Hungary blog …
Well this Hungary blog shows how Hungary has some really luxurious places – and how we stayed on a stud farm and listened to horses fart all night! Oh and the shame of Hungary – who knew – sort it out! And the roads – ugh – lol!
So we escaped the storms and headed as far as we needed to go to guarantee a bit of sunshine. It seemed like whilst the South of Europe was experiencing a monumental heatwave, the North of Europe was experiencing more of a damp squib! So Debrecen, here we come … but first of all …
The roads – OMG!
We thought our destination for the day was just over the border from where we were in Slovakia, but with better weather. Well it wasn’t, and that’s because Hungary has the worst roads that we’ve experienced on this road trip so far … by a long way! Just shocking – literally! 😉
And it’s the fact that people drive 70-80mph on them – madness! Mostly the potholes are small, it’s the constant vibration from panelled concrete slabs that you drive over, and over, and over, and over – ugh! But sometimes the potholes are a couple of feet across – and then you know about it! After the enormous bangs, you’re thinking ‘Do we stop and take a look at the car, or wait to get to a town first where there may be a mechanic who can help?’, lol!
You don’t get used to it, you just put up with it! You can of course go via paid motorways, and miss out of the life in the country, like ….
The storks
Yes, storks here too – just like Latvia, although not in the same kind of numbers as there were there.
Oh, and then there are these signs all of the place, which were new to me. It tells you quite a lot about the populace in one simple sign.
That’s right, don’t take your horse and cart on the motorway!!!!
Debrecen
And to think that we’d never even heard of Debrecen! It’s Hungary’s second largest city, although the population is only around 200,000 people, which by UK standards is a largish town! But it’s great! It really is! There were loads of couples acting all romantically, dining out in lovely restaurants, or testing out one of the enormous amount of ice cream parlours that the centre had to offer. There was a really buzz about the place … on a Thursday night.
There were trams available all over the city, and the whole city centre was spotless. We stayed in a hotel – again due to the weather – about 10 minutes walk from the centre. There was the obligatory person who definitely had covid next door of course, but they were keeping their door locked!
But just as the weather had almost become sunny in Debrecen, the storms were closing in again, so back right across the country we went to guarantee some sun. No point going on a road trip and sitting in the rain after all! Thing is though that we think nothing now of travelling 5-6 or even 7-8 hours to get somewhere for the day! That’s what Norway and Finland do for you – massive countries!
Lake Balaton
So we’re purposely avoiding toll roads and motorways in order to see the local towns and villages, in order to get a better feel for the places that we’re passing through. Well, very much like Finland, it’s quite apparent the difference between the have’s and the have not’s in Hungary. And Lake Balaton exemplifies this – there are ridiculously cool boutique hotels where you can pamper yourself to death – sitting right next door to affordable-by-all guesthouses and campsites.
There are supercars mixed in with old bangers from 40 years ago. Oh and on that point, now we know where all of the mark 3 and mark 4 VW Golf cars are – they’re all in Hungary! Literally – all of them! Its like a museum for Golf’s 😉
Budapest
Wow, Budapest! Big! We planned to stay in a camp site just on the outskirts of Budapest, but on the way to the site we noticed that we were in the middle of the capital! There’s no point in leaving just to come back in again! So after about 15 minutes of searching, we parked up and took a wander.
Very much reminded me of London I thought. Lots of things to see and do, but it had a real multicultural vibe and a proper big-city feeling about it. It’s not as big as London though, and the traffic’s not in the same league. I learned to drive in London, so it seemed little-league to me! 😉
The shame of Hungary
Right on to another elephant in the room! Touchy subject maybe, but here it is … what is the shame of Hungary? … prostitution! What is it with Hungary and prostitutes? I mean, they literally line the roads into and back out of the capital! What’s that about? Women young and old swaying about like something out of a tavern in Witcher! A real eye-opener that one! We’ve never seen anything so brazen outside of Amsterdam!
C’mon Hungary, you’re a great country with an incredible history – sort it out!
Supermarket madness
Oh and there are Tesco stores everywhere – for the first time since we left the UK, something familiar … or not! In fact, they are literally nothing like Tesco in the UK, only the band is the same. In fact, if anything, I’d say they’re better than the Uk stores, as they have so much fresh local produce! lol!
Uj Tanyacsarda
Oh and the farting horses! Well, apparently this is a well known fact amongst horsey types – but not amongst us townies and city types! But it’s just incessant!!
We stayed on a stud farm, where to be honest we felt like we were being tolerated rather than welcomed. Clearly the horses were the priority and they just had lots of spare land they could make a bit of cash from! As it happened though, we were the only ones staying, and as the lights went out at 22:30, it was dark as could be! Great for star gazing, but spooky as hell! The entire cacophony of nature was let loose on us 🙂
And then the farting started – wow!
