October 27th, 2026
While researching this trip while I was still in Canada (not
that I did much of it), one thing that caught my eye was the annual migration
of 100,000-150,000 cranes. That’s
something I’d love to see so I made specific plans to head to the east side of
Hungary.
The common crane has three main “flyways & routes” and the one that stops in
Hungary is the “Baltic-Hungarian Flyway” or “Southeast Route”. They spend their summer in Finland and the Baltic
states and pass through eastern Hungary on the way to their winter destination
of northern Serbia, Tunisia or Italy.
The common crane (I stole the photo from online).
The closest metropolis to the Hortobágyi National Park,
where the cranes stop on their journey, is Debrecen, the second largest
city of Hungary, with a population around 200,000. I had to change trains in the small town of Füzesabony and the whole
trip took about 3½ hours. My
accommodation was only a 15-minute walk from the train station, but the first
part of it was along a busy road, under an overpass with no sidewalk…slightly
dodgy.
The view of the plains of Hungary from the train.
My place was in a four-storey, slightly decrepit building
that was definitely from Hungary’s socialist years. Once again, it was a bit of “escape room” type
antics to access my room. Enter a code
here, collect some keys there, use the blue key for this door, the orange one for
that door, and finally the silver one to get into my room. The room was on the 4th floor and
there was an ancient looking elevator, but I was suspicious if it was working,
and if it was, whether it was safe. I opted
to climb up the spiraling staircase that wound around the elevator, complete
with plaster peeling off the walls. Hmm…what
kind of place did I pick on Booking.com?!?
The outside of my building.
Turns out it, the room was fine. The apartment was modern, spacious and even
had a little kitchenette. The only odd
thing, which I was aware of when I booked the place, was that the double bed
was raised up like a bunk bed with a couch and side table underneath it. This did maximize the space for sure.
My strange bed.
After settling in, I decided to make use of the last few hours of sunlight in the afternoon and walked about 20-25 minutes to the town centre. I didn’t have any specific goals apart from just to check out the city, which didn’t take long.
Lots of churches in this country seem to be yellow.
Yes, I think those poles are meant to be leaning sideways.
Okay, what next? Well, I might as well find a nice little pub to have a drink or two and write some of my blog, which is my only real job while I travel and it does take a fair amount of my time, but I think it’s worth it. I found a place called the “Stay Beer Bar”. The sign said it opened at 4 pm, and it was only 4:05. A blonde woman in her mid to late twenties was just heading back inside so I asked if the place was open. It was, and I was her first customer.
They had some nice craft beers, so I tried what was labelled
on a sign as a “Cold IPA” and for the first time since I’ve been in Eastern Europe,
I had a beer cold enough for my liking!
I ended up staying there for a few hours as the atmosphere and the libations
were great.
More clientele did show up...
The following day, I was to show up at the Hortobágyi Tourist
Information Centre at 2 pm. During the
previous few weeks, I had tried to find out information from the website for
the “Crane Tour”, but it was archaic, confusing and in Hungarian. I finally found a form to fill out but I
questioned whether it actually signed me up or not as no payment was required.
For the tour, you had to have your own car, so I had been in contact with a
rental company called ML Rent. I hadn’t
planned on renting a car on this trip, so I didn’t buy an International Driver’s
Licence, but thankfully they didn’t need one.
I decided to walk to the rental company’s office, which was a good 3-4 km, but I had time and wanted the exercise. Google Maps definitely took me on an interesting route as I ended up crossing about eight train tracks on a curvy, paved road, but it didn’t seem right. There were a bunch of train workers in high-vis vests, and they didn’t say anything, so I assumed it was okay.
When I got to the other side, there was no clear way to go
as a 15-foot grassy berm was right in front of me. To the right looked like someone’s driveway
to their home, so I turned left, but that looked like a dead-end. There were a couple of men in working clothes
sitting on the steps of some industrial building and they asked me something in
Hungarian…I assume “Can we help you?” I
showed them my phone, shrugged my shoulders and stated, “Huh, Google Maps.” The younger guy spoke some English, looked at
my phone and then showed it to the older man.
