The campsite just into Hungary was fine, nothing special but it did have a pool—it had been quite a while, since we had immersed ourselves fully under water.
We also saw some Hares here, in fact we saw quite a few driving around during the previous few days. We’ve probably seen more Hares in the space of 3/4 days than in our whole lives.
We stayed for a couple of nights and pondered what we were going to do next.
We decided to head south to Lake Balaton—the biggest lake in Central Europe apparently at 80km long—stopping at a couple of small towns on the way.
The first town isn’t worth mentioning, but the second, Sumeg, was good fun. Here I got Wend her belated cake for her birthday, well actually it was a pastry filled with cherries called Rétes, a type of strudel and it was delicious. We needed the sugar hit, because next up was a climb up to the castle.
Pretty much a ruin, but spruced up a bit in the 1980s, this was an unexpected pleasure for us—we may have stated in the past that we like a ruin… Anyway, so we spent a couple of enjoyable hours there.
Afterwards we made our way to Keszthely, one of the nicer towns by Lake Balaton, with holiday homes and plenty of places to go swimming in the lake, a bit like a riviera town in many ways, with a charming old town and a posh palace.
Once at the campsite, we got ‘stuck’ for four nights, it was just a pleasant change not to move on so quick and take in the sunshine and swim in the warm waters of the lake.
Although the weather was great in the day, by the evening the humidity had its affect and there was a set pattern that continued during our stay. Basically we had some fantastic thunderstorms after dusk. It rained so much on the last night, that some of the pitches were waterlogged, but we were ok.
We did spend one afternoon seeing the old town but on the whole we just read our books and did not much else. We met some lovely English girls and enjoyed their company over a few bevvies on the last night.
We finally pulled our finger out and moved on, following the shoreline of the lake, just as well as it hammered it down not long after for about an hour as we made our way east. Luckily, by the time we turned up and into the hills the rain had stopped and we got to see some interesting natural sights as well as one man-made one.
We saw; the Swinging Rock and plenty of Butterflies, the Comedy Statues and some Ground Squirrels which were very cute, and the Pointed Needle (a Basalt formation) with even more Butterflies, in a region called the Kali Basin. Really delightful to drive through. We continued on for a while longer, eventually finding a quiet place in the forest to stopover for the night. There were some walks around the area so we did a little 45 minutes walk or so and did see some interesting Stag Bettle behaviour, or ‘coupling’.
The following morning, we drove on for a couple of hours and made our way to Budapest, We found a great campsite, with the most helpful owners, just on the edge of the city on the Buda side (west of the Danube), pretty much in nature but with bus access to the centre. Perfect!
We loved Budapest, a great place with an excellent ambiance.
Having visited three capitals cities in as many weeks, this was our favourite without doubt.
There’s so much variety of architecture, lots of excellent Art Nouveau buildings, fun bronze statues, the more classic types of buildings, thermal baths, fountains, etc.etc. made this a fascinating place to walk around. The Danube separates Buda from Pest and they are quite different. Buda, up on the hill more traditional with the castle and the older history, Pest looking towards the future and more quirky.
Budapest was pretty much flattened during WWII and you can see lots of building which have been partially renovated, some using the older foundations with newer parts added on top, however many were left derelict.
Around the turn of the century, some clever people decided to use these derelict buildings and open what they call ‘Ruined Bars’. Now, these are great places to have a few drinks, catch up with old friends or for us, watch the world go by. One in particular, Szimpla Kert (Charlotte's favourite), is a real gem. A mish-mash of colours, furniture, stickers, bric-a-brac, and industrial decor make it a very unique and fun place to visit, all the better to sit back in for a couple of hours or so. We visited twice.
There haven’t been many places that we’ve seen on this trip that we would return to, as lovely as they were, but Budapest is certainly one.
We also saw some Hares here, in fact we saw quite a few driving around during the previous few days. We’ve probably seen more Hares in the space of 3/4 days than in our whole lives.
We stayed for a couple of nights and pondered what we were going to do next.
We decided to head south to Lake Balaton—the biggest lake in Central Europe apparently at 80km long—stopping at a couple of small towns on the way.
