When I opened the gate, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I looked down at my feet, but I wasn’t wearing Dorothy’s red slippers. It was my worn blue sneakers, slightly worse for wear because in all the excitement I forgot to change into the carefully packed hiking boots.
But that’s how it goes when, after three years, you finally get a break.
You wake at dawn to reach the foot of Nagy-Eged Hill on time, finally climbing to the top at your own pace, quietly scolding yourself for using the elliptical trainer as a clothes rack for months. Before closing time, you stop at Házisárkány and chuckle to yourself that while they haven’t named a street or library after you, at least there’s a restaurant. Like a child saving the best bite for last, you postpone the day’s most anticipated moment. Before that, you sneak into Marján for a “frog dessert” – something you can’t miss when in Eger. As little as you can skip the Bolyki wines, each bottle proof that they’ve somehow captured a whole circus in liquid form. Then the moment comes. You gather your strength. Time for the hill! In Kőporos, the orderly rows of budding vines greet you. As the asphalt disappears beneath your feet, the weight also starts to lift from your soul. I ascend. When Waze announces that my destination is on the left, I spot the curious hosts too. From under their shaggy alpaca hairstyles, huge warm brown eyes stare at me, and after the gate swings open, a little lamb trots up to announce with a cheerful “baaaa” that I’ve truly arrived.
It’s then that I notice the winding path behind the gate, starting next to the alpacas’ spacious paddock and meandering among blossoming fruit trees toward our evening home. I write stories, but walking along the wooden plank path, I feel as though the story is writing me. The sun is already preparing for bed, bathing the house and the view in the most romantic light. If I saw this in a photo, I would silently congratulate the marketing team. But here, there is no filter, no Photoshop. With the excitement of a child waiting for Christmas, I punch in the code at the door and explore the tiny house.
Until now, I had only seen such places in pictures – a friend of mine is an avid tiny-house fan, and I’ll admit, I’ve been generous with the heart emojis on his posts. But now I’m inside the picture, and my heart races like it did long ago when I first knew for certain that I was in love. A lucky few know the feeling of someone being exactly the same in real life as in photos. After weeks or months of messages, the person you meet turns out to be truly attentive, charming, entertaining – and the chemistry is there from the very first date.
Travel is one of my passions, so I confess, I can be picky. But here, everything clicks. Everything is here. Carefully chosen, generously and lovingly prepared. I feel as if I was awaited, as if they are genuinely glad we arrived. Because I wasn’t alone. This was a little romantic getaway. Something I believe should be prescribed to every parent – two days in a cozy nest, created entirely so you can reconnect with each other, with yourself, with that sense of joy lost in everyday rush. Sitting on the terrace, watching the sun paint the Mátra mountains red. Relaxing in the jacuzzi, guessing which silhouette is the castle, which one the basilica, the minaret. Wondering what it would be like to reread The Stars of Eger here, not for one night but a week – or even forever – in the company of Stangli, the neighbor’s cat, who curls at your feet with the ease of an old friend.
For a light dinner you brought along, jazz hums from a Marshall speaker, pleasing even your sound-engineer husband, who is picky about acoustics. Finally! When your eyes are full of the view, and the jacuzzi and spacious shower have washed away all the tension, it’s time for bed. I had never slept in a bed with a 180-degree panorama over the sleeping city below. If it hadn’t been for my husband insisting we try the high-tech movie setup, I could have spent hours just watching Eger’s twinkling lights. The screen rolled down at the touch of a button, the film cast its spell, and so did the night – I slept like a baby.
If only every accommodation paid this much attention to the mattress and bedding! I would have stuffed it all in the trunk if I could. But then… where would I long to return to ever since? Just like Anne Shirley to Green Gables, where everything feels so magical, as if it was born in a writer’s imagination.
