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My Travels Abroad

Introduction to my travels abroad.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many experiences to share about my travels abroad. One reason for this was that my husband worked a lot. So there was no time for traveling. Another reason was that he didn’t want to spend the money we earned on this, but tried to live without loans.

Our trips were mostly within the country. We did go to Munich once, and a few times to Czechoslovakia on shopping bus trips.

However, I do have a recent experience among my travels abroad: Prague with the Vig-Village members in May this year.

My travels abroad first time in my life

Poland

It happened more than 50 years ago, so my memories are quite faded. I was 15 when I had a pen pal in Poland. We wrote to each other in English. (There were no computers or phones back then.)

A bundle of old letters tied together with string. Atta's old, handwritten letters.
Real letters instead of instant messaging or email

Warsaw

Once, we decided to visit each other. Three Hungarian high school girls set off for Poland. Or rather, only two, because I couldn’t get on the plane until the next day.

I don’t know what kind of times we lived in back then. Our parents dared to let a 15-year-old girl go out into the big wide world without a phone or any other means of communication? Today, that would be unimaginable.

So my first memory of traveling abroad is flying alone to Warsaw. The others were already waiting for me there. Three Polish and two Hungarian girls. The plan was for everyone to stay with the person they had been corresponding with.

My pen pal (Lidia) lived in a small town near Warsaw. (I think it was called Zielonka.) We traveled back and forth to Warsaw every day from there. The others stayed in the Polish capital.

Of all the programs, the movie Jaws stuck in my memory the most because it was so scary. But it was new at the time and caused a sensation. Another memorable thing, and new to me, was the many nuns walking around Warsaw’s main square.

Two nuns can be seen from behind on the street. They are wearing blue dresses and white headdresses (bonnets).
Nuns

Krakow

We didn’t fly to Hungary, but took the train instead. We planned to stop in Krakow and then Wieliczka. This part of my trip left me with a somewhat strange memory. When I hear the word Krakow, I see brown, wooden things.

A horse-drawn carriage consisting of a brown and white horse, photographed from the front in one of Krakow's ornate squares. The carriage is driven by a man wearing a white cap. There are many people walking around the square.
Horse-drawn carriage in Krakow

But then I looked it up, and that’s not really typical of this city. Perhaps the old stones of the Old Town remained in my memory in “brown” form.

A picture of Krakow's main square. In the foreground is an ornate arcade, through which a brown church with two towers can be seen. Next to it, on the right and left, are multi-story houses. There are people in the square. In several places there are pavilions crowded with people.
Krakow’s main square

Wieliczka

I still remember the name of this strangely named city to this day. Why?However, I don’t know where I stayed for almost a week. But I never forgot the name Wieliczka.

Whenever I heard about salt mining in my life, I immediately associated it with this. The cold and frightening depths of this place remained with me. As they lock us into a lift-like contraption and we descend deeper and deeper.

The entrance to a mine. In the foreground, a low iron gate that opens in two directions. Behind it, a long corridor with wooden beams on the ceiling and wooden pillars on the sides. Dim lighting.
Wieliczka Salt Mine

I brought home a little salt in a minecart, as a souvenir. It’s still somewhere among my belongings.

My travels abroad: visiting relatives

Soviet Union, Carpathian Ruthenia

Beregszász

My trips abroad to Carpathian Ruthenia were for the purpose of visiting relatives. As a teenager, my parents took me there, where my father’s sister-in-law’s relatives lived. I remember a small village with real farmhouses and dirt roads. Everyone spoke Hungarian. From there, they took me to the city of Uzhhorod.

Uzhhorod

One of my relatives lived here, whom I did not know. He also spoke Hungarian. He took me to many places in the city and always talked about history. Then someone advised us to visit Mukachevo.

Mukachevo

Castle, Kurucs, Rákóczi’s War of Independence. These are the things I think of when I hear the name Munkács ( Mukachevo). However, it was not allowed to travel there at that time without a permit. However my parents did not ask for a permit, I heard. All that remained from this trip was a feeling of fear, wondering if we would get away with this trip without being arrested.

But I did see the castle. It was from a distance, but now I can remember it among my tavels abroad.

On the left side of the picture is an ancient, multi-circular part of the castle. On top of one of them is a small tower with a green dome. On the right side is a light-colored two-story old building with a third level in the middle, topped with a tent roof.
Detail of Munkács Castle

Yugoslavia

Subotica, Becej, Mol, Bački Petrovac

My husband’s relatives still live in Vojvodina, in the former Yugoslavia. We visited them when our children were still quite young. The four-hour wait at the border was not easy for them.

The Tisza River was so close that my children could play on its banks. Later, a rooster chased one of them in the relatives’ yard .

Sitting with their backs to the banks of the Tisza, my twin children, aged around 8, are trying to hit the water with reeds. One is wearing a red T-shirt, the other a blue one. The opposite bank is visible in the distance.
Yugoslavia, banks of the Tisza: my children –

my own photo

I think these my travels abroad remained memorable for them as well.

My other travels abroad

Germany

Munich

I would recommend this trip mainly to men. Oktoberfest, Beer Festival. My husband and I were here on one of my rare trips abroad.

It was a 3-day bus trip. We spent 2 nights on the bus. Can you imagine how sore you feel? You don’t know where to put your hands or feet. How can you sleep sitting up, exhausted?

