I left town early the next morning. István had prepared me a dish of two fried eggs served with a hunk of brown bread and, on a side plate, a small, light green bell pepper that he had diced. Grateful, I ate this in his living room over a mug of coffee.
My eastern exodus from Budapest was not all that dissimilar to departing Bratislava, a few weeks prior, albeit on a grander, busier scale; the charming backstreets of the old town fell away to the city’s perimeter transport hubs, which soon gave way to clusters of commuting urban centres, complete with brightly coloured communist-era blocks lent new life by the parks, greenery, and the odd...
By pure happenstance, I arrived in Hungary on the eve of Easter weekend just as Paddy did 90 years ago. Dropping my gear off at the hotel, I headed into town to grab some pulled pork as my celebratory supper. (This was one of the many cravings of the trip thus far. Most of these were frankly ridiculous, such as fish and chips, or American diner food – both of which I was hardly accustomed to back...