Hungary

November 12th & 13th

Bumpy road surface but with light traffic all the way down to the Hungarian border near Sahy where you just slip over the border without realising you are in another country. Then we saw the Diesel prices 441 per litre, but it wasn't really a worry as £1.00 = 350Hf. Planning to take about £100 from the first ATM we saw I asked for 4000 then when I got back to the van I realised I'd missed a zero and it was only just over £10 and I get charged £1.00 for every ATM withdrawal! Next, on to Tesco that well known Hungarian supermarket, they even have Clubcards but I didn't think they would accept our UK one! I wish the Wine & Beer prices at home were the same as here though. Getting to Arena Camping in Budapest should have been easy except once we were on the ring road we couldn't see any roads marked going off and we had to guess which junction we wanted to leave on which we missed and then spent about 30 minutes trying to get back to the correct road. The GPS map I had downloaded for Hungary didn't work, eventually we sorted out where we were from the Autoroute map on the laptop & found we were only about 500m from the camping but on the wrong side of the dual carriageway.

It was dark & raining when we got there but at least it was open. Only one other plot occupied by a caravan and building work was going on so we had to squeeze through a small gap to get to the pitch. Peaceful night apart from the planes & trains but we are in a city. So far this is the most expensive site on our trip costing 5800Hf per night, almost £20, double what we paid in Prague. The price includes electric hookup which we don't need for a few days stop but there is no choice to go anywhere as close to the city that is open at this time of year. WiFi is free but quite a weak signal into the camping area though we are getting a slow connection now with our signal booster.

Our first day we spent looking around the more modern side of the city in Pest, full of parks & wide streets with large grand buildings many of which seemed to be embassies. 

Michael Jackson tree?

The size of St Stephen's Basilica was vast and it was surprising to find it was only completed in the very early 1900's. 

The enormous dome was very impressive & of course it also has a great 'relic' St.Stephens mummified right hand on show in a special display case. 

After this and visiting the Ossuary in Czech Rep. We are thinking cremation is looking a better option, people can't put random bits of you on display when you're gone! Getting around was very easy with the 24 hour travel pass & everyone we spoke to was friendly & helpful & had some basic English, unlike Czech Republic & Slovakia where it was usually only German. People weren't as stylishly dressed as folk in Prague but it's hard to tell when they're bundled up in winter coats.

Buda, across the river Danube, has the castle & older buildings with the advantage of great views over the city. 

Despite being November there are still many large groups of tourists being led around by their guides. Overall we enjoyed our visit but after 2 days tramping the streets we are keen to move on again so we are heading for Romania tomorrow.

Here's today's tasty mid morning snack, shared rather messily between us