After thunderstorms through the night, we woke to a grey day with the promise of showers, but we had planned a trip by boat to Szentendre, an hour or so upstream and just had our fingers crossed.
The trip through the city was interesting, under the Chain Bridge, past Parliament and alongside the 3kms of Margaret Island before the buildings ended and there was just a tree lined river ahead.
We went inside for coffee and got chatting to the only other two passengers on the boat, Caroline and Brent, who are on a two month trip round Eastern Europe from Auckland. Having spent an enjoyable hour trading travel tales we reached Szentendre and parted ways. We walked through the pretty town to the bus station and found we had just missed our bus so retraced our steps to get some lunch.
Just like hummus bars are all over the city, so are soup bars, so we decided to try one. The choice changes daily and we had one porcini and white wine and one Dutch cheese … both hot and tasty on a grey day!
Finally we were on our bus, and dropped at the largest open-air museum in Hungary, where buildings from all over the country have been reassembled to showcase Hungary’s rural past. In two hours we only managed to see half the museum, that was enough to get a good idea. Some of the interiors were interesting with high beds pushed to each side of the rooms and often a large stoneware stove in the corner covered in beautiful tiles.
One exhibit about how people in Eastern Europe were ‘reorganised’ and relocated after WW2 was quite poignant.
We returned to town, which became an artists colony in in 1920’s and still has a number of galleries and art shops which we checked out, then bought tea and cake to eat on the trip back to Budapest and as we boarded the boat, the rain started. We were so lucky it had remained dry so long but it rained all the way back.
That evening we returned to Heroes Square and had dinner in Bagolyvar which means Owl’s Castle. It is a typical family restaurant with traditional Hungarian fare and I finally had the Gulyasleves or goulash soup which was so filled with meat it was almost a stew, followed by another version of Chicken Paprikash, and Chris’s vegetarian menu offered asparagus soup and rice pilaf with ewes cheese.
Well I might just mention here that although we ate so well in Budapest, it was down to a bit of detective work as there were few Hungarian restaurants that offered a vegetarian choice at all. Anyway, we finished off with a couple of local liqueurs, Unicum which we have seen on sale everywhere in a round bottle which is a herbal digestive … and despite my love generally of such liqueurs … this was truly dreadful – and a house green walnut liqueur that was quite nice, but neither will find a space in our suitcase home!
Off Travelling Together 