I was really excited about the Hungary part of our trip. My grandad was born in Hungary and left for England when he was a young man. As far as I know he never went back. I visited over a decade ago but got really sick thanks to a curry on British airways, and so I didn't see much outside my hotel bathroom. Anyways, we flew in to Budapest and picked up our rental car in time for lunch. Lain found a place on Google maps which was so amazing she said she almost cried. The food was so heavy and filling and tasty, wow I can almost taste it again as I write this. I had some beef stew thing with dumplings which looked like pasta. Lain had a chicken Kiev thing which was also amazing. I'd love to go back, but I didn't have change to leave a good tip, so we had to eat somewhere else for dinner! After a short nap in our Airbnb, we looked out the window to see that it was snowing - time for ice skating!
From the tiny amount of research that I did, it appears that Budapest has the largest outdoor ice skating rink in Europe. The place was packed, and it seemed to take forever for us to get all of us rental gear setup. Once we got on the ice though, we really enjoyed ourselves. Emre had these little ice skates that clip over his shoes, and he was a little bit hesitant but really enjoyed himself. It was really nice to that the whole time we were there it was snowing, not super heavy but enough to really feel like Christmas time. We didn't really skate around many times, because with Lain and Emre, we had to go quite slow, but it definitely was a lot of fun. Emre really really enjoyed it, so much so that he talked about it again and again for the rest of my trip.
We ate at another three different restaurants in Budapest during our time there, both of which would awesome. I've never really considered that Hungary would be such a great place for food, but I think that every time I'm hungry from now on I'll be thinking about going to Budapest. Maybe not in the summer, because the food really is kind of wintry food.
Another special mention for Budapest was the subway. There was one particular line that was just incredible, the handles that you would hold if you were stood up we're made of leather, and the train stations were super clean with really beautiful tiles and wood everywhere. I know this kind of sounds lame, like I'm clutching at straws to say interesting things about Budapest, but it really was amazing.
Budapest turned out to be one of the best places we visited on our entire trip. The architecture, the weather, the history, everything was just great. I think part of the attraction was that we didn't really know what to expect, we didn't do much research and so everything seemed to be a pleasant surprise. I definitely want to go back and spend more time there, I'll just make sure I go with an empty stomach.