They talked back and forth in Hungarian and then I received the
translated directions that the older guy told the younger guy of where to go. “Cusonom!” I told them (thank you) and headed
on my way.
Then I heard the older guy say something, I looked back, and they redirected me down a flight of stairs. Then I saw the pedestrian tunnel that I was probably supposed to have taken instead of walking over the tracks. Travelling…it’s all about the journey, not the destination!
That's the way I should have come.
At the rental car company, the guy asked me for a 50,000
Florint deposit, which they had told me about in an email. The part that they omitted to say, was that
it had to be in cash! I assumed that a
credit card would have sufficed. I didn’t
have that kind of Hungarian cash with me, but luckily, he took $300 USD which I
happened to have in my money belt in my backpack. Whew.
Arriving at the tourist information centre in Hortobágyi,
about 30 kilometres to the west of Debrecen, I paid for my ticket and then had
20 minutes to check out the exhibit about cranes before there was a half hour
movie.
Part of the exhibition.
Unfortunately, the movie was in Hungarian (which I don’t
have a problem with as we are in Hungary), but there were no subtitles, so I
didn’t learn a lot from the film.
Afterwards, there was a lot of explanation from two guides in Hungarian
with the crowd of 50-60 people. Of
course, I had no idea what was going on.
I had met one of the guides earlier, and he did speak some English so as
the crowd dispersed, I went up to ask him what the deal was. There was another non-Hungarian speaking Czech
guy who also wanted to find out what was going on. Obviously, we bonded immediately.
His name was Dusan and he was on a weeklong holiday. He lives in Ostrava which is on the east side
of Czechia. I later found out that he
used to be a musician, as a hobby, but now he was into photography, specifically
of wildlife. I asked him which was more expensive,
but he claimed that they were equally costly.
A nice Lego mosaic of some cranes in the movie room.
The movie was about to start.
About half of the tourists headed off in a convoy with the
older guide, and Dusan and I decided to join the second group as we knew that
the younger guide, Richard, did speak some English. We drove about 10 kilometres, back towards Debrecen,
before turning off on a side road.
Everyone parked their cars on the side of a single lane road, and then
we had to reshuffle them onto the other side of the road on Richard’s request, not
that I followed the logic.
The first convoy heading out from the parking lot.
It was a ten-minute walk along a single land paved road then we detoured into what seemed to be someone’s farmyard and then along a muddy lane with a receded lake on the right and a channel of water about twenty feet wide. There was another pond on the other side of a berm. The lake on the right was where the crane action was going to happen.
Richard's car that led the convoy.
We crossed this bridge then walked towards the left on the other side of the channel of water.
The guide set up his tripod with a high-powered spotting
scope and then he rambled on in Hungarian.
My Czech buddy, Dusan, was busy setting up his tripod and camera with a
monster lens. I did wish that I had at
least some binoculars, but I was able to get the odd peak from the guide’s
scope.
Here come some of our first contestants.
There were some cranes standing in the shallow water, but they
must have been at least 500 meters away.
At first, I must admit that I thought this wasn’t going to live up to my
expectations of what I had seen online.
However, it was a gorgeous, clear sky with the sun starting to set and
Dusan told me that the previous evening he was at another location and flocks
of birds kept arriving until it was pitch dark.
Cranes have much better eyes than we do for the low light of dusk.
Well, the wait was worth it. Flocks of cranes, also known as a “siege” or “sedge” of cranes kept coming and coming. At times, the V-formation of the birds looked to be about a kilometre in length. When they would turn, it sometimes looked like a black smudge in the sky. Incredible.
Unfortunately, my woefully old iPhone, with a single camera
lens, really couldn’t do justice to the incredible act of nature we were witnessing. I asked Dusan if he could email me some of
the photos he captured with his amazing camera.
Hopefully he’ll follow through.
I was definitely glad that I made the effort to travel to Debrecen, rent a car, and witness one of Mother Nature’s fabulous shows!
