Blast from the Buda-past!

---

Dear Blog Readers,

A lot has happened since I was on the phone to the holiday insurance company on Friday 13^th March 2020 (unlucky for some….us) as I was bafflingly being told we had to fly out to a country who had already closed their borders due to the COVID outbreak. Thankfully, 24 hours later, they’d seen some sense and we then began the arduous process of claiming everything back and have now waited nearly two years for the opportunity to finally do the trip we’d (sort of) planned.

Our BA flight out on Friday evening was as smooth as ever. Laura began her week of boozing by getting a glass of wine, and we had the inflight entertainment of a hen-do a few rows in front (they even managed to get the pilot out for a photo). Landing in a brisk Budapest airport and we were straight onto the bus (#100) straight into the city centre. It dropped us off outside the Astoria and we began to find our bearings even though it was gone 10pm. I fancied a slice of pizza, randomly, but seems like you can literally get one on any street corner in the city…why don’t we have that as an option back home, or a currywurst for that matter?

Anyway, we began the 15-minute walk to the hotel, and about 5 minutes in, we were in familiar territory. Walking along the same pathways as nearly 8 years ago. Budapest has a special place in our heart as it was where we had our honeymoon, and we decided to use this occasion to treat ourselves to the same hotel as before – The Corinthia. We were soon checked in and had a fabulous room (#5221) on the top floor. It really is a wonderful hotel, and we checked back at our honeymoon receipt, and the 4 days we spent back then cost the same as the 3 days this time around, but we had breakfast included!

After a restful sleep (you’re always super tired after travelling), we went down for breakfast. We didn’t opt for it last time as it had a surcharge of £25 per person(!)…but oh my, what a breakfast!! Laura was asked upon entry if she’d like a dry or sweet champagne whilst I sauntered over to the hot buffet. Excellent selection of food, unbelievable pastries, fresh fruit, and coffee to order. We filled our boots before heading back to the room to get into our swimming gear as we were off down the private lift to next door’s Royal Spa (also included in the price) for our first dip in the pool, jacuzzi and saunas.

I suppose it was time to get reacquainted with this fantastic capital city, and what better way than to do it as an ‘escape the city walking tour’. This constituted us getting handed a briefcase and a rudimentary map to go off and explore some of the sights whilst trying to solve clues to know where to go next! It was fantastic – the briefcase included several items required during the course of the next 2 or 3 hours, including a UV light, binoculars, magnifying glass and a toy handgun! I’m surprised we didn’t get stopped and searched at one point or another! On our trip around the city, we saw the Ferris Wheel, Szent Istvan’s Bazilika, the wonderful parliament building, Liberty Square and spent a good amount of time trying to find the clue around the MTA (Hungarian Academy of Sciences). It was such a fun way to explore the city – we’d done it before in Bratislava and glad we tried it out here!

We then had flashbacks to Vienna/Prague and ate a Baum Kuchen (chimney cake) before having a drink and some chips at the For Sale Pub (not sold just yet!) and then a lovely walk over the Szabadsag Bridge. Budapest really looks amazing at night, especially along the Danube, and then we stumbled into the BarCraft Buda bar which had the most mental drinks menu we’d ever seen. I think Laura ended up ordering a potion of some sort called ‘The Hulk’. We’d booked in for a ski lodge escape room around the corner at Gellert Escape Rooms. It was brutally hard – we just about managed to finish it but with a lot of hints needed! When we first came to Budapest, we did one of only 2 escape rooms in the country at the time…now there are over 1,000 in the capital city alone!

The following day, we quickly became accustomed to smashing through the breakfast buffet followed by a quick trip to the spa before starting the day (what a life!). We walked down to Andrassy Road which links the city centre with the Szechenyi Baths (probably the most famous in Budapest). Before going there though, the city ice rink was open, and Laura had brought her skates with her! We spent a good couple of hours on the ice, Laura showing off her skills (spins and jumps included!) whilst I slid ungraciously around the outer edge wishing I’d got one of those penguins to hold onto.

After stretching our legs, it was time to hit the baths and relax. The number of pools, both inside and out, are superb. There’s something about being in hot water whilst it’s freezing outside which never gets old! After a cracking dip, we were heading back to near the hotel and to the Neverland Bar. They served a top burger and great drinks and had an escape room attached to it too! We took our drinks into ‘Chernobyl 2’ and began trying to solve the clues wherein which included a full nuclear console in one of the rooms to try and decipher the code to stop a nuclear fallout!

Monday was going to be a day of travelling as we planned to head into Slovakia. Our original trip two years ago was to spend a week in Jasna in the Low Tatras Mountains, but we decided to split things up this time around! We headed to Budapest Keleti train station (in a foreboding and grand building which looks epic when lit up at night) and bought a ticket to Kosice for £20 each. Only three carriages long, we had a Hogwarts Express style 6 seat compartment to ourselves and had a wonderfully relaxing three and a half our trip.

Kosice (pronounced Ko-Shit-Sir) has a nostalgia associated with it as I was last here with my friend Rob to watch GB in the Ice Hockey World Championships in 2018! We were expecting to pick up our hire car from the train station but were told it was waiting for us at the airport. Not ideal! We jumped into a taxi as it was only 15 minutes away and were soon in our Skoda Fabia ready to traipse across Slovakia towards the mountains!

We had a quick stop off for a late lunch in Presov where I ended up ordering a whole pork knee accidently. It tasted amazing and later found out that most places were charging over double what I paid for and certainly filled me up for the scary drive to Jasna! Although all motorway, the snow came in and I was soon battling the elements with limited visibility! I felt the best course of action was to just follow what the cars in front were doing…even if that did mean going off the side of the road!?

