7th July
Woke up slightly later than we wanted after the disturbance in the night and decided to move on straight away. Stopped at the next services for coffee and carried on up the motorway to Hungary. Croatia became EU about a week ago so we weren't sure if there would be a border crossing. There was, but we didn't get searched this time! We came off the motorway at the first opportunity and instantly loved the open rural countryside, including fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see. Drove through a small village full of, we think, Roma gypsys who stared at us alot. (They are 4% of the population in Hungary.) The villages are quaint with every house built in a different style all set back behind gardens. We also saw a stalks nest on top of a lamp post with two huge stalks sitting in it! The first big-ish town we came to was Keszthely on Lake Balaton, where we looked for an ATM and then thought that it looked quite nice so followed the first campsite sign we saw. Found a lovely small family run campsite with their own veggie patch and a swimming pool. After some lunch and a swim we got the bikes down and went for a cycle into town. We had already seen many cyclists on the road and realised that Hungary is very cyclist friendly because of how flat it is. The town was quiet (it was Sunday afternoon) but very pretty with a nice pedestrian only high street and a park with a big palace. After a bit of a wander we got a beer that we didn't know was very expensive as we hadn't got our head around the Hungarian Forint yet, which at 340 to 1 pound isn't very easy to calculate quickly! Lovely day though- first impressions of Hungary are very good!
Packed up in the morning and parked in town whilst we got a coffee. We found a 'boys' shop which sold everything Pete could ever dream of from bows and arrows to guns, where we got a new tilly lamp. Didn't drive very far along the lake to a town called Badasconytomaj (I'm having trouble navigating these names!) which sits under a volcanic plateau and is famous for thier wine. Lovely grassy campsite with lots of trees and it's own bit of 'beach'. Lake Balaton is dubbed the Hungarian Sea so is very popular with Hungarian tourists in summer, as we found driving through all the ice cream and lilo shops! We braved a swim in the lake amoungst the swans and found it quite strange to be in fresh water after swimming in the sea so much, and didn't particularly like the sensation of gloopy mud on our feet. Chilled in the sun - it's still very hot here in Hungary - and in the evening after dinner we took advantage of the free internet by watching TV on youtube (we are secretly slightly missing TV!)
9th July
Lazy morning- Pete skyped his dad, I lay in the hammock. At about midday we set off on our bicycles in to Badascony town, about 5 kilometers away, to find a walking map of the plateau in the tourist information. We found it and locked our bikes up outside and set off for our walk up the mountain in 30 degree heat. Surrounding the plateau are loads of vineyards, all looking very lush and green at this time of year. We struggled up the hill passing lots of houses selling their home made wine (this will be our reward on the way down) and made it up the steep rocks to the top. Gorgeous forest on top which was slightly cooler and we found an incredible viewpoint to eat our picnic at. Walked around the top for a while and found a different route down. Really nice, pretty walk. The road had alot of houses selling wine, some more authentic looking than others, and we found what looked like a nice one and enjoyed a glass of Hungarian wine sitting amoungst the vines from which it was made. Infact we enjoyed it so much we decided to find another glass of wine in another house further down! Before picking up our bikes we had a walk around the town, which was nice- very touristy- and then cycled home. Spent the evening avoiding and killing mosquitoes.
The plan today was to stop on a small peninsula sticking out into the lake. We drove the half hour or so there but found no campsites and it was packed with Hungarian tourists fishing. (It seems that fishing is their national sport, they do it with about 5 rods each and they also eat everything they catch.) We still wanted to stay somewhere on the lake but after turning our nose up at a few campsites we saw we suddenly ran out of lake. Not wanting to turn around or go into Budapest this late in the day we decided to drive all the way north to the Slovakian border to a small town called Esztergom. The drive was beautiful - more sunflowers and fields - we even stopped and picked a whole bag full of cherry plums. We stopped for lunch on a track in a corn field and Pete found wild marijuana growing at the side! We took a little bit for testing later! Found a nice campsite in Esztergom on the edge of town which had a huge swimming pool and not many guests. Had a lovely late afternoon swim. We were quite tired after an unexpected whole day of driving so got ourselves a beer in the campsite restaurant. By the time we'd had a drink and played some cards it was dark, so for an easy dinner we tried our first taste of goulash- Spar's Budget Tinned Goulash. Yum. Got comfy in the van and tried our weed, which worked quite well, and then we got a knock on the door from the young couple camped opposite us. They were an English guy and a Turkish girl cycling to Istanbul from Germany. Apparently following the Danube river across Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania is the most cycled route in Europe. They suggested a night time swim in the pool so we all climbed the fence and had a nice but quite cold swim under the stars.
