Budapest

In early September, my aunts Donna and Kay took their respective husbands Clarance and Frank on a European river Cruise. Their point of embarkation was Budapest, so we flew down to meet them and see them off. We were joined by Lisbeth’s parents, which was fantastic, because yes, they’re fun to travel with, but also we had our hands full with our two girls and needed all the help we could get.

I had very little idea what to expect. I knew that Hungary has been hit hard by the recession, and that wages are quite low, so I expected to see outward signs of poverty. I’d also heard from several people that it’s a great, clean, and afffordable city.

We saw almost no evidence of hard economic times. Nothing like Porto, or Dublin, for example. We saw only a few people begging in four days, so that surprised me. And it is indeed a clean vibrant city, with lots to see. For some reason it feels like a bigger city than it is. It feels more like London than Copenhagen, even though it’s much closer to Copenhagen in size.

Budapest is also quite affordable. Not dirt cheap, but very reasonable, especially by European standards. I particularly enjoyed the restaurants. There are a lot of them to choose from, and the quality of the food and service was quite high given the price. Plus I had what might be the best steak I’ve ever had (I’m not a big steak fan, but wow) on Ráday Street — a must-see stretch of sidewalk cafes that goes on and on for blocks.

At first it’s tempting to assume that the Hungarians in Budapest speak English pretty well. In restaurants, for example, they seem pretty fluent. But this is an illusion that often goes away once you stray off the subject of the menu.

Lisbeth found this out the hard way one night, on an urgent quest for diapers and baby-food. She quickly discovered that many of the cashiers had absolutely no idea what she was saying. A friendly woman in line offered to help, but she too couldn’t help. So Lisbeth had no choice but to mime baby food and diapers (oh I wish I’d been there — it sounds hilarious).

We were extremely lucky in terms of timing. The weather was perfect to a degress that made it seem surreal. We ate almost all of our meals outside I never once felt too cold or too hot. Naturally when you’re new to a place you assume it is always like it is now, but the manager of the rooms we rented assured us that it was unusually nice.

Before I left I wanted to come back. Four days is not nearly enough time to see a city like Budapest. There were things that I wanted to see but couldn’t because there just wasn’t time, even with Frits and Karen generously looking after the girls so we could go exploring.