Trefort Teacher Trip

We spent Friday with most of the staff at Trefort, taking a bus trip to Gyöngyös and neighboring Gyöngyöspata. All day long we felt that there was special "family" feel to the time we had together. The entire school staff, from cleaning ladies to principals, was invited for the day. It was an umbrella day, but that and a one-hour bus breakdown delay did not dampen anyone's spirits. We did enjoy some spirits for a typical Hungarian "breakfast": a shot of Vilmos pear pálinka. This was before we even left the school parking lot. Tamás was our host!

The first stop was at the Orczy Mansion, which is in part a natural history museum. The mammoth skeleton displayed here was excavated nearby in 1949. We toured a number of rooms that display fossils, petrified wood, and rock samples from around the world.

The mansion is also home to a hunting museum. Many trophies, guns, and hunting paraphernalia were on display here. This particular area is at the foot of the Matra Mountains and is known as a great hunting region.

The next building is called the Microarium, and we walked through a beautiful garden to get there. The Microarium is an exhibition of sea shells, butterflies, insects, and small mammals from around the world.

Our bus then took us to Gyöngyöspata to visit a church that was founded in 1004. The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is best known for the Jesse Tree, a wooden representation of the family tree of Jesus Christ.


The Jesse Tree was constructed in the 17th century. The tree is growing out of the body of Jesse and is guarded by two angels. At the top is the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. Every part of the altar is made from wood. The church is also home to the oldest Bible in Hungary. A copy is here in the pulpit, and the original is in the United States Library of Congress.

We then came back to Gyöngyös for a delicious meal at the Kékes Restaurant. Here are our table partners and fellow American colleagues Sharon (on the left) and Vivvi.

The final stop of the day was a wine tasting at the Borpalota (Wine Palace), a large wine cellar in Gyöngyös. This region below the Matras is also known for production of white wines. As we stepped down into the cellar we were met by massive barrels ten feet tall. This one pictured here has an elaborate wood cutting carved into it.

The "wine man" took us through various halls of the cellar. This picture shows a main corridor of 22 tanks on the left and fourteen barrels on the right.

We then crammed into a smaller room for the actual wine tasting. There was one long table for about forty people and the rest sat around the outside on small barrels. We tried seven white wines and two red wines, and munched on bread and cheese in between. After two hours of sampling, singing, and hanging out we headed up for the show room to make our purchases. You can imagine that it was a happy group that made the bus ride back to Kispest. It was a great day for us all!