Horsey Hungarian Adventure

After spending days on google searching for a holiday destination (a last opportunity to travel before I start working again in September) I came across a website about a horse riding holiday in Hungary. So last week I found myself in a village called Paradsasvar in the Matra Hills, about an hour and a half north east of Budapest. I stayed in a guesthouse in the middle of a forest clearing, and for the first three days of my trip, I had afternoon horseriding sessions organised by the the ranch (Fenyes Major Equestrian Centre) next to the guesthouse. We rode through the forest, fields and plains...no words can adequately describe the scenery, it really was special. Some guests described riding through the forest as scenery similar to Narnia, although I haven't seen the film myself. Personally, the forest riding scene in 'House of Flying Daggers' came to my mind. Anyway, when the late afternoon sun shone through the forest and the leaves started to glow with an almost magical translucent green, it was surreal. Riding through the plains with views of the Matra and Bukk Hills was great and cantering through fields was definitely exhilarating.

Of course, there's the harder stuff as well with horse riding, like the sore muscles afterward, huffing and puffing away (a sure sign of my lack of fitness) during the trotting sessions, holding on and keeping balance when the horse freaked out a bit and jumped around, and stinking like insect repellant to avoid the flies, mozzies and ticks.

The ranch itself is almost worthy of a separate blog posting. It was like a mini-farm with pigs, goats, horses, bulls, roosters and dogs in need of a good shampoo (their coats were so long and combined with all the dirt they had developed natural dreadlocks).

Unfortunately, the husband didn't come along on this trip. No, we're not having marital problems, the truth is that apart from work commitments, Mr Cessy is also allergic to horses and the last time I made him go riding with me, he sneezed the whole way!

Sorry, only have photos of the guesthouse and the view from the room balcony. Was too tricky riding and taking photos at the same time.