Back in Blighty, buggered, bewitched and bewildered after Budapest, and now being Bill Bryson! Hungary was not at all what we expected (although we didn’t know what to expect really – just not what we found). We had a good time though, and Budapest was fascinating.

Flight out delayed by an hour – points failure at Brent Cross or some such excuse. Maybe the wrong type of leaves on the runway or inappropriate catering conditions. But no matter, as we had to put clocks forward an hour anyway so had absolutely no idea what time we were supposed to land at Ferihegy. I really don't cope well with temporal displacement! Great views of the Danube as we flew in – decidedly NOT blue though. I guess “On the banks of the Muddy-Brown Danube” doesn’t sound quite as romantic. Transfer to hotel uneventful but I was nagged with a strange feeling that I had seen the architecture somewhere before.

Some consternation at hotel reception. Two men wanting a double room? Flap, panic, gibber away in Hungarian assuming that we had no idea what they were saying. But, “Are you sure? A DOUBLE? But they are both men! They must mean Twin. No, it says here, Double. They must be homosexualists. Yikes!” has pretty much the same body language anywhere in the world regardless of native tongue! Much frantic phoning around to “Check that your room is ready” and eventually we got a key card. It was quite funny, especially in light of the fact that Hungary has passed legislation which means that starting from July 1, 2009 same-sex couples can enter into registered partnership, as per the UK. The law gives the same rights to registered partners as to spouses – just don’t ask for a double room in a five-star hotel! It was a stunning building though - marble everywhere, very plush.

We had nibbles and corporate small-talk that evening, it being a work gathering with David's fellow 'achievers' - the vast majority of whom were sales people from other sectors of the business. I was happy; plenty of olives, nuts and bread sticks. Strange pointy ‘biscuit-cum-pastry’ things for dipping into the guacamole – we worked out later that they were triangles of deep-fried pancake! The meet-and-greet was on a terraced balcony onto which our bedroom’s French Doors opened – which was handy and meant we could liberate a couple of bottles of water without having to pay the £9 for the one they left in our room!

Breakfast on Saturday was fabulous – pretty much anything you could want was there from full English to Continental, fruit, cereals, breads, omelettes cooked on demand and even champagne for Bucks Fizz (still making my mind up about Bucks Fizz!). Can’t fault the catering in the hotel at all.

We were then taken on an organised coach tour around the city, hosted by a local guide called Gerda (pronounced the same as in iron Bru), who was very amusing if only in the fact that she didn’t have a good word to say about her home country! We were deluged with lots of stats (everything of significance is 96m tall, has 96 steps or lived to be 96 years old), saw lots of statues (mostly of people with beards, and that’s just the women) and did lots of touristy gawping. Gerda shepherded her flock with a folded umbrella raised high – the significance (or rather error) of this will be explained later.

The main historical lesson seems to be that whenever there has been a war, skirmish or general disagreement, Hungary has picked the wrong side. I guess I had an image of the country under Communist rule, as would most people of my age, but Gerda was keen to point out that this is only a very small period in their history and they have been invaded by plenty of other people besides the Ruskies!

Remember I said I had a feeling that I recognised Budapest? Well the forint finally fell (see what I did there?) and I drew the connection: Evita! They filmed many of the crowd scenes and the funeral procession in Budapest. They shot a lot around Hero’s square - I guess it made a change for the shooting to be film and not guns! I’d like to claim that we have followed the same route as Madonna, but I doubt she was actually IN the coffin as it processed up the main boulevard – probably busy catalogue shopping for a new baby/husband/leotard/mansion.

Our guide was full of anecdotes, mostly self-deprecating, but quite fun. For example, when the Opera house was built they hadn’t really thought things through and come the first performance it turned out that a third of the audience couldn’t see the stage. Another third couldn’t hear. But the Mayor was not to be thwarted and decreed that those seats could be sold at a discount to deaf and blind people! Now that’s lateral problem solving for you. The coach took us past the zoo where they boast a pair of hippos who have, against the odds, bred in captivity – leading to much frivolity concerning happy hefty horny Hungarian hippos. Maybe if Gerda hadn’t pronounced it “hee-pohs” we might not have been so infantile!
We also learnt that Hungarian people put their surname before their given name and that Curtis Tony’s family was from there. Not sure how the naming convention works for people with a middle name – I suppose it’d be Pooh The Winnie! Struggling to list many famous Hungarians – Zsa Zsa Gabor was born in Budapest and Johnny Weissmuller (for me the quintessential Tarzan in the same way as Tom Baker was the best Doctor Who). Musically there is Béla Bartók and Franz Liszt, but beyond that I’m struggling to name many names. Not surprising I guess in a nation of people that seems to have always been pretty constantly revolting!

