Vektor

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Lillafüred, Bükk After the Márta we come across the Bükk. You can climb similarly high mountains here as in the Mátra, but I have decided to visit a different kind of place this time. North of Miskolc you can find a resort called Lillafüred. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited in Hungary, we got a 20th century palace here, a hanging garden, a waterfall, three caves to explore, a large lake, and many other places. And also the Lillafüred Forest Train which can help you visit various locations near Miskolc. Lillafüred and the Hámori lake Lillafüred, hanging garden The Forest Train

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Kékes, Mátra The next region is the Mátra, where you can hike up the highest point in Hungary, to the Kékes. You need some proper gear for this hike, it’s like climbing the Himalaya. I mean, it’s 1,014 meters high, bring your oxygen tanks, you fools! Joking aside, it’s a nice hike and it’s also the most challenging one in Hungary, which doesn’t say much to you if you hike in Austria for example, but, you know, this is what we got here. There is a ski resort here which is sometimes active during the winter and also a TV tower, which also used as a lookout tower for tourists. On the top of the mountain you can find a stone painted in the national colors of Hungary signaling that this is highest point in the country. Kékes The stone on the top of the mountain Before we move on I have to mention that the Kékes is also the most challenging finish of the Tour do Hongrie, this is where the overall classification is decided. Attila Valter had his big breakthrough moment here in 2020, he won the Tour de Honrie with an amazing finish and then one year later he became the most successful Hungarian cyclists at the Giro.

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Hollókő As we leave Visegrád and its region, the Börzsöny, we slowly reach Cserhát, the next region of Northeast Hungary. The most notable place of Cserhát is Hollókő, an UNESCO World Heritage site. Hollókő is a Palóc ethnographic village, its name means “Raven stone” in Hungarian. Visiting this village is like traveling back to older, simpler times, many of its current houses were first built in the 17th century. Remember that Easter video I shared with you a few weeks ago? Yep, that was from Hollókő. The Easter festival is one of the village main events. And yes, we got another castle here because of course we do. Hollókő Castle of Hollókő

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Visegrád and the Danube Bend V4, assemble! It’s time to cross the Danube and leave Western Hungary behind. Here we are in the former capital of the Hungarian Kingdom, Visegrád and one of the most well-known sights in Hungary, the Danube Bend. Sure, it’s only a curve of the Danube, which was created by volcanic activity 15 million years ago, but the sight is truly majestic, no matter which season of the year you visit it. Next to the Danube is Visegrád and its citadel, which was built 800 years ago. The town is the symbolic capital of the Visegrad Group, an alliance of four Central European countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Danube Bend Visegrád Citadel

Let's Rest for a Bit You should take a short break once in a while on every hiking trip , constantly moving from one place to another is quite monotonous If you never catch your breath. So sit down, breathe in the fresh air and listen to some music, this the opening ceremony of a song contest after all. Our next performers are the most successful Hungarian artists of the annual TISC editions. Gergő Rácz and Reni Orsovai were 8th in the 2020 annual edition of the contest and now there are back with their 2021 single, A titkod nem leszek! Gergő Rácz x Reni Orsovai - A titkod nem leszek

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Hármashatár Mountain and the panorama of Budapest Nice, we have arrived to the capital! The trail doesn't exactly go into the city, but if you have visited Budapest you know that Buda is quite mountainous so there's plenty of opportunity to hike near the city. One of these "mountains" is Hármashatár-hegy, where you can see the panorama of Budapest. This panorama, no matter where you see it, here or at some other high point in Buda, is one of the city's most protected sights. We don't have skyscrapers because the city won't allow it, they have to preserve the panorama as it is.

