7th July – Timisoara to Budapest (Hungary)

5 Days until we arrive in Abingdon.

Today we have a 330 km drive to Budapest in Hungary plus a border crossing. Most of the drive is on a motorway with a 130kph speed limit, so we have cars whipping past us as we cruise at between 105 & 120.

The border crossing is just a booth on the road where they process our passports and stamp them once for leaving Romania and once for entering Hungary, so it’s a quick process and we’re back on the road.

A kilometre down the road we purchase our vignette (etag) for the motorways and we’re good to drive in Hungary.

After we arrive at the hotel in the early afternoon we park the cars and walk to the tram stop where we purchase our ticket and catch a tram into the Parliament building.

From here we walk to an adjacent  park and find a café for a coffee.

We walk through Liberty square to an amazing fountain that senses when you are near and stops the water so you can walk through.

We walk past beautiful buildings to St Stephens Cathedral.

Next we catch the Metro up to the park where the baths are and walk to Heroes Square.

We catch the Metro back to the Danube and walk across the Chain Bridge.

We catch the fenicular up to the castle area and visit St  Matthias Church and the Fishermans Bastion, with its fabulous views.

We walk back to the castle which is covered with hessian and it looks like it’s being renovated. We walk around the grounds of the Museum before returning to our hotel to check in.

At 6pm we are met by members of the MG car club in Budapest, András in his blue Triumph Spitfire, Andrea & Misi (Mike) in their old English white MGB GT, Péter in his lovely little red MG Midget, Zoltán in his cream MGB roadster and Magdi and Márton who aren’t driving their cream cracker MG TD tonight.

It is really great to meet them all, & to find out about their cars and have a drink with them. It is always so humbling when we receive a warm welcome from fellow classic car enthusiasts who go out of their way to meet with us.  We aren’t doing anything special, we’re just out for a bit of a drive.

Misi has prepared the following video of our meeting:

After we say good bye to our new Hungarian friends we walk across the road to a restaurant in the park and have a fun evening with Peter, Paula, Henk & Maja, eating delicious hamburgers and drinking very tasty Hungarian beer.

2 Comments

  1. Hi Mike & Kay,
    Haven’t found your blog until now, apologies. Liked your photos from Budapest very much, was there in ’06 when the Hungarians commemorated the 1956 uprising against the Soviets, they too cut the centre of their flag out. Was not allowed within 100 m of the Parliament Building for some reason but talked to the soldier who stood guard, spoke very good English. Liked your photo of the fortress and the funicular, I was born and grew up in Graz, Austria, we got a similar one on our ‘Schlossberg’ but not quite as pretty. Did you have a close look at the gigantic links of the Chain Bridge?
    Congratulations on your trip, all of you. You all will enjoy a good rest now, I’m sure.
    Cheers!

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