Hungry in Hungary

So onto Hungary. We had been looking forward to the bull’s blood wine and a spa retreat of some sort in Budapest. All of our research had warned us that it was not an adrenaline junkies paradise of a country so we were looking for a slower paced week of exploring. We started off in a town called Eger known for it famous horseshoe street of wine tasting cellars.

We found a campsite to base ourselves, spent the afternoon wandering the town centre getting a feel for the place. The night time is really when Eger becomes unique! Within walking distance we strolled down into a hub of activity, people sitting happily at tables drinking wine bought directly from the cellars and young folk drinking out of plastic bottles some wine costing 50p a litre. In the middle of this horse shoe shaped street is situated a park where people happily sat drinking their wine out of plastic bottles while BBQ-ing their dinner, listening to friends playing guitars only lit up by the flicker of small fires. A real buzz. We set to tasting some wines and found ourselves getting swept up in the moment, a group of happily drunk Hungarians dancing to their local music whoop whooping to folk songs as a small band played beside them. Everyone was enjoying themselves.

The next day we decided we’d had enough driving and stayed on (not just for the wine). Next to the campsite was a 4 star hotel which allowed the campers to pay and use the pools throughout the day. So armed with books, towels and sunscreen we relaxed ourselves in the sunshine cooling off regularly in the water. As night arrived we set out for a nice dinner in the wine street, this time with the knowledge from last nights recky we took our own plastic bottles to be filled with wine and enjoyed trying new wines, and choosing some to take back as presents. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Eger, Budapest was waiting.

Budapest was a city Lee had always wanted to see, and we were excited by the draw card of the local thermal spas and being spoilt with a hotel stay. What I hadn’t realised before was that Budapest was actually Buda and Pest, 2 cities separated by the river. We checked into a campsite at the base of the hills slightly out of town but serviced well by a bus. We had an afternoon in the city, most things were closed but it made for a nice stroll around soaking up the beautiful architecture of the buildings in relative solitude and allowed us to find a hotel for the following night. We’d managed to save some of our budget for this one splurge. Excitedly I found an ice cream shop that made the scoops into petals of a flower, a beautiful creation and even yummier to eat.

The following morning we went for a run, the campsite was situated at the base of hills and running tracks led to the top, past rock (not climbable as it was constantly crumbling) a really good cardio workout to start out the day. A bus ride and a few tram rides saw us find the famous indoor markets. Finally a market which had local produce, fruit, veg, meat and cheese downstairs and local crafts and tack upstairs. We thought we’d have found more like this on our travels but this really was the first. A few presents bought and we decided on our Paprika. Paprika is famous in Hungary as the traditional spice so we couldn’t leave without some of the hot stuff. A walk up to the top of castle hill, we happened to be in time for the change of guard and just generally wandered before it was time to check into the hotel.

We stayed on Margaret Island in the centre of an island that separates Buda from Pest. We decided on our hotel as it is the first spa resort in Budapest Margaret Danubius Resort, hence the oldest and well established. Luxury awaited us in the form of a king bed, lush big bathroom and balcony overlooking the park. You have to remember for the last 2 ½ months we have happily slept in our small van in a ¾ width bed so all this was supreme luxury for us. We had booked 2 Thai massages to help us relax further after all our hiking and biking adventures. I (Lisa) had never had a Thai massage before but wanted to try something new, I’m not sure I’d have another one, not quite the sports massage I usually go for, but all part of the experience.

The Thermal spas themselves were fantastic. We went from hot steam rooms, to freezing cold plunge pools then floated through different temperature pools and under the jets of the thermal waters (yes they do smell like rotten eggs but good for you they say). We topped off the night by going for a walk through the park and opening Lee’s Moet and Chandon champagne he’d got from his work when he left. Talk about a night of romance and being spoilt, lovely ☺



Next stop Lake Balaton

We’d read in our guide books that Lake Balaton is a busy tourist destination not only for foreigners but for Hungarians in Summer. Still keen to see Europe’s biggest freshwater lake we headed to what was called the quieter Northern side. Instead of quiet peaceful shores what we were confronted with were hoardes of tourists, cars and campers everywhere. The areas to swim were only accessible if you paid to enter (remember this is a lake and not a beach) but because of the numerous reeds, access was limited to a few certain points. After consulting the TomTom for possible off road free accessible areas to swim we found our selves on a safari. We were driving on 4wd only tracks but thankfully as they were dry Smurfette managed well. All this proved fruitless but a fun little adventure.

In the end we stumbled across a car park beside the lake that had one tent set up. When we enquired about staying overnight he only charged us for the full days parking, though it wasn’t a campsite as such, we could stay overnight with day toilet facilities. Brilliant as it was quite, only 6 other campers staying and other day trippers, plus it was free access to swimming in the lake.

While we sat eating our cooked dinner by the lake, we both noticed snakes heads popping up out of the water. They were intrigued by the swimmers but never got too close, though it did cross my mind they were in there when we were swimming, we in fact were swimming with snakes! Lee went fishing for a few hours but despite a few bites on the line unfortunately didn’t manage to catch anything this time. We had a lovely sunset over the lake. A nice ending to a hot day.

After dark we sneaked off to have a quick shower near the toilet block. What then developed was an awful experience I’m not keen to witness again. We could hear really loud yelling in Hungarian between a man and woman next to the toilet block, then followed by loud crashes like something was thrown (it turned out to be a chair), then into our view we could see them all but physically hitting each other, suddenly on the ground wrestling angrily with each other. There were 3 French guys close by collecting water and we all went over to intervene. It turned out it was the 2 people who ran the paid for toilets during the day, neither spoke English but both were very worked up and drunk. I (Lisa) managed to get the lady to walk away with me, while the guys kept the guy off to the side, the only thing I could get out of her as she was short of breath and lacked English was she had a pacemaker and showed me the scar, I tried to get her to slow her breathing down and she got out her angina spray. It was a really messy situation, in the end as she calmed down she decided to get the bus away as they both normally stayed overnight in a cheap pink beach shelter on 2 air mattresses, even then we had to keep him away so he wouldn’t start up again.