Yesterday the Palinka and Sausage festival of 2012 was officially opened and the enjoyable festival will last until Sunday evening. We visited the festival on its first day, and here are our thoughts.
The first impression is that the festival reminds us of the beer festival in many ways. By the entrance you buy the ticket and you also buy an electronic card to which you add money, and later on the inside you use this card for payment everywhere, meaning that it is a moneyless festival. This system works fine, and since the first day of the festival is somewhat quiet, there were not really any lines or waiting time, so perfect!
Inside the festival area I was a bit amazed of the fact that there were much fewer stands than at both the beer festival and the wine festival. The Castle of Buda serves as the arena for the festival, but only the Lion and the Hunyadi courtyard. In these courtyards you could taste a whole lot of palinka, eat a lot of sausage and also taste tequila, which is the guest of honor at this years Palinka and Sausage festival.
The Hungarian fruit spirit normally has an alcohol content between 40% and 60%, so it is quite strong stuff. There were at least 20 different stands from where you could buy different kind of Palinka, and one of my friends tried a quite exclusive and expensive one; raspberry palinka. It was too strong for me, but it is cool to have tried it. Arpad is a famous producer of Palinka from Bekescsaba, and later we also tried some of their production, which tasted better then the previous Palinka (at least I think so… but, that is very subjective).
In the area there are quite some stands where you can buy warm sausages and eat them (like in any traditional Hungarian festival), and then you can buy different salamis and sausages and either bring them home or eat them together with bread at the festival area. One of the special sausages of Hungary is the one made from mangalica (a special hairy pig), so if you visit the area, try some mangalica sausage or ham. You can even buy salami from the Hungarian grey cattle (szürkemarha), which is something you do not get everywhere.
- This is what the Mangalica looks like!
If you are not that much into Palinka then you can buy soft drinks at different places inside the area, and there are also two wine shops where you can buy different kinds of wine. They do not have the biggest selection, but considering the fact that it is a Palinka and Sausage festival it is not bad at all.
We visited the festival on the quiet opening day, but if you plan on visiting the festival today, tomorrow or on Sunday you can for sure expect more people (especially in the evenings), lots of strong Palinka, tasty sausages and lots of fun. Worth a visit!
The entrance fee for one day is 2000 HUF.
- Lots of Palinka to taste at the festival
