Budapest to Bucharest

We’d envisaged spending our first day relaxing in Budapest with Alex & Hilary due late afternoon. Well, that was before we discovered it was Children’s Day in the capital (Oh thank you SO much cab driver for letting our kids know) which our own beloved nippers decided gave them absolute carte blanche to call the shots. We’d arrived in the early morning, but our hotel room would not be ready until 2pm, so we really had no choice but to go out and sample the delights of Children’s Day.

It amazes me that Britain doesn’t celebrate its youth in the same way. The city was one great big playground, with bizarrely dressed up people giving out sweets on every corner (they’d have probably been arrested in the UK), live music and circuses everywhere you went. As well as spending hours in the large park that lies just behind the place des heroes jumping on trampolines and riding ponies round on a static pole, we strolled through this elegant and buzzing city, crossing the Danube – yes, a certain amount of Strauss and waltzing ensued – on a glorious summer’s day. Still reeling somewhat after all the train travel and from lack of sleep, we found our feet over truly great coffees (the first in months!) had a wonderful and pricey meal in the centre of the park overlooking a lake and just soaked up the prosperous, stately European culture of one of its golden cities. Okay, Budapest doesn’t have the Medieval beauty of Prague but it is grand and glorious, with wide avenues and loads of trees.

We also met a real rock star, pushing his daughter on the swings next to me. Jenna was admiring the little girl’s pink streaked hair and funky boots as said little girl, alas, fell out of the swing. We got chatting as parents do in such situations and he turned out to be called BT. The groovier amongst you will doubtless know that BT is a genius composer, producer and trance musician with an IQ of over 170 who has worked with Madonna, Peter Gabriel and many more, and wrote the entire score to the Fast and the Furious. Well I knew none of this and looked him up on the web, but he was a very nice guy who had played live to 30,000 people the night before. And he was impressed with OUR trip!

Despite all this glamour and excitement, the highlight of the day was undoubtedly meeting Alex and Hilary: Alex – Joe’s best mate since he was 3, our best man and Hilary – my bridesmaid and our long time (and long suffering) friend. After a series of frenetic texts they finally pulled into the car park way ahead of schedule but not before the kids had cranked themselves up to fever pitch in anticipation. It was absolutely fantastic seeing old familiar faces, our oldest friends, and almost as great to see OUR CAR!! Alex and Hilary had driven the distance from Chippenham, Wilts to Budapest, Hungary in about 2 days (thank god for no speed limits in Germany eh) and here was our lovely big car, complete with all our camping gear and even pairs of JEANS. Ahhh, how we’d missed them. Oh, and Alex & Hilary too!

Though we’ve been away 10 months, we were soon all gabbing away. The kids, bless em, were almost beside themselves with glee and had made an assortment of, erm, inventive gifts for A&H which they received with very good grace and well disguised looks of bemusement. We spent the next couple of days walking our socks off around all of Buda and Pest in 35 degree heat, supping a couple of beers here and there, doing castles and bridges, furnicular railways, look out points and heroic squares. We loved being back in Europe, with our friends, with everyone speaking English and with great coffee.

The amazing heat led to some spectacular storms which we became very adept at dodging. Hilary and I developed a spooky nack of finding rather nice bars or cafes just before the heavens opened, though in one place we had to hold the canvas roof covers together against the deluge as we got drenched, the older kids and us four giggling stupidly while Jenna screamed, almost drowning out the thunder and torrential rain.

All too soon though it was time to put A&H on the train back home and for us to set off (IN OUR CAR!!! Were we a bit excited about that?) across the border into Romania.