Debrecen, the Calvinist Rome
There are an astounding 8 universities, ov er 50 secondary schools and even more elementary schools in Debrecen. This in a modest city of 2öö,ööö. It's astounding. The medical campus at Debrecen University is considered to be one of the best teaching hospitals in Europe and attracts students from all over the world. The teaching is all in English though most professors are Hungarian.
The librarz at Debrecen University has 5 million books. Not surprisingly, it's the second largest in Hungary. I'm just astonished that it's not the largest.
The city itself was cut from the forest and much of the forest still surrounds the city. Within its center a large part of the forest remains intact but was beautified with walkways and ponds to create a peaceful inner sanctum.
On a less historical note, we saw gardeners planting pansies today - September 22. It just seems late to be putting in bedding plants but Janos tells us that they are still expecting a decent month of Indian Summer. Evidently it will start Wednesday after we leave. The weather has been quite cool, around 10 degrees. but Janos and Zsuzsa insist that it's unusually cold. Just the week before we came it was 35. Hah! I bet they tell that to all the tourists.
There's a huge yellow church with twin cupolas that dominates the town square. Inside is a chair that was used in 1849 by Kossuth as he read out the Declaration of Independence to the people. Being so centrally located and with an amenable climate, Hungary has often been targeted by invaders. Back in the years leading up to the 17th century Hungary was dominated by the Turks for 150 years and yet, they remain proud to have resisted the conversion the Islam. In fact they believe their continued faith in Christianity through Moorish and later Communist occupation enabled the rest of Europe to remain largely Christian.
The librarz at Debrecen University has 5 million books. Not surprisingly, it's the second largest in Hungary. I'm just astonished that it's not the largest.
The city itself was cut from the forest and much of the forest still surrounds the city. Within its center a large part of the forest remains intact but was beautified with walkways and ponds to create a peaceful inner sanctum.
On a less historical note, we saw gardeners planting pansies today - September 22. It just seems late to be putting in bedding plants but Janos tells us that they are still expecting a decent month of Indian Summer. Evidently it will start Wednesday after we leave. The weather has been quite cool, around 10 degrees. but Janos and Zsuzsa insist that it's unusually cold. Just the week before we came it was 35. Hah! I bet they tell that to all the tourists.
There's a huge yellow church with twin cupolas that dominates the town square. Inside is a chair that was used in 1849 by Kossuth as he read out the Declaration of Independence to the people. Being so centrally located and with an amenable climate, Hungary has often been targeted by invaders. Back in the years leading up to the 17th century Hungary was dominated by the Turks for 150 years and yet, they remain proud to have resisted the conversion the Islam. In fact they believe their continued faith in Christianity through Moorish and later Communist occupation enabled the rest of Europe to remain largely Christian.
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