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail The Regions of Lake Balaton The hiking trail enters the regions of Balaton at Keszthely and then goes East, North of the lake. One of the main attractions at Keszthely is the Festetics Palace, which I am sure the Giro will show you during Stage 3. The Palace was built during the 18th century. The baroque style palace is now the home of a museum and it's also a hotel. You will also find a lookout tower as you move along the hiking trail that bears the name of Festetics, you can view Balaton and its surrounding mountais at the Festetics lookout tower. Festetics Palace Festetics lookout tower We will hike north of lake, through the Bakony, a mountainous region. Here you will come across more castles (wow, what a surprise!) and also the Zirc Abbey, which was established in 1182. The abbey has a marvelous library of 60 thousand highly valuable books. Next to Zirc you will find the Devil's ditch (Ördög árok), which part of a chine in the Bakony. Close to it you can also come across a small, natural waterfall during the rainy season. Devil's ditch Vértes and Gerecse are the next regions that the trail crosses before reaching Budapest. Vértes is most notable for a military victory against the German army in 1051 which happened here. This was a significant victory for the Hungarian Kingdom which was still in its infancy, they were able to protect their land against German invaders thus signaling that Hungarians are strong enough to push back against a larger invading force in the Carpathian basin. Alcsút Arboretum at Vértes

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Lake Balaton We don't have the pretty Mediterranean coast of Croatia, but who needs the sea when you got Lake Balaton! The lake, which is often called the Hungarian sea, is the largest in Central Europe and it's Hungary's #1 tourist attraction outside of Budapest. I sure have spent many summers at this lake which has always provided a cheap vacation destination for many Hungarians. Everyone must have some fond memories of this lake in Hungary, we have all been there, we have all ate at least one lángos at Balaton. But what else can you do at Lake Balaton besides, you know, go to the beach and eat a lángos? Well, there are many events you can partake of, one of our largest music festivals, the Balaton Sound takes place during the summer at Zamádi every year (when there isn't a pandemic). We got sport events as well, like the Balaton Cross Swimming, a 5.2 kilometers long open water swimming even where you cross the Balaton, from Révfülöp to Balatonboglár. And the largest Hungarian sailing race of the year is also unsurprisingly at the Balaton, the Blue Ribbon race, which was first held in 1934.

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Írott-kő (Geschriebenstein) and the Kőszeg Mountains We begin our journey on the Western starting point of the trail, Írott-kő, the highest point of both Western Hungary and Burgenland, right on the Austrian-Hungarian border. "Írott-kő" means "written in stone" in English. The name supposedly originates from stones of an old border between two noble families, the Batthyánys and the Esterházys. You can continue your hike here to Austria on the Alpannonia hiking trail. Írott-kő As you can probably guess based on our glorious alpine skiing results, the mountains in Hungary are more like hills compared to the Alps or the Carpathians, and Írott-kő isn't an exception with its 884 meters height. But it was part of the Iron Curtain not that long ago, so there's something special about how you can go for a nice hike and cross a border that once separated the world. You won't find anything resembling the Iron Curtain here, just the 100-year-old border stones that were placed in 1922, two years after the signing of the Trianon treaty. Kőszeg Mountains You might wonder where the name "Kőszeg" comes from. It's the name of a city next to the Mountain, and it means "stone nail" in English. Around 10 thousand people live in this small city and sure enough we got a castle in here. We don't know when exactly the Jurisics Castle was first built, the first mention of the castle goes back to 802. The name of the castle comes from its Croatian Captain Nikola Jurisic who defended the castle with 700-800 Croatian soldiers against the Ottoman army in 1532. The trail goes south to reach Lake Balaton, I hope you like castles because there are more of them along the way. The most notable one is the Castle of Sümeg, which was built in the mid 13th century by Béla IV of Hungary. Castle of Sümeg

The Hungarian National Blue Trail I have promised a journey for you, didn't I? In the last few days you got to know some of our cities and now you will explore the other side of Hungary. We got countless hiking trails all over the country and the main trail is called Blue Trail (Kéktúra). It's 1173 kilometers long, starts on the Western border at Írottkő and ends in Eastern Hungary at Hollóháza. There are two other main hiking trails, the South Transdanubian trail and the Great Plain trail. The three of them combined form the complete circle around the county and it's 2586 kilometers in its entirety. Currently close to 8 thousand hikers have officially completed the Hungarian National Blue Trail. Because of its massive length you can see the white-blue-white hiking sign everywhere in the country. In this segment we will travel trough the trail and visit its most famous locations. Obviously I can't show everything because we would be here all night, but I will try my best to give you a taste of the sights. We start at Írott-kő, go East and then at some point hopefully we will reach Szeged. Don't worry, I usually don't get lost during a hike. Just, you know, once or twice per hike. Shhh, it will all be fine. But before we start, I want to mention that we had a Hungarian Non-fiction TV series in the 70s that traveled through this hiking trail, it became one of the most popular TV series of the Soviet era in my country. This show used the Hungarian folk song "Indulj el" as its intro tune, it was performed by Muzsikás, the Hungarian folk band which participated in last year's open contest. The song is associated with Hungarian hiking, it's part of the Hungarian culture. A new modern take was released by popular Hungarian singer Gergő Szakács in 2021. "Indulj el" means "set off [on a journey]", so let's start our journey with this performance. Gergő Szakács - Indulj el

