Country 4: Hungary

The first thing we did when arriving in Budapest was to find a campsite. Again, we did not have a good map of the city and so we started looking for camping signs that were posted on the main roads. Not long after entering the city we found signs and began to follow them- which ended up on wild goose chase through the narrow and traffic jammed roads. The campsite was the best on the trip though. It only cost 7euro per night for 1 tent, 1 car and 2 persons (as opposed to Venice’s 32euros per night): very cheap. It had a pool, great facilities and a nearby transit system to easily get us back into the city.





The one memorable thing of this campsite was the dog-
I felt a little sorry for this creature because of the heat and the amount of hair on its body.






Budapest had, as well, fantastic architecture. I particularly liked the parliament building with all the attention to detail. We visited the palace as well- on this trip I have visited a a few palaces, from Budapest, Potsdam and Madrid, and have noticed many similarities- and the phrase ‘once you have seen one, you have seen them all’ comes to mind, so now, in looking back I think, although am not certain, that the palace in Praque would be quite similar as well.




We also went to the ‘Statue Park’ which was a challenge to get to because it was on the outskirts of town and required a few transfers of buses, and the frustrations were multiplied by the heat which was close to 40 degrees. Statue park was a memorial to the liberation of Hungary from communism. It was really interesting to visit, although it was not that big and I think the efforts made and frustrations felt in trying to get there was not worth what was received in the end.

I wanted to experience the local food during this trip so in Germany, Czech Rep. we ate sausages (Micke really enjoyed that), in Hungary we ate Goulash. It was fantastic- melted in your mouth. The stew was made of wild boar and was accompanied by some sort of dumplings and of course… beer. We even tried a cherry beer for desert, which I thought was very nice.

Leaving Budapest was a nightmare- oh the morning rush traffic! Never would I want to live and drive in that city. Micke had brought along his GPS for easy navigating, which sometimes helped us in situations and sometimes made a mess of things. In Venice it was great because the map was of no use and the town is a maze. One aspect of the GPS is that it calculates a best route if you put in your location and destination. We tried it that morning, instead of following the signs, and it got us lost- and rather frustrated as well.