Budapest & Early Romania

Saturday 27th September

We managed to park up in Tesco’s for 2 nights without any problems, which was handy because we would have struggled to park anywhere else in Budapest (legally) as it was constantly extremely busy both with vehicles and pedestrians. It was a 2 kilometre walk into the town centre down the “Kossuth” which took us past the Budapest National Stadium and the very grand train Station. My first impressions of Budapest were very favourable indeed, and we walked all the way past the town until we reached the swift river Danube, where we took a leisurely stroll along the riverside to the neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament building on the bank (pictured). It’s an extremely impressive structure; one which we gazed at for a number of minutes, but it certainly isn’t alone in terms of beautiful buildings in Budapest. The other one of note - which actually took my breath away upon the first sighting - was the Bazilika (pictured). It’s housed in a large square which makes it unnoticeable from afar, so it crept up on us somewhat when we suddenly saw it though a gap in the shops.

Budapest was certainly impressive, and due to its immense size could have been explored for a few more days, but we got itchy feet and made the short drive north to Ezstergom the “Medieval Capital of Hungary” on the Slovakian border. After a quite a while looking, we couldn’t find any evidence for this dramatic title, but we did manage to find Hungary’s largest Bazilika (Church) on a hill overlooking the Danube and across into Slovakia. The views were impressive and the Church was also, but not quite as memorable as the one in Budapest.

We were running low on all things electrical as we hadn’t had hook up since Slovenia, but what with their being no campsites and certainly no Aires in Hungary we had no choice but hope to stumble across an electric point somewhere. We first looked in a Tesco’s car park, then a Lidl’s (which I have to add are absolutely everywhere in Europe) but had no joy. After driving around for a few hours I had to idea to go and ask at a Petrol Station - they surely would allow us to cheekily hook up for a few hours if we asked nicely. It was very late, probably around midnight, so not many people were around so I thought if you don’t ask you don’t get and went in all smiley and polite and used my best sign language to indicate what we wanted. The female attendee was very pleasant but had no idea what I was asking, so she rang a friend who spoke English and put me onto him and after a while she understood and allowed us to connect for 3 hours! This allowed us to have a few cups of well needed tea and re-charge things like mobiles and the digital camera. We were very grateful of course and this perhaps is a good tip for Motorhomer’s who decide to venture into the unknown, or Eastern Europe as it’s sometimes called.

A few days later and we find ourselves in our next country, Romania. They’re coming around quick, these countries. The border crossing was non eventful, which made a nice change. Unlike most crossings, there was only one set of police, and they were friendly and let us through after checking our passports - no funny looks, no searching the Motorhome (as happened when we travelled into Hungary), no Green Card, no “illegal stuff” accusations, just a smile and a wave. One of them even said “Goohd Bay” which I thought was nice of him. The first city we drove through was Oradea although we didn’t make a stop. It was a pretty rough town. At each set of traffic lights there were small children who ran up to the Motorhome and begged for money which was very sad indeed. There were hundreds of hitchhikers all trying to flag down each car that passed, trying to get wherever they could - presumably anywhere other than here. Along the E60 which takes us into the Centre of Romania, and eventually on towards Bucharest, were even more children begging next to run down old houses, most of which were just shells of houses that used to be.

Romania has certainly been the poorest country we’ve visited so far - hopefully this sort of poverty isn’t a common sight across the whole of the country.

Our first port of call was the city of Cluj-Napoca, which is much more developed than Oradea but still hundreds of desperate hitchhikers and beggars lined the streets. We saw a VW van pull up along a bunch of around 10-15 hitchhikers, and as soon as it came to a halt they all ran towards the van pushing and shoving trying to get onboard. It was an odd experience, and we wandered why these people were so desperate to leave, not seeming to care where the driver was heading to. We are heading via a few cities towards Bran Castle near Brasov where Count Dracula was known to reside, Mike tells me he was just fictional but I’m still hoping to meet him myself so will keep my fingers crossed.

Cluj-Napoca, away from the Highstreet

Budapest