Budapest

Konyvmentok translate to "book rescuers" in English.

Hello! Here are a few postcards from a recent visit to Budapest over the February half term break. We had a fun, busy, child-free few days in this beautiful city with some lovely friends of ours, friends we have known since university. Good travelling companions!

We stayed in an AirBnB in the Pest side of the city, in the Jewish Quarter, very close to the huge Synagogue. This turned out to be an excellent base for the city as it was pretty lively and full of places to eat out. 

The apartment was old and beautifully restored - it reminded me of the one we stayed in in Paris. The same grand proportions with beautiful doors and windows. 

We walked a lot. It is always the best way to see any city, I think, and there is so much to see in Budapest. So much contrast between old and new, so much art, so much spirit.

Here are some of my favourite things that we did in Budapest.

:: Visiting the "ruin bars". They are a bars in old, abandoned buildings, filled with fairy lights, plants and graffiti. 

:: Eating out. We ate so well. Hungarian food is affordable and delicious, and the restaurants and cafes are lively.

I recommend langos, a kind of fried bread topped with cream cheese and other toppings. It is light and crunchy and very good. I also loved the "chimney cake", a kind of cinnamon-dusted sugar pastry baked on a stick (hence the name) and sold everywhere. 

Eat some cake: it is very good. 

:: The Terror Museum, or House of Terror I think it's technically called. Sited in the original building used by the Hungarian secret police, it has been turned into an excellent museum all about life in Hungary under the Nazi and Soviet control, and is also a memorial to those who died. It is impressive, interesting, moving and incredibly well done. Even the facade, designed so that the building is literally in the shadow of terror, is thought-provoking. 

No photos are allowed inside which just made for a better experience. 

:: We crossed over one of the beautiful bridges from Pest to Buda, the older, hillier half of the city. 

We took the funicular railway up to the top of the hill and the views were pretty spectacular.

We wandered around and explored the beautiful buildings at the top of the hill. Everything so white and pristine. 

I really liked Fisherman's Bastion, a purely decorative building created so people could look out over the river to the impressive Parliament Building,  a place for people to walk, to see and be seen.

This area is pretty, very touristy, clean, full of little cafes and museums. It doesn't have the same grit and energy as the Pest side of the river we stayed in but it was quiet and relaxing when you moved away from the main area. 

:: We took public transport quite a lot, when we were tired of walking. I loved the yellow trams, especially the older-style ones.

We used trams, buses and the metro and they were all safe, cheap and easy. John has a good app on his phone called City Mapper which tells you how to get around.

We loved this mid-century metro station.

:: St Stephen's Basilica. Excellent views inside and from the top,

:: The riverbank at dust, when the sun is setting and you can see everything lighting up on the opposite side of the river.

:: We took a nighttime cruise on the Danube to look at the city lit up,

Honestly - everyone recommends this as a "must do" activity in Budapest but I did not love it. A lot of queuing in the cold before you get on, and the cruise itself (one hour) was 30 minutes longer than it needed to be,

But the Parliament Building and palaces are very spectacular.

:: A more unusual trip was our visit out of Budapest to Memento Park, an open-air museum in which all the Soviet-era statues are located. When the communist regime in Hungary fell, the statues were all removed from the capital and moved here where they could be remembered as part of history.

John was in his element here. Military history, especially WW2 and Cold War-era history, are his favourite, I think he would have spent all day there if he could.

:: We loved looking around the shops in Budapest. They are an eclectic mix. This one, below, sold only brushes. Every time of brush you could imagine. Paint brushes (for art and decorating), shaving brushes, clothes brushes, hair brushes......

The touristy shops all sell the same things: paprika, wooden boxes covered in flowers, embroidered garments that were probably made in China, and nutcrackers. I did not buy a nutcracker and regret that decision. 

Some were very cool and we bought an excellent print in this one.

I did not buy anything embroidered, but I really enjoyed looking at all the different patterns and thinking about things I might sew. 

Since we mostly ate out we didn't visit any major supermarkets as we didn't need much food. However, we bought snacks and drinks. The snack game in Hungary seems to be strong. Lots of paprika flavoured crisps.

We stumbled upon a lovely little shop tucked away inside a little courtyard.

Everything it sold was mushroom themed.

Ornaments, mugs, toys, prints, children's clothes, tea-towels - all mushrooms. The owner (who spoke excellent English as did everyone we met in Budapest) said it had always been her dream to open a shop selling just mushroom related objects as she loved them so much.

It was my birthday while we were away so John bought me this beautiful cloche. I love it. It's hard to photograph but it is so pretty, especially when lit up.

Other souvenirs which came home with us were a range of Hungarian sweets and chocolate for Bella and Angus. Things we'd never seen in the UK.

