After four flights and three train rides, I made it to Sopron, Hungary on May 26fh. If it weren’t for the sweet young man at the Vienna train station, who found the train schedule online for me and helped me buy the ticket, I might not have made it on time to the final train on Friday. I spent Saturday wandering around Sopron. Here’s the fire tower on the main square of the old city, started during Roman times:
I ate lunch at a restaurant on the square, looking out at the “Goat Church”, supposedly built with treasure dug up by some goats. In front of the church is a monument built by folks who survived the plague:
Inside the church was a “simple” pulpit for the preacher:
I stayed at a nice little guest-house near the beginning of the Peace Walk. My host made me a huge breakfast this morning but I wasn’t very hungry , so I packed it up to have for lunch on this first day of the European Peace Walk. I set out at 6:55am and soon was in the woods surrounded by a chorus of birds, including several cuckoos. It was a beautiful sunny morning with a light breeze coming through the trees – and lots of wildflowers along the trail, like these and many others:
Once out of the woods, it warmed quickly – but the breeze kept the temperature tolerable. As I approached the Austrian border, I got to eat cherries from trees along the road and eventually I was walking among vineyards backed by wind turbines and lovely little churches like this one:
AT the border, I was waved through with smiles by friendly, handsome guardS, who greeted me in English. In a few more kilometers i entered the village of Neckenmarkt, where I stopped at a cafe for coffee. I drank some of it, and as I was pouring the rest into my thermos for later, the waiter came over and topped it off, so I was all set for lunch.
At the far end of the next village, I found a delightful spot to eat my lunch: on a bench in the shade with a nice breeze. And shortly after finishing lunch – washed down with that coffee – I ran into two of the other Peace Walkers, Robert and Maureen, and we walked together for a while – past fields of grain bordered by gorgeous poppies:
I also got to see some wildlife: a reddish squirrel with a black tail, a few jackrabbits, two deer and a pair of storks .
Robert, Maureen and I arrived at the Hotel Jufa, where we would spend the night in yurts, at about 1:30 – after about 6 1/2 hours of walking:
Eventually the rest of our group arrived, and after showers and clothes washing and dips in the pool (So refreshing!), we all went out to dinner:
Left to right: George, Gail, Joy, Bevin, Maureen, Stella, Cuevas, Robert, me, Doug and Kathy.
We were all delighted to have made it to our destination on the first day of the Peace Walk – and after a good night’s sleep (I think we were all in bed by 9:00), I’m sure we’ll all have another great day tomorrow.
Charming little snake in the grass – about 3 feet long.
The place we’re staying at tonight is a hose farm (and quite nice!), but I also walked past this other one on a hillside (before a long stretch between grain fields and a hedgerow.
Some Kind of World Traveler 