After a couple of hours, we were parked up at Hotel Galeria Thermal in Besenova. We stumbled upon this place during our Slovakia road-trip a few years ago. The hotel is incredible as it has its own private thermal pools (three of them) where you can buy drinks whilst having a dip. It also has access to a full-on water park and sauna/wellness facility just a walk away. Our room (#1201) was equally as delightful, overlooking the pools/park, and after checking in, we were going for our first dip in the pools and enjoying a drink whilst it snowed around us!

The following morning, we had breakfast (included prosecco for Laura) and stocked up before driving the 25 minutes to Jasna. It’s a lovely little resort, we went for a hike around here when we were last visiting, and it still had snow at the back end of April. We parked up at the foot of the information centre (P1 Parking, £8 for the day), got some snowboards, and were hitting the slopes by 10am. The queues for the lifts were quite long but once we got further up the mountain, we were quickly finding out feet again. The top is Chobok mountain, about 2,000m, and it had a lovely run down the east side of the mountain which had barely been touched.

We got a spot of lunch at the Kosodrevina Restaurant about halfway up the mountain, with incredible views, before finding our way back up to the top and figuring our way back down to the car. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you’re on the mountain! It was also Laura’s first time snowboarding since she broke her ankle just over a year ago, so that was aching a bit by the time we finished.

A lovely soak in the thermal baths back at the hotel were well needed. We also tried out the water park, which had some more baths and the most incredible set of water slides!! One of them would definitely be illegal back at home – I’m amazed either of our swimming stuff stayed in-tact after hurtling down them! There was also a cracking wave machine in the main pool, unfortunately we got there too late to bag an inflatable, but that didn't stop Laura from managing to find one (presumably ripped from the hands of a small child).

For dinner, we had a short walk into Besenova, over the bridge and to the wonderful Koliba Restaurant. It was like an old Slovakian shepherd’s hut, with some very upbeat traditional music, and cracking food to boot!

The following day, we decided to approach the mountain from Lucky (P4 parking, £4 for the day) and were quickly heading back up the mountain. We managed to find some runs which took us down and across to a small snowpark area which had some jumps and rails which were great fun. We also found a cracking hot chocolate at the suitably named Happy End when we finished for the day, Laura’s ankle still causing grief unfortunately, but a trip to the sauna and wellness centre in the evening soon helped. For dinner, we decided to take the short drive to Liptov Mikulas which was eerily quiet, and a lot of places were closed (like in Besenova) so assume this area is actually more of a hub for the summer rather than the winter. Anyway, we managed to find a little pizza place after a walk around – Laura ordered ‘The Mexican’ which came with kidney beans as a topping. What was she thinking?

We couldn’t believe it was already Thursday, and sadly our last day on the mountain. It was also glorious weather, so even though we set off at the same time as before, the queues to the parking were incredible. We managed to get to P1 but everything was filled up, and we didn’t really have a clue what our options were. We spotted a place and attempted a very dodgy parking attempt (especially in a hire car) before getting waved at by a friendly Slovakian telling us we couldn’t park there (knew it was too good to be true!!). Apparently, we’d stumbled into the car park for Hotel Posta but thankfully the man took pity on us and found us a space right in front of the hotel – what an absolute legend!! He wouldn’t even take the money we handed him for his help – and honestly, we’ve found the hospitality of both the Slovak and Hungarians absolutely delightful throughout our trip.

Laura went to the shop we hired our equipment from to get a couple of changes to the footing to see if that helped support her ankle. We had a miscommunication as I thought she was coming back over to the slopes near the hotel (which included the snowpark) so didn’t end up reuniting for 45 minutes. We headed up the mountain and were really struggling – although the visibility was outstanding, it was also quite icy, and Laura’s confidence was waning with the ankle. We decided to try and do the nice run we found on the first day as a confidence booster, but as I turned to check on Laura, I completely stacked it and did the cardinal sin of snowboarding a braced myself with my hand. Thankfully it was only a badly sprained wrist rather than anything worse. Laura nearly lost her board down the side of the mountain as she was clipping out so we both decided we should call it quits!!

We still had a bit of a journey to get all the way over to the other side and back to Happy End (which wasn’t as suitably titled this time around!). We had a cracking burger and hot chocolate there though to finish things off. We both decided that it was a great little resort for 3 days, plenty of runs, just a lot of queuing due to the limited number of lifts and quite a few pistes not bashed overnight (so got quite mounded in places) but with amazing views and relatively cheap compared to what we’ve been used to in the Alps!

Once back at the hotel, after a painful (mostly) one-handed drive back, we went straight to the pools for a dip followed by a wonderful massage and a trip around the saunas. We headed back out to Koliba (seemed to be the only decent restaurant open!) and had another cracking meal. This time I ended up having ram meat and baked potatoes (which were basically roasties). Tasted outrageously good! We sadly packed our suitcases once back as we faced the inevitable sadness of the holiday coming to an end.

After having a bit of a lie-in, we’d already packed so could have a leisurely breakfast before settling the bill (a reminder that you need to get them to log your Go Pass card onto your hotel watch on check-in otherwise you don’t get the discounts/points!) and getting in the car for the journey back to Kosice Airport. We dropped the car off and had just missed a bus back to the railway station so opted for a taxi and managed to get the 2pm train back to Budapest – a useful 3 and a half hours to have a snooze and write up a travel blog!

Tink & Laura

---