Pt 1. Hungary
Link to photos: HERE
A lot of the people I work with looked at me a little strangely when I announced that we would be going to Hungary and Austria for our holidays. Although no-one said anything, it was almost like they were asking “Why would you want to go there?” Given that the Brits seem to like going to the beach for their holidays, Italy, France, Spain, and the Greek Isles tend to be the main places they go. Life must be tough 
We decided upon Hungary and Austria simply because they were a bit different and both were on our list… History will reflect that we chose wisely.
We arrived in Hungary knowing very little about the country. Sure we’d done all the requisite scanning of the Lonely Planet, rather I should say, Olivia did. But we definitely felt like we were going into alien territory. Since Ryanair generally flies to some of the more obscure airports, we ended up flying into Balaton, about 2-3 hours train ride from Budapest. So we thought we’d investigate the local area. We’d read that Lake Balaton is a really popular holiday destination for Hungarians, Austrians and Germans. So why not. Keszthely was the biggest town in the region surrounding the airport. We found both the town and the accommodation to be a bit of a hole. Note we only paid about 23 euros for the room so we can’t complain too much. After a bit of a wander around and an extremely lousy lunch we decided that Keszthely was not for us so we hopped on the bus and headed to Heviz the next town across. – The one with the thermal lake!
Heviz has a lot more going for it. It was generally a nicer place to navigate. We headed straight for the thermal lake. The facility was quite modern, and the lake itself seemed quite large. The lake was a beautiful shade of deep, green and had a small number of elderly folk wading around. Being a Tuesday afternoon I was glad it wasn’t too packed. The water was lovely. Not super warm, but very pleasant. There’s something quite liberating about being in a strange country where you don’t know anyone. You can go to the water and let it all hang out along with everything else. A very relaxing thought indeed. We stayed in the water for about an hour and a half until we were well and truly pruned. It was a very soothing place to be. It started to rain lightly towards the end. This actually added to the effect of being in the thermal lake as steam started to rise from the water. It looked great.
During our post-bath coffee we asked the waitress if she could recommend a local ma and pa type restaurant. As it happened there was a Hungarian restaurant around the corner called “Papas and Mamas” – we took this as a sign and went there. Boy did we eat well that night. i remember having something like roast deer stuffed with goose liver, bacon and mushrooms. Don’t be put off by the liver, it was awesome. We also tried some typical Hungarian wine known as Bulls Blood which was delicious.
Next day we hopped on the train up to Budapest. The train took us past much of the coast of Lake Balaton. Melbourne people, it reminded me of passing through Rye or Rosebud – but for a couple of hours straight. Not really my idea of fun. A lot of lakeside apartments, beach-houses and playgrounds for kids. Looked all a bit cheesy really.
(I’ll spare you the blow by blow account or we’ll all be here a week)
Budapest is a lovely and interesting city. Lots of really beautiful buildings, but many of them are looking a little tired and in need of a refurb.
Highlights of Budapest for us were many:
The thermal baths were a particular favorite of ours. Unlike the outdoor lake at Heviz, the two baths we visited in Budapest were more like swimming pools filled with thermal water of varying temperatures. The baths at the Hotel Gellert and the Szechenyi Baths were a fantastic way to relax. In particular the Szechenyi Baths had a pool where the water was a deliciously warm sperm-killing 38 degrees. They recommend that you get out after 20 minutes. We did, but boy was it hard dragging ourselves out – it was just divine.
The parliament building – which is very beautiful, especially when viewed from across the Danube – which in itself is an impressive sight. Same can be said for the palace.
St Stephens cathedral held particular meaning to me as the parish of my youth was St Stephens in Reservoir – which got its name from the Hungarian saint. The cathedral was very pretty with a lot of striking red marble.
The Mattias church at the top of the hill in Buda was refreshingly different. You know what its like, you’re on holidays and after a while all the churches and museums start to blend together. This church had a cool, red painted interior. Check out the photo, and imagine the whole church decked out lke that. Not something we’ll forget in a hurry.
On the outskirts of Budapest is the Szobor Statue Park. Within this park they have gathered a number of communist era statues which were dragged out of the city when the Soviet Union fell. Eerie stuff, imagine having some of these down on the corner. I was really pleased to have seen these statues, they left quite an impression. Here are a few cool photos.
What’s that? “What cool things did you eat Brian?” Well I’m glad you asked. Yes, we tried Goulash, the national dish of Hungary. I was surprised to learn that it is often served as a soup rather than the stew I had come to expect. It was very nice, but I can imagine that home made would be exceptional. They seem to have a thing for deer meat and goose liver. Both of which were very nice. We discovered that buffets aren’t all rubbish. The fine people at Cafe Trofea fed us a variety of great things on more than one occasion. I suppose our biggest culinary find in Budapest was a snacky food called Langos (pronounced lun-gosh). Langos is essentially a circle of fried bready dough. It can be eaten plain, or with an assortment of toppings. The one and only variety we tried was sour cream and cheese. My god they were nice, and cost bugger all too. We made sure that we returned to the market where we found them more than once.
On the whole we really enjoyed our 5 days in Hungary. Got to see lots of interesting and beautiful things. Would we go back? Hmm, tough one. As I will cover in Pt 2, Austria really blew us away. So am not sure whether we’d go back unless it was for a doing nothing and having lots of baths – type holiday. With so many awesome places to see in Europe, you need to start getting selective as to which places you’d go back to – especially when you’ve got limited time to do the lot. But then if we never went back…. the thought of never having Langos again is too depressing to contemplate…