During the day, we wandered around the city a bit. In the evening, we went to the festival. I don’t like beer, but I tried it anyway.

I remember the waiters carrying 5-6 liter beer mugs in both hands, holding them above their heads. It can’t be an easy job.

Then I remember the guests wearing Tyrolean costumes, singing and dancing while drinking beer.

A pavilion decorated with lanterns, filled with people, with a waiter in the foreground. He is holding at least four liter beer mugs in one hand.
Waiter with beer mugs – Oktoberfest


I also have a memory of my husband as we were walking back to our accommodation at night. Someone stopped him on the street and called him by name. They knew each other. Chance brought them together.

But the same thing happened to us on one of our trips to Czechoslovakia.

I asked him, “Do you have acquaintances everywhere? That wouldn’t happen in Australia, would it?

His answer: “I have acquaintances there too.”

Romania

Oradea, Salonta

After the fall of communism, my husband bought an old motorcycle in Oradea, Romania. We found someone who spoke Hungarian to interpret for us during the sale. We also had to go to Salonta to take care of the paperwork. That’s how I got to see the birthplace of János Arany, (.famous Hungarian poet)

I took this photo of the Town Hall in Nagyszalonta during my travels abroad in Romania. It shows a two-story corner building with walls in a combination of grayish blue and white. On the upper floor,
Nagyszalonta Town Hall – my own photo (2005)
Orthodox church in Nagyszalonta, Romania. Three towers, white building with golden domes. Small arched windows all around the upper floor of each tower. Crosses on top of the domes.there is a huge arched window. The building has three decorative triangular structures on top, and in the middle, there is a church tower-like section. On the right side, there is a two-story building with a red exterior.
Orthodox church in Nagyszalonta – my own photo (2005)

Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakia )

Nitra, Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, etc.

I don’t remember who organized the bus trips to Czechoslovakia for shopping (perhaps the pensioners’ club). We went almost every month. Unfortunately, I don’t know when Czechoslovakia still existed and when it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia while we were there.
We bought a lot of things there during that period. Kitchen equipment, technical devices, whatever would fit on the bus. Of course, we also tried to gather some cultural memories. Not much of that has stayed with me.

Donovaly

This wasn’t a shopping trip, but I think it was the same group of people. We went sledding with the kids. There was tons of snow everywhere.

At first, we got lost and couldn’t find the sledding hill. Then the weather started to turn bad. Dark clouds rolled in. But we still managed to go sledding once or twice.

Winter landscape. A small child has just fallen off the sled. He is sitting in the snow next to it, one leg raised toward the sky.
Sliding on a sled, and sometimes on the ground.


Somehow we managed to get home safely, without having to weather the storm.

Štúrovo 

The bridge is visible, photographed slightly from below, from one of the banks. There are four arched iron structures and four bridge piers in the picture.
Slovakia-Štúrovo _Mária Valéria Bridge


My husband and I drove to Štúrovo for a motorcycle fair. It’s near Esztergom, in Slovakia. That’s when the Mária Valéria Bridge reopened. There were lots of very, very old cars there.

In the distance, one of the Basilica's large domes and one small dome can be seen. Most of the building is obscured by trees or shrouded in darkness. Two candelabras are still visible: one is right in the center of the photo, very close by. The other is in the distance. There are many trees in the photo, which obscure a significant part of the building.
Esztergom Basilica photographed from our car –

my own photo

On the way home, I saw the Basilica of Esztergom.

Prague


This is a very recent memory among my travels abroad. In May 2025, I attended a meetup with Vig-Village members in Prague.. It was a great experience to see the other person in person after meeting them in the chat room.
We already knew each other well, but people look a little different on screen. At first, it was difficult to identify the real image. Luckily, the organizers had prepared a board with everyone’s names on it.

I took this photo from a bridge in Prague during my travels abroad. Here you can see the Vltava River with the sights of the Old Town in the background and several boats in the foreground. In the lower left corner of the photo, there is a stone half-barrel lying on its side.
Prague Vltava River – my own photo (2025)


There were more than 40 people there. We visited the sights (the castle, the Jewish quarter). With the help of an English-speaking tour guide, we learned everything important.

In the foreground, a young couple, the young man wearing an orange top. In the background, the dark walls of the cathedral, with thousands of towers, three angular naves, topped with green tent roofs.
Prague-St. Vitus Cathedral-my own photo (2025)

There was a picnic and an opportunity to go on an excursion with a native speaker who lives near Prague. I didn’t go because, due to my heart condition, it was very difficult for me to climb to the top of the hill for the picnic. However, I walked 10 kilometers in the city on flat ground.

I am standing in front of a busy road. Behind me, on the left, a red tram is approaching on the road. In the background is a multi-story ornate building. On top of it are statues and a decorative horse-drawn carriage.
Prague-Theater-my own photo (2025)

On the way home, there was a little excitement because the car broke down between Prague and Brno. We waited 6 hours to be transported home. So the 4-hour trip turned into 12 hours.

Overall, it was an unforgettable experience. I think I’ll also write a separate story about it, as so much happened and I have so many photos.

These days, I can no longer travel abroad because of my heart condition. (I am unable to climb stairs or hills.) That is why I came up with the idea of “Traveling the world from my room,” so that everyone from Vig-Village can share their travel experiences with me.

Did you like the part about My Travels Abroad? Click here and read on to the second part. Here you can find interesting facts about My Travels in Hungary.

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