Just got back from a quick weekend trip to Budapest – a lovely city; not unlike many other Central/Eastern European cities we’ve been to (e.g. Prague). We were actually in Prague the same weekend last year and it was absolutely packed with tourists. In Budapest, there was no one. Very quiet – made walking the streets quite pleasant.
However, while the city has beautiful architecture, great food and impressively decent wine, the weather was pretty horrible. It was raining most of the time, with so much wind that my umbrella got destroyed and I didn’t even bother getting another. Just got wet. In fact, it was so windy that at times, bricks were falling from windows on the main pedestrian street and some windows were blown out. Quite scary actually.
It was also nice to see so much regeneration happening throughout the city. While it’s in the EU, it’s not yet on the Euro as it’s still getting it’s economy in shape. Nevertheless, lots of improvements are starting to happen almost everywhere you look. For example, in the old Jewish quarter, many of the building are incredibly run down; looking not too unlike how they must have looked back when it was the ghetto. But many pockets of these areas have been completely rebuilt with blocks of flats and boutique shops that look quite a bit nicer than even here in Notting Hill! Give it 20 years and it will be a very very different place.
It was a lovely weekend away, and was a nice destination to visit. Probably our last CEE city for the foreseeable future though; lots of more unique places to get to (perhaps St. Petersburg or Istanbul next…)
Photos in work, hope to post soon.
(Also: for those of you in London and interested in Lisa’s jewellery venture, pop by our place any time Sunday afternoon for our open house launch of Designs by Lisa)
