Stories from travels in

Budapest

Art of the Underground

I have a fondness for statues. I can talk to them for hours. I used to visit József Attila quite often a few years ago

Backstreets wanderer

‘So’, I said, ‘what do you want to do?’ My visitor technically wasn’t my visitor at all. I’d borrowed him for the afternoon from a

Comments and their consequences

Dining out alone one evening lately, I got into conversation with a couple of Canadian tourists who were on a driving holiday through the region.

The uncomplicated joy of being

I was reintroduced recently to the joy of simple living and reminded that the value of simplicity is something we’re in danger of overlooking as

No longer a virgin

Each year, come July/August, I go through the same routine. I check the line-up for this years Sziget music festival and see how few names

Guaranteed to make me smile

As the temperatures soar, my levels of tolerance drop. There is a direct correlation between how hot it is and what sort of mood I’m

2014 Grateful 23

Edward de Bono once joked with me that I could have a case for the Court of Human Rights. He reckoned that between the whole

Taken for a ride

TripAdvisor has just published its list of the ten most expensive tourist cities in the world. I was surprised to see that Geneva didn’t rate.

Meat on Mester

I’d heard rumours that there was a … not a butchers in the Irish definition of the word and not a meat market in the

A fine-dining experience

Say Michelin and I think tyres. I think of the white plastic Michelin man that for so many years rode atop my neighbour’s haulage truck.