This is an invitation to Ken Livingstone to come and visit this city and experience public transport in a major capital city achieving its goal. Transport for London eat your heart out. With a combination of bus, train, metro and tram at your disposal, Budapest is very easy to navigate. The ticket options are broad and wait for it…cheap…a public service for the public and not the pockets of the private and few.
Budapest straddles the Danube in ancient history and modern elegance. While Buda is very old and somewhat sleepy it is a suitable contrast to the more lively and energetic Pest. We teutonically didn’t mix the two sides, seeing each side separately. It’s important to have a system, especially in this heat and humidity! I guess you get the humidity in most cities, but with the extra heat you start to look like a sweaty athlete. Still so far its better than rain and the unfortunate floods that are happening in the UK. Hope everybody is ok.
As our finances naturally are decreasing, we are becoming more aware of spending! So we ate in a cafeteria housed in an old cloister for £3 each with lion sized portions of goulash. Hard to know what the authentic goulash is as it seems to vary so much, but it is delicious and the belly seems to like it. It is always good to see locals in your chosen eatery scoffing down the same meal as yourself.
In Pest we travelled on continental Europe’s oldest metro, which seemed to have air conditioning! Splashed out on some very tasty food and walked our legs off. So many wonderful styles of architecture to be seen, which I am too ignorant to know, plenty of money in them there bricks though. I imagine that property is not cheap here at all, as outside the centre you can see lots of tower blocks, which seem to be inhabited by middle class people too. They are not the population to be seen in Ballymun or Tower Hamlets.
Whatever about the Danube being beautiful, it is also a mosquito infested backwater, or so Laura might say! I can play join the lumps on her legs, where the mozys have attacked her. Luckily my Mediterranean-Irish blood is not so tasty.
We are off to a thermal spa for a bit of pampering tomorrow as we head for Lake Velencei-to. Our campsite there has free access to the bathing waters. Luckily my burns have healed and are turning into warrior scars!
Budapest straddles the Danube in ancient history and modern elegance. While Buda is very old and somewhat sleepy it is a suitable contrast to the more lively and energetic Pest. We teutonically didn’t mix the two sides, seeing each side separately. It’s important to have a system, especially in this heat and humidity! I guess you get the humidity in most cities, but with the extra heat you start to look like a sweaty athlete. Still so far its better than rain and the unfortunate floods that are happening in the UK. Hope everybody is ok.
As our finances naturally are decreasing, we are becoming more aware of spending! So we ate in a cafeteria housed in an old cloister for £3 each with lion sized portions of goulash. Hard to know what the authentic goulash is as it seems to vary so much, but it is delicious and the belly seems to like it. It is always good to see locals in your chosen eatery scoffing down the same meal as yourself.
In Pest we travelled on continental Europe’s oldest metro, which seemed to have air conditioning! Splashed out on some very tasty food and walked our legs off. So many wonderful styles of architecture to be seen, which I am too ignorant to know, plenty of money in them there bricks though. I imagine that property is not cheap here at all, as outside the centre you can see lots of tower blocks, which seem to be inhabited by middle class people too. They are not the population to be seen in Ballymun or Tower Hamlets.
Whatever about the Danube being beautiful, it is also a mosquito infested backwater, or so Laura might say! I can play join the lumps on her legs, where the mozys have attacked her. Luckily my Mediterranean-Irish blood is not so tasty.
We are off to a thermal spa for a bit of pampering tomorrow as we head for Lake Velencei-to. Our campsite there has free access to the bathing waters. Luckily my burns have healed and are turning into warrior scars!
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