From Kocice to Budapest

September 21 Kocice to Budapest

Sunday appears to be a good day to drive to and through big cities in Europe. There is no truck traffic and in fact, little traffic of any kind early in the morning. We left Kocice at around 8:40 and soon found ourselves on a highway in Hungary, that required a permit...the guide book said that fines are issued and must be paid on the spot, if you are caught without the required permit. The guide book was again wrong in telling us that there would be a border crossing where we would be asked to show our permits.

We drove for about 30 kilometers before we found a gas station (Shell) that sold just about everything, including permits for the highway. The cost of the permit for four days was 1,530 HUF...this currency is wild. At a bank machine I withdrew some money and felt like I would certainly be rejected for punching in 50,000!

We are staying at Blue Flamingo, a campsite in Erd, a suburb of Budapest. There is a bus stop just outside the campsite where we will take a bus into the centre of the city tomorrow. While exploring Erd and checking out the bus routes we came across a small pastry shop/coffee bar. Selection which pastry to try was difficult as they all looked so good. The coffee was excellent and Michelle was happy to see that they had Earl Gray tea. On our stroll we noticed that the houses are fenced and gated and that many have dogs patrolling the property. We also noticed that there were lots of fruit trees and vines in the yards...grapes, apples, pears and tomatoes.

This campsite has a washing machine and so we are doing laundry this afternoon. Although the sun is not shining is is very mild. This is the first day since we bought the heater that we did not plug it in as soon as we got electricity. In fact, we have opened some windows and are enjoying the fresh air and the sounds of children playing in the park next to the campsite. We ate out this evening, at a very nice restaurant near the campground. The food was Hungarian and can't tell you the names of what we had but we both enjoyed our meals. The portions were so large that we could only eat about half of what was on our plates. During dinner we tried to learn a few Hungarian words as we made our plans for Budapest tomorrow.