Where Is Antarctica? Honestly, I was waiting for them to show up for the Parade of Nations. I even prepared an Antarctica flag for them! So where are they? They always appear at these contests in some form. Well, the truth is that I did get a suspicious call before the Opening Ceremony. It came from a phonebooth in Bucharest. They only said two unintelligible words and it sounded angry. I think I have a pretty good idea what happened.

Parade of Nations IV. We are reaching the end of the Parade of Nations with our final 10 nations. We are ending this segment with a slightly more modern music from Academy Award winner Miklós Rózsa. He won 3 Oscars for his original scores in Spellbound, A Double Life and Ben-Hur and got 17 Oscar nominations over his long career in Hollywood. So let's hear the theme of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, performed by Katica Illényi on the theremin. Katica Illényi - Spellbound Spanyolország / Spain Jury Member: @Cobi Total Participations: 13 Best Result: 4th (Open 2017) Svédország / Sweden Jury Member: @Belle Total Participations: 10 Best Result: 1st (Open 2013) Szerbia / Serbia Jury Member: @NikolaB Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 1st (Open 2020) Szlovákia / Slovakia Jury Member: @hckošice Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 2nd (Annual 2014) Szlovénia / Slovenia Jury Member: @justony Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 9th (Annual 2016) Törökország / Turkey Jury Member: @Memo Total Participations: 9 Best Result: 10th (Open 2014) Tunézia / Tunisia Jury Member: @amen09 Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 4th (Annual 2016) Új-Zéland / New Zealand Jury Member: @Wanderer Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 2nd (Open 2021) Ukrajna / Ukraine Jury Member: @Illya Total Participations: 4 Best Result: 7th (Open 2021) Magyarország / Hungary Jury Member: @Vektor Total Participations: 9 Best Result: 4th (Open 2019)

Parade of Nations III. You must know the drill by now: next group of 10 countries with some classical music! I would be crucified if I wouldn't include something from Liszt, so let's hear Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, composed by Ferenc Liszt in 1847, performed by Ádám György. Ádám György - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 Lengyelország / Poland Jury Member: @rybak Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 4th (Open 2014) Litvánia / Lithuania Jury Member: @Werloc Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 1st (Open 2015) Málta / Malta Jury Member: @Glen Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 3rd (Annual 2020) Mexikó / Mexico Jury Member: @mrv86 Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 2nd (Open 2016) Moldova / Moldova Jury Member: @Ionoutz24 Total Participations: 11 Best Result: 15th (Open 2020) Nagy-Britannia / Great Britain Jury Members: @Cinnamon Bun @Quasit Total Participations: 17 Best Result: 1st (Annual 2016, Annual 2017) Németország / Germany Jury Member: @catgamer Total Participations: 13 Best Result: 1st (Annual 2014) Olaszország / Italy Jury Members: @Henry_Leon @Pablita @SteveParker Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 1st (Annual 2018) Portugália / Portugal Jury Member: @kungshamra71 Total Participations: 14 Best Result: 7th (Annual 2018) Románia / Romania Jury Member: @IoNuTzZ Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 3rd (Open 2015)

