Each year Messina Hof Wine Cellars, Inc offers travel to a wine region.  Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo lead these travel tours. This year our Messina Hof Travel was on Amawaterways from Budapest to Bucharest. This was an unexplored wine region for wine and food.

Tip for Travel: If you are traveling abroad for a guided tour, try to go early before the tour and/or stay after to explore other areas. Make the most of your time there to do as much as possible. Airfare and 9 hours of flight time are investments.

This was a great trip and we wanted to share our favorite finds and some tips along the way.

Tips for all destinations:

1. If you are traveling by train, book your hotel near the train station or tram stop that runs from the train station. It makes movement around the city and to other destinations much easier.
2. On the first day we either take the sightseeing Hop on Hop off bus to learn more about the city or we jump on the local buses and trams to see every part of the city. This allows us to identify areas we want to explore more. We usually go to the local Tourist Information office to get maps and points of interest.
3. We use the bus and metro to move around the cities. Most towns offer one and two day passes for all local modes of transportation.

Budapest, Hungary – Travel from Vienna to Budapest, Hungary is 3-5 hours by train

Once in Budapest we boarded Amawaterways for our Gems of the Southeast Cruise. Amawaterways offers all-inclusive wine cruises on many European rivers.

Pecs, Hungary – This was our first stop. This excursion peaked our interest because it was the beginning of our new wine region adventure. Pecs was originally a Roman wine-producing colony and Christian center. 

Notice the giant painted egg. Bridges display thousands of locks inscribed with lover’s initials.

Takleer Kurla hosted our Szekszárd wine tasting.