The first town isn’t worth mentioning, but the second, Sumeg, was good fun. Here I got Wend her belated cake for her birthday, well actually it was a pastry filled with cherries called Rétes, a type of strudel and it was delicious. We needed the sugar hit, because next up was a climb up to the castle.
Pretty much a ruin, but spruced up a bit in the 1980s, this was an unexpected pleasure for us—we may have stated in the past that we like a ruin… Anyway, so we spent a couple of enjoyable hours there.
Afterwards we made our way to Keszthely, one of the nicer towns by Lake Balaton, with holiday homes and plenty of places to go swimming in the lake, a bit like a riviera town in many ways, with a charming old town and a posh palace.
Once at the campsite, we got ‘stuck’ for four nights, it was just a pleasant change not to move on so quick and take in the sunshine and swim in the warm waters of the lake.
Although the weather was great in the day, by the evening the humidity had its affect and there was a set pattern that continued during our stay. Basically we had some fantastic thunderstorms after dusk. It rained so much on the last night, that some of the pitches were waterlogged, but we were ok.
We did spend one afternoon seeing the old town but on the whole we just read our books and did not much else. We met some lovely English girls and enjoyed their company over a few bevvies on the last night.
We finally pulled our finger out and moved on, following the shoreline of the lake, just as well as it hammered it down not long after for about an hour as we made our way east. Luckily, by the time we turned up and into the hills the rain had stopped and we got to see some interesting natural sights as well as one man-made one.
We saw; the Swinging Rock and plenty of Butterflies, the Comedy Statues and some Ground Squirrels which were very cute, and the Pointed Needle (a Basalt formation) with even more Butterflies, in a region called the Kali Basin. Really delightful to drive through. We continued on for a while longer, eventually finding a quiet place in the forest to stopover for the night. There were some walks around the area so we did a little 45 minutes walk or so and did see some interesting Stag Bettle behaviour, or ‘coupling’.
The following morning, we drove on for a couple of hours and made our way to Budapest, We found a great campsite, with the most helpful owners, just on the edge of the city on the Buda side (west of the Danube), pretty much in nature but with bus access to the centre. Perfect!
We loved Budapest, a great place with an excellent ambiance.
Having visited three capitals cities in as many weeks, this was our favourite without doubt.
There’s so much variety of architecture, lots of excellent Art Nouveau buildings, fun bronze statues, the more classic types of buildings, thermal baths, fountains, etc.etc. made this a fascinating place to walk around. The Danube separates Buda from Pest and they are quite different. Buda, up on the hill more traditional with the castle and the older history, Pest looking towards the future and more quirky.
Budapest was pretty much flattened during WWII and you can see lots of building which have been partially renovated, some using the older foundations with newer parts added on top, however many were left derelict.
Around the turn of the century, some clever people decided to use these derelict buildings and open what they call ‘Ruined Bars’. Now, these are great places to have a few drinks, catch up with old friends or for us, watch the world go by. One in particular, Szimpla Kert (Charlotte's favourite), is a real gem. A mish-mash of colours, furniture, stickers, bric-a-brac, and industrial decor make it a very unique and fun place to visit, all the better to sit back in for a couple of hours or so. We visited twice.
There haven’t been many places that we’ve seen on this trip that we would return to, as lovely as they were, but Budapest is certainly one.
Sumeg Castle
Kesthely
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| Not a bad camspite |
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| The branch came down in the night with a massive crack, not far from our van! |
Kali Basin
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| Stag Beetle spooning |
Budapest
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| The Raven and the Ring - can be spotted throughtout the city |
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| Wonderful Art Nouveau |
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| Liszt - The virtuoso pianist |
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| Fat Policeman |
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| The Great Synagogue - Largest in Europe |
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| Szimpla Kert |
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| Lángos - Deep fried light fluffy bread, it's ok at first but does get a bit greasy |
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| More Beer |
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| Columbo at the scene of the crime... |
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| ...did the squirrel shoot himself or was it a setup by the dog? |
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| Shoes on the Danube Bank Memorial - Victims shot by Hungarian Nazis into the river. |
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| Mock castle built in 1896 in different syles to commemorate 1000 years of Hungary |
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| Wend having fun |
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| Thermal Bath |
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| See you next time |
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