Budapest

Saturday 15^th June

We were keen to back on the road early and to leave Romania for Hungary. In the past few weeks we have visited two countries we have never been to before (Bulgaria and Romainia) and Hungary would be our third. The population of all three of these countries is significantly lower than that of the UK and we have realised how overpopulated our little island is.

 We stopped for our usual morning coffee just passed Drobeta-Turnu Severin on the edge of the Danube which here forms the border between Serbia and Romania.  All signs of last night’s storms had disappeared and it was a beautiful morning to sit in the sun and drink coffee. However we needed to keep driving and so we headed on north to Timisoara.

Timisoara is famous for the role it played in the overthrow of the Ceasescu regime. A local Hungarian minister stood up for the rights of his local community.  When the police came for him on December 16^th 1989, his parishoners barred their way. A 5-day battle ensued which gave inspiration to the people of Bucharest.

We only had time for a short visit here and we went to the attractive Piata Victoriei with its flower beds and fountains. There were also a lot of cafes and many of these had ‘misting’ systems in place to cool down the air and their customers. Mike and I tried a couple of times to get under them to cool down. At the end of this area was a huge Romanian Orthodox Cathedral. We went inside but there was a wedding service being performed and we did not want to intrude too much.

We rescued Buster from his very hot car park and headed to the Romanian:Hungarian border town of Nadlac. Somewhere along this route Mike was pulled over for speeding. We were issued with a penalty notice which we think was a verbal one but we did not understand what was being said to us or what was written down. The policeman spoke no English other than ‘go’ once he had completed his paperwork. So we went. We wondered if it had been logged on some computer system and we would have to pay a fine at the border but we crossed over without any problems.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  Once over on the other side we wanted to get ‘legal’ immediately so we bought a motorway vignette. (Just as well as we spoke to a German couple later who were fined 150 Euros for not having one).  This caused some confusion as we were asked if we wanted a vignette for Austria too. We did, so we said yes and the woman duely marked it with todays date. The problem being we would not be in Austria for another 10 days by which time it would have expired. With a lot of gesticulating we got our message across and the vignette was reissued.

Kecskemet

Across the border we headed off for Szeged. This was a lovely town with a wide river flowing through it. Along the banks university students were having BBQs and there were families paddling in the waters.  We parked in a car park next to a large open air swimming pool. It looked very inviting but it was nearly 8 o’clock so I assumed it would be closing soon. That evening we wandered around the centre of this vibrant well kept town and then stopped at a restaurant for a beer and glass of Hungarian wine before heading back to the van for the night.

Sunday 16^th June

 There are obviously no problems with ‘wild camping’ in Hungary either as no one disturbed us during the night. We left after breakfast as we were keen to get to Budapest.  A heatwave had now hit central Europe and the temperature was in the high 30s. Even with the windows fully open we were very hot.  However the towns and villages we passed through were lovely as was the countryside. We stopped off at Kecskemet. Which was a lovely Hungarian town. It was a Sunday morning and there were lots of families walking through the park where a band was playing. We had a coffee here and set off again. We were crossing the great Hungarian plain and everywhere looked very well kept.  We were surprised to see Tescos in Hungary – the first for many months so we stopped for a few supplies. Many things were very cheap e.g. bread rolls at 3p each. 

 

We arrived in Budapest around lunchtime and successfully negotiated our way to the Centre. We found a shady parking spot to leave Buster (it was a good job that we had arrived on a Sunday as there was plenty of parking in the City Centre.) at the bottom of Castle Hill and walked up in the searing heat. We were aiming for the Tourist Information office which was supposed to be near the Mattias Church. When we eventually found it, it was closed and didn’t look like it was going to open again in a hurry. However the Church was beautiful. it has been built in a neo gothic style and it has a lovely colured tiles roof that sparkled in the sunshine. I read that Franz Lizts Hungarian Coronation march was played here for the first time during the coronation of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth in 1867.  In the square near the Church is the equestrian St. Stephen statue. St Stephen was Hungary's first king. There were lots of other medieval buildings up on the Hill as well as ruins of a church that was destroyed in WWII. However  the best part from being up on the hill was the fantastic view across the Danube to the magnificent parliament building.  Mike just about managed to keep me going as I find it difficult when it is very hot to do anything useful. 

We headed back to the van and were able to pick up an internet signal so we were able to research a place to stay and found an appropriate campsite on the other side of the Danube in Pest. Did you know one side of the Danube has the town of Buda and on the other side lies Pest.  We headed off for Haller Camping and it turned out to be a good site having all the facilities we needed including free laundry.  It was also a convenient site for us to cycle back into the Centre tomorrow to do more exploring.  We parked next to a friendly Dutch couple and shared our travel stories.

Monday 17^th June

The temperatures were already well into the 30s when we were having breakfast. Jacqui was worried about the heat but we decided that cycling was probably our best method of transport and getting around the city. We packed plenty of water and our swimming stuff and headed off. We had planned to take in the sights of Gellert Hill, the Citadella and the Royal Palace on the Buda side. The cycle in was great as we created our own breeze. We cycled over the river and then had a very steep climb up to the Citadella. At the top where we stopped for a breather I asked Mike if my face was very red. He replied ’oh is it you I thought I was talking to a tomato’ I was very hot! However once again we did have fantastic views of the City.  It is rather lovely. We cycled down and along the river for a bit as Mike wanted to go up to the Palace again as we had only seen it briefly yesterday. The Royal Palace is massive and now also contains the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History museum but the hot weather had drained any interest in visiting museums. In fact I decided to stay at the bottom by the river under some very pleasant smelling lime trees to wait for Mike to revisit the palace area. I just gave him my camera and told him to take some pictures for me.

   Once reunited we set off across the river back into Pest to see the beautiful Parliament buildings. Actually they looked better from a distance as there was a lot of construction work going on around them.

We continued our cycle around the other sights in this area, going past the Soviet memorial and down to Freedom Square where there were teenagers dancing and little kids playing in the fountains. unfortunately no adults were under the fountains and I was soo hot but I decided to join them anyway and went for a quick dip under one of them. The other landmark in this area is St Stephen's Basilica. Our guide book states that on August 20th St Stephen's mummified hand is paraded around the streets and the rest of the year it is on show in a side chapel. We didn't bother to check this out! We then headed off to the Szechenyl Baths. This is one of Europe’s largest spa complexes and was the perfect place to spend time in Budapest when the temperatures were hitting 40C.  We had a lovely time there trying out all the different thermal pools and the swimming pools. Mike’s only disappointment was that he did not see anyone playing chess on floating boards (one of the things it is famous for) but we did see some playing cards.

We left at 7pm and the temperatures were still around 38C but the cycle back was quite flat and it did not take us too long to get back to the van where we could sit and enjoy the warm evening.