The city is split into two areas – Pest, the flat, commercial/residential area and Buda, the old, hilly, castle district. We coached over the Danube to Buda where the main party went on a walking tour to the royal palace. We opted out – I’d already done a fair amount of walking and couldn’t cope with too much more. We had a little meander around and took a few photos – the funicular railway and a panorama of the riverside – a series of photos that I then stitched together to make this one:

We had to meet the main party to head off for lunch together. By this time it had started to rain. Gerta appeared with her attendant ducklings in tow and headed off at breakneck pace for the restaurant. Remember her tour-guide umbrella? Really not much help in the pouring rain when hundreds of other people suddenly produced identical brollies and made more problematic by the fact that she went trotting off at a speed way beyond my abilities. So we were left lagging and stumbling over the very uneven cobbles. Made it eventually though, but in quite a bit of pain which was exacerbated by the next part of our ‘experience’. Before the meal we were shown the champagne cellars – dug into the hillside under the restaurant and down about five sets of stairs: The underworld in more ways than one!

The rotund and ruddy vintner took a major strop when David and I both turned down a free glass of bubbly. I think he would have been less shocked if we’d dropped our trousers and called him Mary! To call this a ‘tour of the cellars’ was really stretching the point. We stood in a group and looked at some upturned bottles while he showed us a presentation cupboard containing bottles of bubbly signed by famous people who had visited (but I think he had trouble remembering their names and pretty much only managed Antonio Banderas – during Evita filming I guess - and a couple of obscure Hungarian musicians with names that even HE couldn’t pronounce). Then we hiked all the way back up to ground level (I’m assuming up 96 steps) for the lunch. I was somewhat frazzled!

The food was, I think, supposed to be representative of Hungarian cuisine. We had a lovely Hungarian Goulash soup, followed by chicken breast with cheese-stuffed pancakes. The pancakes were unusual. I’ve made them as part of a savoury dish before (rolled up and filled with bolognaise and then covered in cheese sauce) but never presented in this way. This was followed with yet more pancakes, this time stuffed with apple and ice cream. Everyone else in the party was well-plied with wine and, to their credit, the restaurant provided David and me with plenty of soft drinks. Coffee strong enough to strip the enamel off your teeth concluded the meal.

We headed back to the coaches although this time they were parked at the foot of the hill and so we had more steps to descend, which, following the rain, were slippery and for me somewhat treacherous. The coaches took us back to the hotel and we had a few hours then to freshen up and dress for the evening. David had a cheeky nap and I did the ironing!

So now I have to confess to something about which I feel extremely foolish. Anyone who has been following my blog, or indeed my Twitter updates, will know that we went on a special shopping expedition to buy me some new post-chemo trousers so I’d have something smart to don for the formal meal. Guess which muppet packed the wrong trousers!? I confess: t’was me. A year ago I bought some new trousers for work, and they were a perfect fit (SO unusual for me). A fortnight later, thinking along the bird-hand-bush lines, we went back and bought a second pair. However I never actually wore them as that was just before I was rushed into hospital. So they were hanging in the wardrobe, still with their shop tags on. I guess that when packing I grabbed the trousers which were still tagged, thinking them to be the most recently purchased pair. Wrong! Thus, I’m standing in a Budapest hotel room with a 28” waist enjoying the unparalleled spaciousness of 32” trousers! Now an extra 4” can be problematic in any country let alone a place far from home with very little chance of there being a branch of M&S within easy tottering distance. Luckily the hotel provided complimentary sewing kits and so with anguished fervour I set about making alterations. I managed to botch a compromise where the trousers didn’t actually just fall down, but also where there was not so much gathered fabric that they looked like they were pleated. Well, there’s a limit to what you can do in 20 minutes with a yard of thread, a flimsy needle, no scissors or thimble and inadequate mood lighting. That is to say the lighting was inadequate, not my mood. I had plenty of mood. Mood to spare in fact. Anyway, the trousers looked and functioned ok provided I kept my shirt only loosely tucked in and my hands in my pockets when walking anywhere. So – trousers round ankles or hands in pockets looking like I’m playing with myself? I love these win/win scenarios!