Parade of Nations II. Let's move on to our next group of countries, this time accompanied by a piece of music you are most likely familiar with. It was part of the medley during the Parade of Nations at the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony. If we had Romanian folk dances, we must also have the Hungarian Dances, composed by Johannes Brahms in 1879, performed by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. Hungarian Symphony Orchestra - Hungarian Dance No. 5 Hollandia / Netherlands Jury Member: @heywoodu Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 1st (Open 2019) Horvátország / Croatia Jury Member: @dcro Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 11th (Open 2017) India / India Jury Member: @Fly_like_a_don Total Participations: 17 Best Result: 6th (Open 2020) Indonézia / Indonesia Jury Member: @Griff88 Total Participations: 13 Best Result: 6th (Annual 2016) Írország / Ireland Jury Member: @OlympicIRL Total Participations: 18 Best Result:1st (Open 2014, Annual 2015, Open 2016, Open 2017, Annual 2019) Izrael / Israel Jury Member: @Dnl Total Participations: 5 Best Result: 7th (Annual 2021) Kanada / Canada Jury Member: @intoronto Total Participations: 16 Best Result: 1st (Annual 2020, Annual 2021) Kazahsztán / Kazakhstan Jury Member: @Ruslan Total Participations: 14 Best Result: 9th (Open 2020) Kína / China Jury Member: @Vic Liu Total Participations: 7 Best Result: 2nd (Annual 2020) Kolumbia / Colombia Jury Member: @Damian Total Participations: 10 Best Result: 2nd (Open 2014, Open 2017)

Parade of Nations I. It's that time of the year again when you try to figure out what the alphabetical order of the countries is in a foreign language. Come on, bring those flags out! And it's no fun to march in silence, you will get to enjoy some very fine instrumental music while walk down to your seats. The first group of 9 nations will listen to Romanian Folk Dances, composed by Béla Bartók in 1915, performed by formed TISC participant Muzsikás and the Danubia Orchestra. Muzsikás & Danubia Orchestra - Romanian Folk Dances Argentína / Argentina Jury Member: @konig Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 5th (Open 2017) Brazília / Brazil Jury Member: @titicow Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 2nd (Annual 2017) Bulgária / Bulgaria Jury Member: @Federer91 Total Participations: 17 Best Result: 5th (Open 2018) Csehország / Czech Republic Jury Member: @Hipooo Total Participations: 11 Best Result: 1st (Open 2021) Dánia / Denmark Jury Members: @Agger@Wumo Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 1st (Open 2018) Egyesült Államok / United States Jury Members: @dezbee2008@Olympian1010 Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 2nd (Open 2018) Finnország / Finland Jury Member: @Finnator123 Total Participations: 11 Best Result: 6th (Annual 2015, Open 2016) Franciaország / France Jury Members: @Benolympique@Bohemia Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 3rd (Open 2014, Annual 2015, Annual 2020) Görögország / Greece Jury Members: @maestro@Makedonas@Yannakis Total Participations: 18 Best Result: 12th (Open 2014, Annual 2021)

Anthem / Himnusz And now please rise to the national anthem of Hungary, which was written by Ferenc Kölcsey in 1823 and composed by Ferenc Erkel in 1844.

While a journey ends, another one begins, in the next two hours you will explore Hungary with me. I hope you brought your hiking boots with you! But lets not get ahead of ourselves, there's no ceremony without an opening act. As you may know, for the second consecutive year Canada won the Annual edition in 2021 thanks to the contribution of @intoronto and one of the biggest stars in the world, The Weeknd. His star shines so bright that he promised he will represent 5 nations in 2023 if he wins this year with either Canada or Sweden... or both. Please, give a warm welcome to The Weeknd and his TISC winning song, Blinding Lights and also his biggest single of 2021, Save Your Tears, performed with American superstar Ariana Grande. As the marvelous Daniel Craig once famously said... Opening Act The Weeknd - Blinding Lights The Weeknd & Ariana Grande – Save Your Tears

Welcome to Hungary It's been a long journey since the opening of this thread and the start of the selection process but we are finally here. Welcome to the Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Totallympics Annual International Song Contest! Welcome to Hungary! I know what you are thinking. Mr. DiCaprio did this one for free, I won't have to pay him $10 million dollars. But the fireworks were expensive, so... yep, time to take that second mortgage!

Get ready everyone, the Opening Ceremony will start in about an hour at 20:00 CEST! While you wait, you can watch the playlist that I just made for the Festival of Music.

By far the biggest cycling event ever in Hungary, the amount of spectators on this stage is truly something else. A few years ago Hungarian cycling didn't even exist and now here we are.