We chose a gorgeous print to go on the family gallery wall - I love the way the bridges link the letters - and a tiny print of a bird which was a couple of pounds from a little gift shop,

And, an impulse purchase from the airport shop, a few wooden painted eggs to hang on the Easter twigs. I wish I had bought loads more of these actually, they are really pretty.

There concludes our visit to Budapest. I cannot recommend it enough: it has history, culture, amazing food, a buzzy atmosphere and is really friendly. The only regret is that we did not make it to any of the thermal baths to enjoy the hot springs. Maybe we will have to go back to do that, and so I can buy a nutcracker.

Winter's End

This is one of my favourite times of the year; we are on the cusp of spring but it's not quite fully here yet. It's been a mixture of frosty mornings and sunny days. Layer weather. Always a time for making plans and writing lists (for me, anyway). Easter is not far away (two week holiday, the best festive food and bluebell season, win-win-win!) and the days are getting lighter. It is glorious to leave work at 6 and there still be a glimmer of light in the sky.

February flew by in a whirl of work, a weekend in London, half term, a few days in Budapest, a lot more work (frantic, weekend and evening work) and my birthday. More on Budapest another time as it deserves it's own post. February's nature shelf was as quietly understated as the season: white and green; snowdrops, both real and paper; muted colours.

The fairy lights are still needed.

When we get closer to Easter I'll add more colour but for now I am loving the soft whites and browns. 

Our food shopping seems to always be full of citrus and flowers. The flowers at the time of year are my favourite I think. 

I am currently eating and baking with citrus a lot, especially blush and blood oranges. We go through loads. Marmalade cake, orange and almond cake, lemon drizzle....better than chocolate any day. I have recently discovered that sliced orange with porridge is delicious and am eating this a lot. 

There are often cookies too, mainly for the kids, and usually gone in a couple of days.

I am still baking sourdough semi-regularly. Maybe once of twice a month.

John is into a soup-making phase at the moment. Once a week he makes a massive vat of it then he portions it up into lunches for the week. I am loving this phase.

We've had Russian vegetable, red pepper and lentil, cauliflower cheese, leek and potato, and yesterday he made potato and courgette with cheddar which was very nice.

The garden is waking up and bursting into life. Every week there are big changes: buds on trees, daffodils and tete-a-tetes in the pots, tulips poking their green heads through the soil. 

It's the time of year when I start writing lists of things to do around the house, maintenance and DIY type jobs. Jet wash and stain the decking. Get the outdoor sofa cushions out of the shed. Jet wash the driveway. Decorate our bedroom. Etc.

We can't do anything major in our bedroom as we need to keep the existing curtains and large rug as there is nothing wrong with them, but the walls and floorboards desperately need repainting as they are both looking really scruffy.

Walks, always walks. Sadder and a lot less fun without a dog, but still it is always good to get out into the sunshine. (My wellies have split. I need to avoid puddles when walking now. Time for a new pair. I like the look of Merry People wellingtons but they are not cheap.)

I have read some cracking books this year so far. I finished Playing Games by Huma Qureshi and thought it was excellent. It's about two sisters and their loving yet strained relationship with each other, and their lives. So well written. Huma's collection of short stories, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love, is also very, very good. I like novels that focus on character's interior worlds.  I like to know a lot about what they are thinking and feeling, but also what they are eating, what they are wearing, what their homes look like. Those details are so important and, when done well, say as much about a character as the dialogue.

Talking of interior worlds, I also adored Darling by India Knight. It is a modern-day re-telling of Nancy Mitford's Pursuit of Love. One review I read of it (the Guardian, I think) said it was like a opening a door and peeking into a dolls house which comes to life. I thought that was spot on. Such beautifully crafted interior worlds full of exquisite detail. It is funny and joyful and full of such warmth and truly excellent observations of people.

When I put it on the bookcase it really tickled me how much it seemed to be sandwiched between two of John's weighty tomes. 

I just finished Dune by Frank Herbert for book group. I did not love it. I often find science fiction a bit baffling. People fly around in space ships but still dress like it's the middle ages. I thought Dune was very well-plotted (Hamlet in space, as my friend Amy said) but not perhaps that well written. Not enough interior world for me. But the good, good thing about book group is that is challenges me to read books I otherwise would not, comfortable as I am in my own little corner of literature. 

And now I am reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I have only read one other of her books, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which I really liked, and I am enjoying this one. She is such a creative writer. I am told her Jackson Brodie books are worth a read, and I do like a good detective story.

I will endeavour to return soon with tales of Budapest. I hope you are all well. Thank you for reading my sporadic posts and leaving your lovely comments.