Balaton and Tihany bound next week

Off to explore the countryside to the south of the city - staying in a little village called Tihany on the edge of Lake Balaton on Tuesday morning - pretty villages, an abbey, good resturants and vineyards and a house covered in Chillis are just some of the attractions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_balaton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tihany

Updates to follow when we get back

St Gellert becomes a political platform

There's something ironic about a martyr to Catholicism is used as the platform for the expression of solidarity for another religion - not sure who was in town to see the message but it is a good place to make a statement at the head of one of the major bridges in the city!!

The New Economist advert - set in Budapest

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Some cities have the cow parade, some have zebras...

in Dubai it is stallions, falcons and camels but in Budapest, we have elephants - no idea why but we do

The city is littered with elephants all for a homeless charity, the strangest thing being that they keep moving - so they are also of NFA

The best one is the one from Gerbaud that looks like their world famous Dobos Torte

and the rains came

There have been some fantastic thunderstorms across the city in the last couple of weeks and the downpours have been of monsoon preportions - so much so that the lower road that runs a long either side of the river bank has flooded and not been useable for the last couple of days

On Saturday, whilst walking a long the top passed the chain bridge, I noticed that there were a team cleaning up the silt that had covered the road as the water returned to the river - only problem being that on Sunday evening we had another great downpour and I suspect that they will be out there again doing the same thing in a couple of days!

On Friday evening, to cap it all off, there was a power outage that affected at least half of the 9th District with most of the bars and restaurants being candle powered and groups of people wandering around the district looking lost! Luckily it was all back on by Saturday morning but it did mean an early night!