Team Challenge Host City Eger The lineup of the Heroes Italy @Henry_Leon @Pablita @SteveParker United States @dezbee2008 @Olympian1010 Slovakia @hckošice Last, but not least, we have arrived to the tiniest Team Challenge host city, Eger, which has the population of 51 thousand people. But don't be fooled by its size, this is one of the most well-known locations in Hungary and you will soon find out why they are the heroes. Eger and its castle There aren't many victories in Hungarian history that we can be proud of. Especially our recent history has been full of loses, we lost even our two revolutions that we celebrate (1848, 1956). And there are other great tragedies like the 150 years long Ottoman occupation and the Mongol invasion. But we celebrate our small victories and the most legendary out of those is the Siege of Eger in 1552 where 2-3 thousand Hungarians, led by István Dóbó, repelled the advances of the large Ottoman army. The victory was seen at that time as a sign of hope which Hungarians needed after the fall of Buda. The siege reached legendary status thanks to the novel Eclipse of the Crescent Moon (Egri csillagok), which was written by Géza Gárdonyi, and was published in 1899. It's arguably the most popular Hungarian novel ever, every Hungarian must have read it at least once. Eger minaret But even our small victories sometimes turn into failures eventually, the Ottomans captured Eger in another siege at the height of their power in 1596. The reminder of that is the minaret located in Eger, it's one of the most northern minarets left from the Ottoman rule in Europe. It's 40 meters high, and let me tell you now, I am afraid of heights. When little child me climbed the narrow steps of this tower and then stepped outside, I almost shit my little pants. Have you ever climbed a minaret? I find it a really interesting, weird structure because of how narrow it is for this kind of a height.

Team Challenge Host City Tatabánya The lineup of the Falcons Hungary @Vektor Argentina @konig Brazil @titicow Israel @Dnl Our next stop is a city of 65 thousand people, West of Budapest. The name "bánya" means mine (as in the place where people go mining), while "tata" means... daddy? Uh, anyway, Tata is actually also a small city located next to Tatabánya, so you get two places for the price of one! The Turul If Tatabánya is famous for one thing, it's the Turul statue located at the top of the hill next the city. But what is the Turul? Well, for one it's depicted as a mythical creature similar to a falcon which is why I named this team the Falcons. Obviously the "Turuls" wouldn't have made much sense, it's one creature, not a spices. The origins of the Turul go back to the conquering Hungarians, it was a Hungarian military symbol during the Hungarian migration. And yeah, this statue made a big impression on me when I was a child because literally every time you travel to Budapest in the Northwest you will see it, even when you are on a train. Castle of Tata As far as other sighs go, you should visit Tata because it's an actual holiday destination. My freshman camp was located here and we had a great time. As you can see from the picture above we got another castle here because of course we do. Next to the castle you can find the Öreg-tó (Old lake), the oldest fishing lake in Hungary. This place is perfect for anyone who doesn't like the crowded vacation destinations like Lake Balaton and wants to spend some time at a quiet, peaceful little city.

I have updated the first post, you can now click on the names of the teams to read their posts.

The forecast doesn't look good for the weekend. There might be some heavy rain / storm during the stages.

Team Challenge Host City Szombathely The lineup of the Romans Germany @catgamer Lithuania @Werloc Malta @Glen Denmark @Agger @Wumo We are now at a lesser known city even in Hungary, Szombathely, which is the most Western "large" city in our country, with the population of 78 thousand people. Similarly to many Hungarian cities, it has an ancient past that goes back to the Roman empire., The Roman city located here was called Savaria. The Hungarian name of the cities means "Saturday place" because back in medieval times there were weekly markets held in the city on Saturday. Out of all the cities in Hungary Szombathely embraces its Roman past the most, their main cultural event of the year is the Savaria Historical Carnival where a bunch of people dress up as Romans and try to kill each other with swords. Okay, okay, I am joking, they just only dress up, there are no killings (that I know of). It's a quite large event with a bunch of programs for the whole family. The city's most famous sight is the Bishop's Palace and Cathedral, which was visited by the Pope in 1991. Savaria Carnival Szombathely has a football club with a long history, their name is Haladás. Remember the Hungarian goalkeeper from Euro2016? He's from this city. But their most successful club is actually their men's basketball team, Falco, who have won the Hungarian league 3 times. Interestingly enough the county of this city, Vas county, is so great in men's basketball that there's a second team located in Körmend who were also the Hungarian champions 3 times. And sure enough, there's a rivalry between the two teams.