Photos : Happy snaps of Buda and Pest Plus Eger
City to City
We decided that in Hungary you should be like the Hungarians and live in an apartment for the weekend. Chris found a place online and it had 3 bedrooms, dining room, etc. The place that we rented the property through asked if we wanted a transfer from the airport…we said yes and were expecting a nice ride into town. We were met at the by a local holding a sign with Chris’s name on it. With some expectation of being chauffered to town we left the terminal to find our driver was a taxi driver. Yep, we left the terminal to get in a taxi. But this was no ordinary taxi…no no no. We managed to upgrade from the new Honda taxi and the new Mercedes taxi, that we saw leave as we arrived, and boarded our own oasis…the Suzuki Swift. We laughed to ourselves but EUR30 for the pleasure was a little hard to swallow.
Our Apartment
We were met by someone from the rental company and shown into our abode for the next few days. It was large and had 3 bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, 2 bathrooms….and all from Ikea. I kid you not, this place was 100% from Ikea. Here are the pics to prove it (or click the link on left)
The following day Sharon, Michelle and Ken arrived around midday so we wandered about town for a bit and found a place on the bank of the Danube for lunch. Was easy to sit there for a while and the weather was great. We had to drop off some money for the apartment and when asking about the address, that Michelle pointed out was different to the one that we booked, we were told that in fact we were staying in a different house. Chris and I didn’t even check!
On the Saturday we walked concentrated our sight seeing around the Danube and headed across to Buda and up to the Castle and Fishermans Bastion, took in the views over to Pest and admired the many bridges. It’s an easy town to walk around with most of the main sights close together or within a short walk. We quickly checked out Margaret (sp?)Island…it was full of lovers, screaming kids, techno pub in one part…we didn’t stay long 🙂 It was funny to see a lone figure sunbaking on the rocks just near the main bridge and in full view of the passing boats a lone woman sunbathing topless. Can’t say I was offended but it made us laugh at how out of place she looked.
That night we went to a restaurant called Sir Lancelots. It was all done up in a Medieval theme (including the waiters and waitresses) – and you have to eat with your hands. You get a spoon and a knife and two limbs mother nature gave you. We ordered a platter for 4 (even though there was 5 of us) and it was huge! We got nowhere near finishing it but that’s just because myself and Ken were trying to be polite or at least not look too much like pigs. The meal was meat, meat and more meat with a potato thrown in for decoration. We had a huge pork knuckle in the middle and chicken wings, chicken breasts, turkey legs, steak skewers, pork skewers etc etc etc.
A town called Eger
On Sunday Michelle and Ken went to watch Rugby League and the rest of us headed to a small town Eger about 2 hours or so by train. I assumed that the train left from the train station near our apartment however when we got there and asked for tickets were were told that the train left from the other train station at the oppposite end of town in about 90mins. We walked quite a way to find it and left around midday.
We didn’t have time or the inclination when we got to Eger to head to the wineries but were content to wander around town and head to the castle. After the whirlwind self guided tour we headed back to the train with the help of some locals who didn’t speak english. Chris and Sharon played charades making choo choo noises and circular motions with their arms to indicate where we wanted to go and we found our way just in time to get a seat. 🙂
Parks and Gardens
That night we had all you can eat Japanese and roamed the streets on the way home taking a few snaps on the way. On the Monday morning the others headed home but Chris and I had arranged a late flight so we could spend longer in town. We made our way up to a huge park that has the Millenium Memorial, Vajdahunyad Castle and musuems. Some of the statues were haunting others unusual but we had a great time.