Hajdu Lovasudvar Hortobágy

Great weekend away from the city. Coutryside experience and beautiful visit of the park with comments in French by Albert.

I stayed here for only one night 21 August 2019 but the experience was truly odd so am writing a review. This is the only time I ever had a bizarre accomodation experience in a year of travelling. The house is beautiful and full of Hungarian collectables. It’s the sort of place where usually I feel at ease, only here the behaviour of the hosts was really strange. It is a husband and wife team who speak a few languages. Only a little English which is my only language. Judit welcomed me & invited me to sit in the dining room. She invited me to participate in the horse & buggy tour her husband runs through the national park. I met Albert when he returned & he told me about the tour as well & brought out a guestbook where guests had written comments about it. He then snapped at something I’d said - I mentioned that I’d like to see water buffalo because I’d read they are in the park. He said they are not native and became kind of rude, saying something like “I can’t help you, this is what I offer, you don’t want to go for the tour”. I tried to pacify him saying that I’d like to go if he wanted to take me. He was like, “it’s too late and you are just one person”, indicating I wasn’t worth the time. His manner was very whiny. He went out, came back & said his wife had told him to take me on the tour so we would go. And I was like, “I can see you don’t want to take me, it’s actually just something your wife offered when I got here”. “You wanted to see water buffalo, I can’t help you there. Goodnight”. His wife offered some tea later & tried to make polite conversation to make up for her husband’s rudeness, but it seemed kind of forced. Later I came back to the dining room because the wifi wasn’t working upstairs. Albert came in & said “you can’t sit here, this is a family room”. I explained about the wifi & that I didn’t know it was a family room as it was where I’d been directed by Judit. He almost dragged me out and showed me a dining room for guests which I hadn’t known about. I asked whether I could leave my luggage for a few hours the next day and was told I could. He said his wife would make a breakfast in the morning for guests. But the manner was really rude and antagonistic so I felt uncomfortable & thought I’d skip the breakfast. In the morning, he was there straightaway when I came downstairs & said “there are lockers at the National Park, I suggest that you leave your bag there. They can take you on a tour to see the water buffalo. Goodbye”. The effect was like kicking me out. Odd. Maybe they instantly disliked me for some reason? But Albert’s manner in particular seemed deliberately unpleasant, sort of performance-like. I stayed at other guesthouses Hungary where the hosts didn’t speak much English & had straightforward and polite exchanges.

the place is truly peculiar, with many potentialities but it lacks a careful management + quiet place in the countryside + good cleaning + welcoming and genuine hosts, unfortunately they speak only basic English, and that resulted in a difficult short communication, while for me it would have been interesting to discover more about their habits and mores. + they prepared the breakfast as dinner for free (since I was hungry and the only restaurant open at 7pm was 20km away) + unexpectedly they offer a massage service - no dimming curtains - basic bed without staples, not much comfortable - very poor wifi signal, I wasn't able to connect with my laptop - toilet with the hole in the front (?!) - bathroom needs renovation - worn-out towels - 5€ dog fee per day but the location is not very suitable for dogs because they have cats

The owner has a great knowledge about Hortobágy, and can speak in German and French as well. Very friendly and welcoming apartment.

Ok