Szentendre

After about half an hour of unnecessary exploration, we found the HEV, which was conveniently located right where we initially arrived in Buda.  The HEV, which reminded me of the RER train in Paris, took Dani and I to Szentendre, a town north of Budapest.

I read my guidebook on the way and learned that the town is too small to get lost in, so upon our arrival, we did not follow the pedestrians and went our own way, which was as rewarding as Frommer's promised.  The side streets and alleys were beautifully cobblestoned, but the thing with cobblestones is that they are quite inconvenient to walk on.  They do, however, make a nice sound when horses walk on them, and yes, there were a few horses in the streets of this fine town (actually, I think they were ponies, and I'm pretty sure it was just a tourist gimmick, but still).

Our meandering eventually did lead us to the main tourist street, which was riddled with little shops selling Hungarian wares, which were fun to look at, but too overwhelming to actually purchase from because there was just so much stuff to choose from.  Dani was rather tempted by a Hungarian military hat from a shop that also randomly had some gas masks.  The thing with little shops, though, is that you can't just browse without the well-intentioned shopkeepers approaching you, which makes me (and Dani) feel pressured and therefore unable to form any logical thought process that could lead to a purchase.

We walked along the river for a while after buying drinks from a random little soda bar, and thoroughly enjoyed the river banks of the Danube, which was amazingly beautiful in the first vestiges of Spring that are currently upon us.  Dani climbed a tree, which was brave of her considering the masses of ants that existed and kept me away.


Finding someplace to eat was stupidly difficult, as there were restaurants everywhere, but I wasn't in a mood to brave Hungarian cuisine and the other options exceeded my budget, but we finally found a place with Italian food, which is basically all we eat (good thing we're finally going to Italy next weekend, so we can have the real thing).  It was really really good, too.  It's on the river and the second word of the two-word name was "Trattoria," but unfortunately that is all I remember of its identifying features.  We ate outside and it was lovely.  The service was also great, which is a change from what we've normally experienced.  I recommend it.

Anyway, Dani and I plan to go back the week after Spring Break to eat what my guidebook calls the "best langos in Hungary," because the place was closed today.  We also ran out of time to go to a museum she was interested in, and we also wanted to go to an open-air ethnographical museum, so hopefully those things will happen next time.