Tuesday, June 17 – Temesvar to Szeged

There was a fair bit of rain overnight and the day dawned cloudy and cool. Except for a light sprinkle in late afternoon, we didn’t get rained on, but our feet sure got wet in the cemeteries. Temperature was mild – not particularly warm, but some of us did not wear jackets and those that did only needed light ones. By early evening in Szeged the sun was shining.

Our first stop was Sackelhausen, but we did not investigate the cemetery because it was of minor interest to Erv and Bonnie. We went on to Hatzfeld where we took a bathroom break at the Stefan Jäger museum before splitting into two groups. One group toured the museum while the other toured the cemetery. Pat and Kathleen did not have much luck at Wiseschdia, a village so small it did not even have a sign that you were entering. Then we went on to Triebswetter, which was an important stop for a few people. We went to Gross St. Nikolaus, a larger town, for lunch, then examined its cemetery. Then we backtracked to Marienfeld, where Pat and Kathleen found their relatives on many headstones.

From Marienfeld we again drove to Gross St. Nikolaus, where we dropped Sorin off to take the train home after three very informative days. We made a short stop at Csenad for pictures of the church there. It has great historical value as the Roman Catholic Bishopric for the Banat until Temesvar overtook Csenad as the major city in the region. 

Finally we reached the border with Hungary. Johannes suspected that there would be no border control because we were passing from EU country to EU country. However, they were there and they gave us a pretty thorough going over. We had to open all the baggage compartments, open the hood to validate the vehicle identification number with the insurance certificate, and we all had to get off the bus and reclaim our passports individually in a small booth. It did not take long however, and we were soon on our way, reaching our hotel about 5 PM. As Miles noted, the bathroom in this place is bigger than the whole room at the previous stop.

We gathered at 6 for a trip to a restaurant that we had enjoyed on a previous trip and returned about 9.