Other

Hungary

For much of the past twelve years, Budapest has been where I’ve shelved my books, but for the past few, my heart and home have been in a tiny village near the Kis Balaton in Western Hungary.

In his book, The Bridge at Andau, James Michener described Hungarians as the Irish of Eastern Europe. Perhaps that’s why I feel so much at home here.

Sheets of broken ice hug brown-hued rocks along the edge of a greeny-water lake with a silhouette of black leafless trees on the horizon

Balatongyörök, Hungary

Rönök, Hungary: The iron curtain

in the foreground, a wooden sign on a post in white paint reads REMETE - hungarian for HERMITGAE. It sits in a field with a forest to the right and blue sky in the background

Nagykapornak, Hungary

Zalamerenye, Zala, Hungary

Azáleás-völgy, Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

Vörs, Somogy, Hungary

What to do in Budapest

Currency exchange

2017 Grateful 49

The proof is in the passion

My travel tree

Taste among the tat

Budapest

I moved to Budapest on a whim. Little thought went into it. I’d spent a cold, snowy weekend here in December of 2003 and came back again in an unseasonably mild February in 2007. I was unhappy in my job and itching for a change. The idea took hold and six months later, I arrived by train from London, with two suitcases and two large framed paintings. The books would follow.

Village Life

I’ve spent my life moving from bustling cities to sleepy towns and back again,. never quite sure which I preferred. Both have their plusses and their minuses. But with age came the realisation that everything is within reach and having the best of both worlds is possible. I’m blessed to have found my happy place, a relatively unknown part of Hungary that has everything I could ever wish for … and more.

Hidden in the trees in Zalavár

My other websites

When renovating my flat in Budapest all those years ago, my postage budget had been diverted to paint and time was in short supply; blogging seemed an efficient way to stay in touch with those interested in what I was up to. Today, it’s an intrinsic part of what I do. I write about life in Budapest, the city in which I finally got to unpack my bottom drawer. I write about stuff, whatever comes to mind. I write for me, to get things straight, to keep me from forgetting. And if you read it and engage, all the better.

People all over the world are dying to get in to cemeteries, to graves, to mausoleums. Their bones are buried, their ashes encased, their lives summarised in the dash between two dates. Their epitaphs, their choice of grave marker, their obituary, all tell a story. Cemeteries are museums of life often overlooked, frequently ignored. When I travel, I travel to meet the living and to pay my respects to the dead. These are my stories.