We stayed in Hungary’s capital for three days, giving us time to catch up with a few chores. Our fellow travellers on the camp site were mainly Czech, German and a few Dutch – and always, always at least one representative from the Antipodes – our common language and culture drew us together as natural travelling cousins.
The campsite had well maintained washing machines and dryers (£3 a wash and £3 a dry). A few of my “do not tumble dry” items quickly dried on a line tied from a sapling to the truck’s wing mirrors. The weather was warm and sunny and we were able to sit outside until the sun set, looking forward to the luxury of clean bedding that night.
Budapest, on the banks of the river Danube, was a beautiful city that appeared prosperous and vibrant and, as tourists, we felt very welcome. Our taxi driver, an older local man, complained that the city was the home to too many Chinese.
We were not enthusiastic tourists and had done the city tour when we were last in Budapest in 2018. We loved the city’s ornate buildings and wide tree-lined streets which belied the country’s dark history of the murder of tens of thousand Hungarian Jews by the Nazis. Towards the end of WW2 the Red Army invaded Hungary and the Soviet military occupation continued until 1991 when Hungary finally became a republic.
Ten minutes walk from the camp site was a Taiwanese restaurant and we had a delicious meal of spare ribs, Peking duck, a vegetable noodle dish and a colourful dish of vegetables including black fungus, a type of edible wild mushroom. The meal, with a couple of beers, cost £40.