Cherry Plums. ^
Our first sight of the mighty Danube river. ^
11th July
Woke up early and went for a look around town. Very pretty medieval town with a gorgeous basilica. This town is famous for where the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote 'Meditations'. We got a coffee and people watched for a little while and then headed back to camp to pack up. We had researched a campsite in the centre of Budapest that we wanted to stay at but were quite nervous of navigating our first capital city. So before setting off Pete followed our exact route on google street view so we knew what we were doing. Started with a bad omen when we got lost leaving the campsite and ended up having to do u-turn in Slovakia and find our way into Hungary again! After that though we got to Budapest and found the campsite with ease. It was great having looked it up before but we also found that Budapest was surprisingly quiet and easy to negotiate compared with French and Italian cities. It was named a campsite but really it was a carpark with toilets and a restaurant, but the owners were very nice and it was only a few kilometers from the centre. We set up our table and chairs and then headed out into the city on foot. Got to the river and followed it up into the centre (we are on the eastern side which is Pest - the west is Buda.) The sun was shining and people were out in cafes and the architecture of every building was incredible and Budapest is just great. Instantly loved it. We found the tourist road and tried to loose it again. We saw a man drinking ale so stopped and got our first Indian Pale Ale in months! It was delicious! We danced along with Hari Krishnas. Then we found a park which was full of people drinking beers and bottles of wine in the evening sun. It felt kind of like Brighton festival- very friendly, happy atmosphere. We got some cans from the shop and sat and pretended to be locals in the park. We did see alot of homeless people though all collecting the empty beer cans and bottles. When we needed a wee and realised you had to pay quite alot to use the public toilets we headed to an our door bar in the park and got another beer so we could use the loo. Sat here for a while watching all the trendy people and then a lovely Mexican guy called Eric came and sat with us because he thought we were Argentinian and that we looked like cool friendly people! He was really nice, doing a three month trip around Europe and recommended some places in Budapest as he'd been here a couple of days. We then ended up getting joined by a group of four Aussie guys who Eric had met in his hostel and we got some more beers in. Chatted and drank for a while. Two of the Aussies, who were travelling separatly from the other two, were leaving to another bar so we joined them- stopping for a falafel on the way as none of us had had any dinner. Had one more beer in a nice bar out on the street and then decided we were tired and we'd spent too much money and headed home. (Luckily the expensive beer here is still only about 1 pound fifty so we did alright.) The walk back felt much longer and we fell asleep quickly after a very long day.
Esztergom. ^
Real Ale! ^
The park, under the awnings is the bar. ^
12th July
Had a slight lie-in this morning and then got ready for a another day out in the city. We got the metro into the centre and then walked over the bridge to Buda. Buda is the older side of town with a huge National History Museum which used to be a palace and a castle on top of the hill. It's very pretty but feels almost like a theme park, not lived in like the Pest side. We walked around a while and got a coffee and enjoyed the great views over the river and city and of the most amazing Parliament building we've ever seen! (Photos below.) We headed down from the hill but keeping on the Buda side hunted out a thermal bath that Eric had recommended last night. Sadly they only allowed men on Fridays, which is normal for all the baths around the city. So as we were starving and it was quite late in the afternoon we crossed the bridge over into Pest and went out for dinner instead. We picked a restaurant on the touristy street because it had several people sitting outside with absolutely massive plates of food! It was actually very good food as well - especially Petes who got a 'farmers plate' of different sausages and black pudding and dumpling. Paprika applenty. We were still very tired and slightly hungover from yesterday so we got the metro home and had an early night.
Amazing Art Noveau building. Our camera really doesn't do the architecture here any justice. ^
Chain bridge. ^
Parliament. ^
13th July
This morning we got the metro again, this time to Hosok Tere (Heroes' square) in City Park. Very cool monument with some scary, barbaric looking heroes on horses. We had a little walk around the park and stopped for a small lunch in a cafe. We found again that you had to pay alot for the toilet (we also had issues with this yesterday) and Pete ended up arguing with the guy and we had to avoid that toilet. Then we tracked down the Szechenyi Baths, one of the most famous thermal baths in Budapest. As expected it was busy and touristy and we got straight into the swimming pool. There were really fast rapids and springs coming out which we massaged ourselves on for a while. We were slightly disapointed because we thought that this was it and that we'd been scammed into going to a very glamourous lido. But thankfully we decided to explore and we found a row of about eight rooms all with different types and temperatures of thermal baths and saunas and steam rooms coming off them. It was fantastic. All naturally heated from the volcanic activity bubbling underneath most of Hungary. We hung out dipping in pools and over heating ourselves for a few hours and felt lovely and pampered afterwards. So we went for a beer! Tried to hunt down two bars that the guide book recommended but couldn't find either so went to the park we'd sat in on the first day and had a few beers watching the skateboarders who were actually very good. We both agree that Budapest is probably the best city we've been to, ever- we even looked up apartment prices (it's well cheap!)
