Hungary

From: Paul Minton

Well worth a visit and much easier to get to than you’d imagine: it’s the next country on from Austria and the border crossing is quick and easy. Budapest is a wonderful city and full of life: the people are immensely proud of their heritage and positively welcome visitors. The ability to speak German is an asset but English is quite widely understood and anyway, sign language is understood all over the world (rural Thailand excepted, but that’s a bizarre story unfortunately outside this remit).

The Hungarians are big meat eaters (vegetarians sometimes get a very quizzical look) and no visit to Budapest is complete without trying a decent goulash. Also, check out the bizarre beer pouring routine involving two glasses and a couple of large spoons: someone ought to point out that the head on a large beer can be reduced by carefully pouring the beer down the side of the glass. Makes for an entertaining spectacle if nothing else.

Hungary is very cheap compared to neighbouring Austria, but try to arrive mid week and avoid national holidays: many Austrians take short breaks in Hungary at these times, especially Budapest and the lake Balaton region, which means that finding accommodation at short notice can be difficult. We ended up sleeping in a college classroom when we arrived over one such period and we only found that having been befriended by a local Suzuki trail bike rider.

The Hungarians love bikes and the sight of a group of foreign bikers or something unusual provokes interest: we turned up on three large Suzukis and had people hanging out of buses cheering as we rode through the city. Worth the trip for that alone...