We were due to walk to the restaurant for the evening meal but it was absolutely tanking down and so the organisers sorted coaches. That was fantastic of them and must have been a challenge at short notice. We were eating at a place a few hundred yards down the road but we’d have been drenched. As it was, the one-way system seemed to take us miles around the city – I mean it, we must have done a few miles to cover a few hundred yards walking distance. I think those brave souls who did walk must have considered it a real possibility that we’d ‘done a bunk’!

Now, the next time you pop over to Hungary, as I know you do every few weeks, you really must see the Café New York “Deep Water” - what an amazing place. A combination of gold, crystal, marble and cherrywood, with every vertical surface and ceiling decorated with plaster mouldings and classical paintings. We are talking serious neck strain just from trying to take in the decor. One can never have too many cherubs!

The food was lovely and paced at a speed that allowed me sufficient time to eat slowly and not end up being sick. I have to admit my worst nightmare was that I’d have one of my unannounced and instantaneous stomach upsets; cherubs with chunks is not a decorating style the place was likely to welcome! But I was fine. Didn’t eat everything but that was through a need to limit my intake and not any complaint with the food. We all noted that the main dish was heavy on meat and minimalist in terms of veg, but Gerda (our ebullient coach guide) explained that is the Hungarian way. It seems that traditionally meat was cheap and plentiful to produce whereas veg were not – although I can’t see how a cow is easier to farm than a potato. That said, the steaks, although beautiful, were only just a step up from actively grazing. I’m sure mine let out a little moo at one point! It certainly still had a pulse.

The wine drinkers were all a little perturbed by the very small measures they were given, although glasses were topped up whenever they asked. And they should consider those who did not drink wine and were offered no alternative beyond a jug of water that was already on the table. That really is my only criticism: with our not drinking wine, it would have been nice if David and I had been offered an alternative. It was a very enjoyable night and the rain had stopped when we left the venue so we walked back to our Hotel which really wasn’t far away at all. Others went on to various clubs, casinos and dens of iniquity but neither of us is big on that sort of thing and we were happy to head back for some sleep.

Sunday turned out to be a miserable, wet, grey day. Our transfer to the airport was at 4pm so we had time to kill – and kill it we did, slowly and with determination . We had a damp stroll up to the main tourist street, Andrássy út, and then took the [second oldest in the world] underground metro system to the river. Sadly the weather was just too miserable to do very much; we would have liked to take a boat cruise along the Danube to see more of the waterfront architecture but that would have been pointless with the conditions deteriorating.
We did poodle around a bit, dodging the worst of the rain and sheltering under trees wherever possible. It was a shame as some of the buildings are stunning. There is a mix of styles; Baroque, Classicist, Romanesque, Gothic and Art Nouveau – plus a few ‘carbuncles’ that probably seemed a good idea at the time but on hindsight are out of place and jarring. I gather that there is a big Venetian influence too and at one point there were plans to have a network of canals running up the middle of the main streets – instead they now have trams, which don’t have quite the same romantic appeal as gondolas! On reflection I wish we had booked in for a spa treatment on the Sunday, as the city has a number of thermal pools and that would have been a great experience – well, better than being rained on anyway.

Back at the hotel via a quick meal in a local cafe and some more rocket-fuel coffee, we met up with the others flying to Manchester and headed out for the airport to be gifted with an hour’s delay. Add to that the fact that we had to lose the extra hour we’d acquired on the trip out and we were well knackered by the time we arrived home. Still, this time last year there was a very real chance I’d not make it to the end of the week, let alone be well enough to travel abroad and for that I count my blessings. Reality bites deep and hard. ‘Chinese woman opposite’ is still flaunting her knickers in the bedroom window. Cats still need feeding. Garden demands watering. Washing out on line and then it rains. Cooking. Cleaning. David’s back at work tomorrow, but despite all that it is good to be home.