70,000, which makes it closer to other cities I've visited like Varaždin than a place like Brno.       It's history dates back to Roman times (and I mean, what in the southern half of Europe doesn't seem to date back to Roman times, huh?) and it was in about the 12th century where the town became more important when they built the Fire Tower that stands at the top of the old town. In 1921, they earned their status as the "most loyal Hungarian town" when, as they were technically part of Austria, in a referendum, 65% of the residents voted to be with Hungary. We knew that before we went there and already liked them for this fact.       The history and nationality issues show in the town. It's a lovely old town that is easily walked in a day or so if one is to meander the scattered bits of the old wall as well as go to the top of the fire tower, which give a great and revealingly solitary view of the town. As for interaction with the residents, if you don't speak Hungarian or German, things get a bit dicey. On more than one occasion when we asked if someone spoke English, they would say what they had just said in German, again, but in a much slower German that to some degree actually worked to get the point across.       Once done with the old town, we discovered that there are a few more nooks and crannies to the town as well. When you go up above the "top" of the old town there is a neighborhood with curious houses, wandering streets, and an church. If you're lucky like we were, you'll see a flock of Japanese tourists there with you, photographing like mad. All in all, various parts of the town reminded me a great deal of the hills about Sarajevo although "hills" are an exaggeration since the landscape is mild and rolling.       The landscape of the area is quite good for one big thing though, which is wine growing. That would be the main reason I'd recommend for anyone to stay longer than a day. There does happen to be a good wine bar at the top of the old town where you can sample just about everything that the region has to offer. But of course, the best thing to do is to see the wineries themselves and if one is a red wine lover, one is in luck as that's about all they grow in these region. They can't really grow whites due to the Tokaji region in the east domination that market. We managed to pop in a visit to Pfneiszl who are a couple of sisters from a winemaking family that are doing some great things with 27 hectares (67 acres in metric-so-scary-land) of vineyards their family got back from Hungary after de-collectivization. This I'll write about more on Blue Danube where I do most wine writings these days.       So to sum up: Sopron good, guidebooks don't sell it enough, not a lot of tourists, good food, good wine, quiet, and good train connections to Vienna and Budapest. If you're in the area, check it out. Just bring your German language with you.

At the moment, #1 Fan and are I are working on planning a little trip to Hungary after a little trip to the Czech Republic at the end of June. She has already visited Prague and Budapest, so this is a revisiting for her, but a new trip for me. The one place that is new to both of us, is Sopron.       I know little about the town except what is written in my guidebook I checked out from the library that has since expired (yeah, I know you can renew online, but some other cheap bugger reserved it, so I'm losing $4 on this deal). It seems nice, quaint, and most importantly, surrounded by some of the best vineyards in Hungary and Austria. These are always the ingredients for a good trip in Europe for us. It seems that the only downside to Sopron is what appears to be mafia control of online hotel bookings.       I tried two hotels at first: Jégverem and then a few days later, Palatinus. I got a reply from Jégverem first, which was that they were full and that they could offer me another at 50€ a night, which was a wee tad expensive for a small room in a small town. Then I heard back from Palatinus which also told me that they were full, but there was this 'other' hotel that I could try for again, 50€. I didn't think anything of this until I realized that these were the same hotels I was being referred to. Looking closer, I saw that the email for them was from the same guy, Németh Kornél or more likely, Kornél Németh as the Hungarians always put the family name first.       I have no idea who this guy is, but he seemed hell-bent on having people reserve at this other hotel, which while a decent price, isn't that well priced and pretty much eliminates ones choice when booking a hotel. Now, if you actually call the hotels, things are a bit different. The first was indeed booked, but the second wasn't and we were able to book a room, although it wasn't that cheap in the end, so we canceled it in favor of another hotel that wasn't routed to the hospitality brokerage of the Németh family.       All of this makes me wonder what's going on in Sopron with hotels and how this small town manages to have a good number of its hotels managed by this one guy. I guess I will shortly be finding out what is going on, although I'm guessing we'll be too busy bouncing around the grape lands to really care in the end.