This is in response to Andy's question about Hungary - and whether I'd recommend it.

I recommend it.

It's a great destination for a "weekender". I wouldn't spend an entire week there, there's

not enough to do in a week, but its perfect for a weekender (or maybe 3 days).

It's farily cheap, but I suspect getting more expensive by the month - I just got that

"feeling".

Warning - Budapest is upto an hour from the airport! Build it into your first day there.

Andy - I don't know where you live but if you are in the SouthEast then choose EasyJet from

Luton - excellent prices.

Take one of the yellow tour buses to see all the landmarks, again quite cheap and you get to

see all the views - part of the bus journey stops for 10 minutes in Buda at one of the high

points so you get a good view of pest. Buda is hilly, while pest is flat.

We stayed in Hotel Astoria, in Pest. It was very nice and really central to everything - we

could walk to all the main places (including the bars).

Have a meal at "Fatal" one evening:-

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Hungary/Budapest_Fovaros/Budapest-436839/Restaur

ants-Budapest-Fatal_Restaurant-BR-1.html

It's in a basement and you get good old fashioned grub in huge quantities - a real "nosh"

place - and delicious - and cheap!

There are bars a-plenty, so no problems there.

I am interested in politics - especially "extreme" politics. They fascinate me - hence my

interest in a certain poster here ;-).

If you are then take a trip to "Statue Park". It involves a tram ride and bus ride out of

the city (about 10 miles) but I thought it was well worth it.

The park is a living outdoor museum and has most of the huge God-like communist statues that

were in Hungary prior to the 1989 (counter) revolution. The statues are both awesome and

chillingly disgusting!

Hungarians were respectfully asked whether the museum should exist - even down to votes for

each statue (or 'memorials').

They decided it should. I expect some ghoulish commies go there in hero worship, but in

reality its a display of what can go wrong with humans.

And in a way the statues are all lined up to look at in awesome disgust - so it's a good way

of remembering the past and being thankful for the present.

I left with a feeling of "how dare they" about those individuals that thought they could

socially engineer every aspect of human life. Makes you wonder why they want to join the

EU!

You'll find Lennin there, but don't expect to see Stalin - his statue was demolished in the

1956 uprising. Many were killed when the uprising was crushed by the Soviets.

The language there is odd (as TB said). It is also non-translatable from English (like

Welsh is). So the locals will either know how to speak or or not. Trying to talk to the

bus driver was a nightmare of waving hands and pointing at pictures in the tourist book!

BUT! They are very friendly.

When in the bus a gentleman to our left saw us holding the page of statue park open in the

tourist book, so he offered to warn us when we should get off the bus (again with gestures

rather than words!).

There are a few beggers, but no more than the numbers you'll find in any big city. There was

a sense of safety in the country. In fact I felt like it was a bit like Germany except

without the gloomy feeling of unemployment. It was a city quite happy with itself (not

surprising when you contrast it with it's past!). And people were always pleased to see us.

Any more questions then please ask.

Ok - to keep it "on topic":-

The yellow bus commentary was by an American who quoted metric with no reference to

imperial. I had to laugh - As soon as the British couple behind heard "kilometres" in the

"English" commentary the bloke said "I thought the swtich said it was English!!" :-D

As you can imagine I was out to enjoy a cultural holiday, not to look for 'deli-counters,

non-12" 12" records, magic-euros etc but I did make the occasional observation (like the bus

one above).

I also saw a measuring scale in a shop window with both imperial and metric on it

(remarkably the "1 Lb" mark was accidentally put right next to "454G" instead of the magic

"500G"!)

Clothes shops had trousers in imperial but like "Erin" said - that's more to do with

Imperial "looking more friendly" than anything else ;-)

We went to a lager-bar (which had hundreds of different types from around the world). Needless to say all were metric except for the British bottles which were labelled "Full Pint" on the neck.

And don't believe a word the nutcase says - all money transactions are done in Florints. Euros are not used. The conversion rate is one of those "big scale" ones - I think it was £1 = 300, or 3000 Florints.

The abbreviation for Florint is "Ft". So you can imagine how mad a certain poster would get seeing "Feet" everywhere.

Actually it looked odd - Office space being quoted as number of feet to the square metre (think about it!).

''''(remarkably the "1 Lb" mark was accidentally put right next to "454G" instead of the magic

"500G"!)''''


No they didn't. If there was a 1 lb mark at 454 g then it's because Steve put it there. Everyone knows that a pound is 500 g, unless you cling to outdated FFU.

:-D

Cheers for the info Steve, going there for a couple of days in august, then get a train to Bratislava (only about 200km/2.5hrs) and fly back from there.

The reason I haven't been posting much recently is just because I get bored of the same old debates over and over again. I still read the posts, so if anything interesting comes up I'll be there...

No probs Andy.

Search the web for as much info on Budapest as you can.

Do you think you'd be visiting statue park? would that interest you?
I'm keen to know.

If you have any more question please do ask - I'll answer them if I can (despite interruptions from the board-wrecker).

Excellent report. Have you considered becoming a travel writer?

<<<Do you think you'd be visiting statue park? would that interest you?
I'm keen to know.>>>

Yes, I will if I have time. Sounds very interesting.

T'will be interesting to compare findings!

(That's unless this board hasn't gone completely "waste-land" by then!)

<<<T'will be interesting to compare findings!>>>

Why? Do you think I'll be standing there thinking 'ah, those were the good old days, when they had their lives completely controlled by the state'?!

Andy,

When you are there, check out all the buildings being remodeled and sanatised. This is euro investments at work!

Not at all.

It would be interesting to see if you feel the same emotions about that awful time.

In the guest book they even have entries from people who admitted to weeping whilst there.

It's an important reminder.