Heroes' Square. ^
Thermal Baths. ^
Napping in the van. ^
14th July
Set off in the morning heading south. An easy drive out of Budapest towards the Great Plains. I had a town in mind but when we drove around it it seemed much bigger than expected and we wanted to see some countryside in the most rural part of Hungary. The only thing I was worried about was not finding a campsite, but we risked it anyway. We saw a sign for one but could not find it after about 10 kilometers so went back to the main road. Luckily we didn't find it because we followed another handmade sign down a track a bit further on and found an amazing Tanya (Hungarian word for small self sufficient farmsted) owned by a Dutch lady and English man - Annemieke and John. It was exactly what we've been looking for! We were the only ones there, staying basically in their back garden, surrounded by veg patches, acacia trees, sunflowers and fields of corn and reeds. The toilet was compost and the shower was outside; everything beautifully home made. We settled in and went for a short afternoon walk around tracks and the end of their land where they are growing a living willow tree yurt! We walked through a meadow where we disturbed loads of tiny purple butterflies. Whilst we were cooking dinner they invited us for a welcome drink so once we'd eaten we headed over with our Croatian cherry liquer in hand. They gave us Hungarian shnapps (forgot the name already!) and taught us how to say cheers in Hungarian. (It's Egeszsegedre which I had to look up just now as as you can imagine we could barely pronounce it let alone remember it!) Chatted to them about how they happened to be in Hungary, told them about our trip and listened to the deer in the fields. We also shared a bottle of Bull's Blood, which is a famous Hungarian wine, which was lovely. Very happy to have found this place! We woke up at about two in the morning and had a look at the stars. They were breath taking in a completely flat lanscape with no light pollution whatsoever. You could even just about see the milky way.
15th July
Obviously we decided to stay another day and in the morning Annemieke gave us an old window and asked that we do something on it for her house - like an arty visitors book. She gave us an art box with glass paint and we spent the morning designing and painting our window. We decided on sunflowers and acacia leaves as thats what we were surrounded by (I painted on WEX's back window too!) We had a lovely salad for lunch and spent the early afternoon doing the scrap book and reading. At about three o clock, when we'd built up the energy, we set out for a walk in the direction of the village. With only our compass in hand we followed the fields south east. Got trapped in a corn field by big acacia plantations which had alot of spiders living in grassy shadows and didn't seem tempting to walk through. Got back to the field we could actually see across and wondered if there was a track anywhere. Just as we were about to follow a field of corn we saw a car driving the direction we wanted to go in the distance and found the dirt road leading to the village. There are quite a few abandoned farms - people moving to the city etc - which John says you can get for a very reasonable price. It's all getting more tempting by the second! The village was small and of course we tracked down an ice cold beer in a local pub - 40p for half a litre! We got two. There were people riding horses down the streets and men riding lovely old bicycles and trucks full with hay. Definitely feeling 'Eastern European' now - this could not be Italy. Headed back, Pete found more weed growing on the sides of the road. Didn't get lost as such but its annoying when you can see where you want to go but are blocked off by fields of reed or corn and can't get there! Had dinner and read in the van. Lovely day.
Our finished window (we wrote a message on the top.) ^
Little out house that will be another guest room. ^
16th July
Decided to edge closer to the Romanian border today, but we are liking Hungary so we wanted one more night here and also we needed to find a map (ours doesn't include Romania.) Had a really nice morning being introduced to the three huge Lancier dogs and shown around the house and out buildings. The dogs had to be introduced one at a time because they are not used to people and I was quite scared as they were as big as me. Pete loved them and they liked him too. The house was so cool! Original low ceilings, walls made of clay bricks and full of beautiful second hand furniture that would cost a bomb in England. There was also a small guest annex with a bed up on a mezzanine and decorated exactly like I would do it! I loved it! They also had an amazing work shop where they were currently building a traditional Hungarian clay oven. God, we didn't want to leave. We were so enchanted by it all that we forgot to take any photos of our lovely hosts. Here's a link to their website, please have a look - www.chy-kara.com They also surprised us with a package of potatoes, a huge courgette, black carrots and fresh eggs from their chickens to take with us. We said our goodbyes and carried on south towards the border. Found a very nice campsite on the edge of a town called Mako where we were welcomed with a shot of plum schnapps before we'd eaten any breakfast! We have had a swim in the pool and written this blog all afternoon. Dinner was a feast of potato hash with veg and fried eggs, all fresh and delicious. Plan to head to Romania in the morning but have really been caught by surprise with Hungary and have fallen in love with it. Definitely will return.
Our care package! ^
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