Pastel-colored court houses and palaces line the small main street in the five thousand-year-old city of Tokaj, swallows´ nests stick to the baroque town hall, and the red post boxes with the golden posthorn are reminiscent of the kuk era..

Wine cellars, shops and guesthouses await guests who are still scarce here at the far end of the European Union..

In the middle of the village stands a fountain with a Bacchus sculpture on a barrel, a grape and a wine cup in his hands and obviously forgetting the world..

Directly behind the divine drunkard we descend into the ancient cellar of the Räköczi vineyard - twenty-four corridors in which Aszü and Szamorodni mature in oak barrels and mystical tranquility..

This subterranean world has existed since the fifteenth century, and the great hall was dug thirty meters long, ten meters wide and five high out of volcanic rock.. A majestic place, 1526 witness to the election of the Hungarian King Janos Szapolyai..

Diagonally across from the main square is the museum.. The pretty building once belonged to a Greek merchant, one of many, who, taken by the Turks, found a new home here.. It is, as always, dedicated to wine, which always nourished the people of the Bodrog, who quenched the thirst of emperors and who even extolled the Hungarian national anthem exuberantly: Tokaji.


~hwemmert~hwemmert~, 2014-11-12