Jul 7, 2009, 11:02 GMT
Sopron, Hungary - Twenty years ago, Sopron was the site of the Pan-European picnic, a staged event that devolved into a mass break of East Germans for the West that served as one of the earlier signals that the Iron Curtain was about to tear wide open.
Today, visitors to the north-western Hungarian town find little evidence of the borders that had to fall to create the chain reaction that led to European reunification.
Nonetheless, it's still worth a trip, especially in this, the 20th anniversary year of the fall of the Wall.
The red, white and green painted barriers that separate Fertorakos in Hungary and Morbisch in Austria are largely ornamental today. Roads are open to travel. But visitors don't have to walk far to find a patch of barbed wire that recreates the feel of the former border area.
'We have to constantly replace the wire,' says Laszlo Nagy, one of the organizers of the August 19, 1989 picnic. 'Lots of visitors just cut off a piece of barbed wire as a souvenir. It fits. After all, the picnic's motto was: 'Take it apart and take it with you.''
The original border fence was taken down in time, allowing it to eventually serve as part of a display on the Iron Curtain. Nowadays, a memorial by Hungarian artists stands at the original point of the border breakthrough. It depicts an open door.
A Hungarian watchtower has also survived all the changes and now allows visitors to catch a glimpse of the Neusiedler Lake in Austria. The whole region gives off the vibe of a cross-border national park.
Regional flora and fauna in the lake's marshy areas can best be viewed from hiking or biking paths. One path from the forest near Szarhalmi leads to a mill and a pond - a favourite spot for fishing. There's also a beach that invites visitors to take a dip.
The bike path leads further, from Fertorakos to Steinbruch. The region's pink, shimmering limestone is hard to extract, but was long a beloved building material for churches and other structures in Sopron and Vienna.
Drilling into the rear recesses of the mountain created strange tunnels and halls that resemble ancient Egyptian rock-cut tombs.
The work also created quality acoustics and the caves are now the Cavern Theatre, beloved for opera and theatre productions. Concerts have become a traditional part of the picnic anniversary celebration. This year musicians will come from Japan to play Haydn's Symphony in G Major and Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
Another sculpture at the border crossing shows barbed wire that, from a distance, looks like it is in the shape of a cross.
Travelling on to Morbisch by bike, visitors come across the Roman grotto of Mithras. It was built almost 2,000 years ago for a sun god and can be visited today. From here, cyclists can cross the border into Austria without realizing it.
Travelling on to Rust, with its many storks' nests, the 40-kilometre-long route continues along the Weinbluetenweg to St Margarethen and then back to Sopron.
Most of the sites in this city of 60,000 people are in its pedestrian-only old city. The main square, Foe ter, is among Hungary's nicest. At its middle stands a baroque statue to the holy trinity, surrounded by restored palaces like the Fabricius House. Multiple small museums hide behind that building's gothic façade.
There's also the Storno House with its pleasant access balcony. Nor is there any shortage of cafes and bars in the old town. Another dominating feature is the square's 61-metre tall Fire Tower.
'It's a symbol of the shifting history of our city,' explains tour guide Alfred Kirsch. 'Its base is from Roman times, the lower part from the Middle Ages. The Tuscan-inspired arcades embody the Renaissance and the clock tower with the onion dome was built in the baroque style after a fire.'
Anyone who climbs the 200 steps to the viewing platform is guaranteed a good view over the roofs of this medieval city centre to the Soviet-era buildings of the Jerewan section of the city and on to the Loverek Mountains.
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