Wow, that 2 weeks seemed like forever!
A friend came for a 10 day break between house/pet and kid sitting, so we did a bit of traipsing around.
It rained hard for the first week, so not much work happened on the renos here.
I went to Budapest to meet her, stayed overnight to collect her early next morning from the bus station in Budapest, then we supposedly "toured" the city for the day...in the rain!
Missed our ride back, caught a late train...which didn't go to Tiszafured, so we ended up catching a very costly taxi home from Fuzesabony...$80.00. Just as well no work happened that week due to the rain!
However we did get a little bit done as Melinda undercoated the 3 doors and architraves inside and now almost everything is basic white and nice and clean.
Now it's time to select colours for inside...yahoo!
We held 2 evening gatherings, while it was still pouring rain, to introduce Melinda to neighbours and lifestyle in the wilds of Northern Hungary.
I bought $120.00 worth of what I thought would be party food and drinks, Aussie style, but they don't do it that way here and they probably wondered what we were doing!
Hahaha, so we ended up with heaps of stuff neither Melinda or I usually eat...so guess who now have a stack of pimples on their chinny-chin-chins?
Then I hired a car for 2 days, another friend drove Melinda and I around like 2 Miss Daisies, and we finally were able to get out to the floating village in Bokod.
We went via Budapest, then along back roads through many lovely, clean villages and the beautiful Autumn foliage in central Hungary.
Went to Eger the next day for a slower day and all up our road trip came to over 800 klms in beautiful autumn sunny weather, which was glorious indeed.
If you are wondering if it was costly to hire a car here...it was $45.00 a day, plus petrol for the vehicle we had. So all up, the huge trip came to $90 for the car...the smaller one was hired out already, so we had to take a larger, more expensive one. The fuel came to just over $100.00, plus I paid for all the meals, which was extra.
If you wanted to hire a car...$40 a day...
(nothing extra,no deposit etc here), plus, add the cost of fuel, you could do a great few days road trip around the inner areas of Hungary for around $200 to $300 or so.
Most
main areas are covered by excellent train and bus services, so you
would not need to hire a car for all your stay and go through all the stress of driving
when trains and buses are so economical and go most places.
All up, it was a great 2 week holiday for me from the time I went to Budapest 2 weeks ago, had 2 days and a night there, collected Melinda, came home, lazed around the house while it rained for days on end, toured the inner Hungarian countryside for a few beautiful sunny autumn days, partied and had a great adventure.
Now it's back to work to catch up with the renovation agenda.
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| Guess who? The new hay bale characters for the coming year. |
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| Mr Bean... |
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| His toy bear... |
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| His car! You can open the door and sit on the seats (more hay bales!) to get pics too! |
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| Loaned the cement mixer to a neighbour...A box of home grown produce was their wonderful gift in return! The bag of home grown peas underneath everything, was huge. About 2 kgs! Must have taken them days to shell all the peas! |
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| Imre setting up the scaffolding and platform after taking out the big chimney. |
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| Hope it doesn't rain while half the roof tiles are out! |
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| A big, almost empty attic! |
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| Some treasures I rescued for the cellar and some others for a little museum I'm making on a ledge on the way down to the medieval room in the cellar. |
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| Over at the little cemetery. The original man who built the house. This is his grave. He died when the Communists were in power and all you could have for a headstone then was a metal cross. |
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| 3 of his 5 children are buried here in the 1920's and 30's. One was 2, another 5 and one was 14 yrs old I think when they died. |
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| A sister of the family, if I remember... |
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| Melinda...after being palinkered! We "walked" from Marias' house to the pick up point for the rental car. About 100 metres or so! |
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| 4 girls before a tiny shot of palinka! Maria made a special traditional meal of ewe's cottage cheese, bacon and noodles with accompaniment for us. |
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| These were some of the fireworks from the festival, a few weeks ago, which got lost! |
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| It was a nice night and I took these from my verandah. |
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| The absolute last of the peaches. Just as well Melinda only eats fresh too, as the freezer is choc-a-block full! |
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| Heading to Buda, 2 weeks ago...A bunch of 16 year old school kids waiting for the train! Quiet as...sitting on the station floor, playing cards, some on their phones, others reading real paper books. Can you believe it? |
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| A great sense of humour! |
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| Another pub sign up the road in Budapest. |
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| A shop full of those smoking-pot things with tubes you suck into... |
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| The beautiful Parliament House building in Budapest...always beautiful, even in downpours of rain. |
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| Drenched! |
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| So lovely. |
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| Another Govt building opposite Parliament House. |
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| Life is always good with berry icecream! |
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| The atrium inside an apartment building. |
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| The Hungarian Revolution Uprising Memorial. Stairs go down to a museum inside, under the footpath here. |
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| Still busy in the late tourist season in Budapest. Evening as the rain held off all afternoon. |
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| Outside the hostel I stayed in. Heaps of eating places...nice fresh food too. |
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| Beautiful pastel mosaic tiled front on this old building... |
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| Check out the detailed work! |
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| Up close. Small, half inch tiles...and thousands of them... |
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| Part of Nugayti Railway station after sunset and before the rains came! |
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| The front of it at evening... |
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| Such a great building too... |
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| The guy who also designed the Eiffel tower did this one in Budapest... |
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| Another wonderful building in Buda... |
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| 20 people long queues in the evening at the supermarket...and there are at least 3 of these in every block in this area! |
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| Does anyone remember these? The Pez lolly dispensers all kids had back in the 60's! |
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| Food for big kids at the health food shop! |
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| Yummo! |
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| Friends at one of our get togethers last week...when it was pouring with rain for the entire week! |
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| That's a better one! |
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| Tried a selfies shot...it really didn't work too well! |
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| Melinda offered to paint the doors...with all those little glass panels to cut in around... Of course I did not say NO! |
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| After painting both sides of the inner entry door! |
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| The rain looks like it is clearing so hopefully we'll get a few nice days before Melinda leaves for Lyon in France on Friday evening. |
Will do the Touring Central Hungary blog in a few days time, so will leave now and catch you all next time.
Hope you enjoyed the jumping around on this one as I tried to catch up with most of my other pics over the past 3 weeks.
Cheers, stay well and take care,
Love to all,
M
xxxxx
