BUDAPEST

I am certainly back in the UK - overcast, raining (on and off) and cold by recent standards.  We've been very lucky with the weather - 28 and 29 degrees celsius most days, but somehow not unbearably hot (how does that work?).  About half that this morning, as I await the English/French games (Wales having just beaten Ireland - sorry Kieran!)

I spent the evening with Ingrid and John (and a superb ham and leek pie) and will leave here after the game finishes.   Ingrid and John are off to Dartmouth after I leave - they kindly waited for my return before going down.

I have walked the soles of my feet off - at least 3 or 4+ hours walking around the city each day though we did get an on/off bus and boat ticket which we certainly used well.  It's steeped in history and has really only been out from behind the Iron Curtain for a decade or so.

A few photos to whet the appetite:

The lampshade in our favourite evening restaurant - they don't show up very well in this picture, but they are just very ordinary, stemmed wine glasses

 Now that teabags (and earthquake damage) seem to have taken over, that's ONE way of using up the odd teapot.

 Got any old graters you no longer need?

 The Opera House (we went to see Giselle, performed by the Hungarian national ballet company) - SLIGHTLY classier, perhaps!  I felt really good in my trainers, while most people were dressed up to the nines!!

If you'd told me you wanted one, I could have bought you one from this shop!!  Teacups this time.

 It's rather an arty place - and despite the poor wages, the people seem content. There were a number of beggars sitting on corners, but quite unobtrusively, and the streets were pretty clean.  Public loos averaged about 100 florints a visit (1000 florints to the pound; about $3 to the pound - you work it out, it just got too hard for me - but I rather suspect it wasn't a case of "spending a penny")

We didn't once see groups of threatening young lads - and the local dogs literally trot alongside their owners, without a lead.  They were noticeably jaunty, happy dogs ... all well groomed and allowed EVERYwhere!!

Chalkie - what you doing there?... HungAry doesn't mean you're about to be fed.  We came across this old lady and her two little dogs at about 10.30 pm.  She was very happy for me to take a photo despite speaking not a word of English!

The audio on the boat trip said that the Danube was only as blue as the song indicates, for young lovers.  It seemed pretty blue to me but I do agree that on the one cloudy morning we saw it, it lost its hue.

 We never did work out what those long, long boats were, but assume they're the ones that do three and four day trips up and down  the Danube ...

 The Danube is at its narrowest at Budapest but is still pretty wide (I want to say 81m but I've been known to be wrong on one previous occasion so may be again!)

 Houses of Parliament - there are 365 small towers around the building (one for every day of the year) and an equally large number of rooms.  When it was built it cost the same amount as it would have to build a small town for 60,000 people.  To visit its interior, you have to book the day prior so that they can check you out before allowing you in.

Buda is to the left and is hilly and 'green' Pest (pronounced Pesht) to the right ... containing the flat (thank goodness) ground and business area.  Two of these bridges were bombed out during WWII ... please don't ask me which two.

One of the new bridges was evidently an engineering masterpiece, and the designer was so proud of the finished result that he is reputed to have boasted that if anyone could find a fault, he would jump off the bridge.  Then one of the tradespeople noted that the lions didn't have tongues.  Fortunately the engineer could swim.

One really nice feature of the city was coming across musicians all around the place.

 A most annoying bagpipe sounding instrument - which he wound a handle on the left side and strummed/fingered with the right. (I'm reliably told it is called a hirdy-girdy - of Muppets fame!)

 

 A fabulous trio - part of a whole gypsy orchestra which I now have a CD for.  The group reminded me of Bob Heinz' 'group' at home - inter-relating with smirks and winks and thoroughly enjoying one another

 80 if he was a day - at the piano bar where we had a lovely meal one evening.  He played in a very similar style to dad - and lots of the tunes he used to play.  As he finished for the night he came over to me and gave me a booklet in which he appeared ... evidently tours all over the place and has a repertoire of some 4,000 tunes.  Most enjoyable in an old fashioned sort of way.

 Some Poles promoting polish fare at the market.

A glass harmonica - amazing ability with a backing tape - you'd wonder how he carries the water to fill the glasses, AND has time to tune them.

There's more to tell, of course, but the French are about to do the same to England as they did to us 4 years ago.  So I'll close meanwhile, and if there is a wireless connection at Sevenoaks, I'll try and do some more tonight.

It was a great trip - Lynne's dentist sorted her tooth out at (she tells me) an amazingly low costs and not too much pain.  Certainly a very pleasant way to go to the dentist, for me!  (even though I ignored a tooth that I broke the day after getting there!)