a weekend in budapest

last year, when we were making the decision about whether or not to move to frankfurt, close friends were making a similar decision about moving to budapest. we both decided to make the move and last month we finally managed to catch up and share our stories about moving and getting settled in a new city.

it was david and my first time in budapest and while the focus was more on catching up, we did manage a bit of sightseeing and exploring the budapest food and drink scene. an hour in the budapest central market quickly showed a similarity with germany – a shared love of all things pork-based. however, unlike in frankfurt it seemed much easier to get a decent flat white coffee – espresso embassy and my little melbourne both hit the spot (any and all frankfurt tips welcome!).

we had a lovely relaxed supper at terminal – a modern bar/restaurant in a converted bauhaus style bus station. the food was light and full of fresh flavours ( which is apparently not particularly easy to find in the city). they also served delicious cocktails. not that we needed them, having had a lovely time sampling some lovely hungarian wine at divino and doblo (both of which serve a wide range of local wines by the glass). the palinka (the local fruit brandy) that we tried was less enjoyable – pear and quince were the two flavours we tried at divino and paint stripper really was the thing that they evoked!

our final meal was at da mario, a pasta and pizza restaurant with relaxed (albeit quite slow) and very child-friendly service. the pizza and pasta dishes were great but the mixed seafood salad less so (frozen deep fried flavourless calamari and prawns, which was a real surprise given how delicious the homemade pasta sauces were).

it was a fleeting visit and we barely scratched the surface of the city - we enjoyed an afternoon learning about hungarian history and the city’s architecture, courtesy of the excellent english language free walking tour - but i expect we’ll be back at some point in the coming year, which i’m really looking forward to.