Category: Hungary
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An introduction to Hungarian Wines
Hungary doesn’t even have a shelf in most wine stores around the world. If you search for it, you can usually find a sweet white wine from the Tokaj region or a drinkable red blended wine from the Eger region because of its catchy name “Bull’s Blood”. And that’s a shame. In Hungary, there are…
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Ruin Pubs and Romkocsma
Budapest has recently opened many a slick wine bar and has more than its fair share of smoky dive bars. What makes the Budapest night life unique though is its “ruin pubs”. The only common element to them appears to be that they are bars in buildings that probably should have been torn down. Old…
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4 cities in transit
In Budapest, we have a train to catch at 5:15am. The first trolley bus that will take us to the station arrives at 4:50am and takes about ten minutes. We weren’t really worried though because it always runs on time. These vehicles are a cross between a bus and a tram, plying the roads with…
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Night at the Baths
Thinking of the old Turkish baths installed by the Ottomans conjures up thoughts of pot-bellied men playing chess in a loin cloth. In Hungary though, it isn’t really like that anymore, at least not in some places. The baths are still sumptuous, and the water is steaming hot, but in Budapest the baths have evolved…
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Goose, wine, and St Marton
In Hungary, November 11th marks the first day of the year to drink 2011 wines. Also, the geese are fully fattened around this time. Since 1171, Christians have used this as a great excuse to drink lots of wine and stuff themselves on geese. Local restaurants offer goose specials throughout the month. Smoked goose…
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Our Hungarian Kitchen
You would think from our lack of raving about Budapest that we aren’t enjoying it here, but we’re just busy. Our typical week in Budapest is working 6 hours a day Monday to Thursday as close to EST as we can manage. That leaves us until 2PM to use our “free” time, which involves a…
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Home Sweet Budapest
Arrive at the airport: the ATM has its wires dangling from the ceiling. Wait for the metro: the graffit-covered, dented, chipped-blue cars look like they are straight from the cold war. Get off the metro on Sunday afternoon: city is asleep. Enter apartment building: smells like a combination of stale cigarette smoke and the trash…