No thanks I’ve just eaten…..if you know Dave then you know I have heard this joke once or twice over the last week!

Having got off the ferry we headed for Zagreb but we were there by 9am and so decided to keep going and see what campsites we could find in the direction of Budapest. Then we went a bit bonkers and ended up driving 200 miles (with plenty of engine cooling stop offs) until we reached Lake Balaton. 77km long and full of fresh water it is considered to be the beach of Hungary (and brilliantly in the winter it becomes a massive ice rink) Dave had found a campsite and it had a good view of the river and was stuffed full of Hungarians which we took as a good sign. It then promptly rained for three days leaving us to a mixture of hiding inside the camper playing scrabble and braving a trip on the local car ferry to the ‘jewel of the lake’. I’ll be honest it was quite nice but mainly just tourist shops and a few restaurants so made us realise that the lake itself was the the real main attraction here. We did, however, find a lovely little restaurant surrounded by thatched roofs and all the food served from an outside grill.

This leads me on to two points. The first being that food and drinks is really quite cheap. A decent main course is around £4-6, a glass of wine £1.20 and a pint of beer as low as £0.5. You do have to be careful to avoid overpriced tourist bits (and therefore prices) but for the most part it is lovely to find such great deals. Secondly – there is a slightly eary feeling of recognition when travelling through Hungary. There is so much that looks like England – the landscape is similar and if it weren’t for the orange roof tops and Swiss/American style buildings you really could be in Surrey!

Anyway, after a few days ina very cheap campsite we found ourselves a little steal of a deal at a hotel in Budapest and made our way to the capital. On Margaret Island on the Danube and in the centre of the city it was an ideal location for us and for camper parking! We have spent four days exploring the city and relaxing at the hotel. The weather has been warm but a lot of rain which has made an interesting change. Budapest is an endless exploration and I think we found it a little bit tricky to know where to start – we ended up opting for a tour bus to get us on the right path. Yesterday we split up and I headed off to do my ‘getting lost wondering to get to know a city’ and Dave did some more site seeing at the Palace on the hill and the House of Horrors (site of thousands of Jewish murders during the war) – after two months on the road we thought we deserved a little bit of alone time!! There are a millions wonderful buildings and beautiful back streets to explore and bars and restaurants seem to cover the city. The night life is infamous and I would have loved to see one of the disco nights they have at the public baths had we been here on the right date. There are endless things to do here – from wine tasting, concerts in the zoo, chocolate classes, nights out, site seeing, cycling tours, night walks, running clubs, etc etc etc I could easily come back and not do anything the same. However, personally I think I would like to come back in the autumn or winter – for me Budapest is a winter city – wrapped up warm makes finding little hidden away bars/restaurants with warm goulash and red wine waiting more intriguing to me. I’d also love to swim in the hot baths surrounded by snow!

And so – we are heading this morning to the Budapest Grand prix – 20km out of town we are camping insite and think it is going to be an interesting three days! I am really exciting but also not sure what to expect front the onsite camping plan! One tourist guide suggested seriously considering paying the helicopter transport to get to the track as traffic is so bad….so at least we won’t have traffic….but we may have thousands of drunk Hungarians and Polish keeping entertained all night!