From Belgium to Hungary!

Van Budapest[Hungary]-May2009

Yesterday we took the plane to Budapest! The flight is code-shared between Brussels Airlines and Hungarian Airlines, and HL booked the ticket through the Hungarians: for the same product, their price is fundamentally cheaper! It pays to compare prices :-)

The flight to Budapest was with Brussels Airlines; in the Brussels airport, HL tried to get an upgrade to business class with the One-World-points, but unfortunately, that didn't work (as far as I remember, points-upgrades are only theoretically possible in the airport upon departure: you really need to do it in a regular office, long B4 departure)! Which was not inconvenient, since our tickets were B-flex: a nice meal included, and free flow of wine :-) BTW, Brussels Airlines has a lovely white wine from New Zealand, try it if you can!

It has been some years now since we last visited Budapest. We remember the city as totally inefficient, neglected, dirty, lots of homeless and a general mood of hopelessness; we thought this was going to change fast, since everywhere renovations were being done, and we had the impression that the city and its inhabitants were moving forward rapidly.

Unfortunately, the financial and political crisis has struck here too, the currency is in a free fall, and poverty is harder then it was before. Lots and lots of police on the streets, identity controls (not ours, we clearly look like tourists and therefor harmless), when taking the bus, it seems that we are the only ones with tickets (but in the underground, every single passenger is controlled).

You could suppose that this would be a very cheap holiday then, but that would be a mistake: a room in the hotel here (Danubius Spa, Margitsziget) is 200 Euro per night, double the price for half the service. Some hotel staff speak relatively well English, others clearly still struggle with the language. The rooms are nice but outdated, urgent renovation is required. And the problem is: the locals just don't realize it, I guess that they think this is the summum of comfort and luxury.
The hotel has an old wing (old castle-style) and a new wing (former communist retreat for the leaders), and we stay in the new wing, half board. Each wing has its own restaurant. However, due to the lack of hotel guests, only one restaurant at the time is functioning: we have to take the breakfast in the new wing, and the dinner in the old :-)

Today we spent half a day on planning the family trip: we compared prices between the offer of the hotel, and the offer of Toukan Tourist (an openly gay travel agency, we found it on the Web, and we'll gladly support their pride in this - still homophobic - country), and the hotel-offer was almost 50% more expensive, so after running back and forth between the two, we went for the Toukans! The manager there is mister Istvan Pocsai (he could use a dental, his front teeth are really admirable!), he's a charming guy, efficient and clearly moved by the fact that we choose his agency because of the gay label.

Our usual daily program here is: wake up around 6 am, go for a swim/bath (the hotel has its own therapeutic hot spring!), breakfast (basic but good, except for the coffee, even the - extra charged - cappuccino is undrinkable), stroll. This will change in the coming 3 days, when my siblings and their offspring will be here on my invitation, to celebrate the fact that I managed to be alive for 55 years :-)

More on that tomorrow!
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