Bonjour Paris

We have arrived safely and trouble-free in the French Capital. The flight was fairly smooth, and Mel had a bit of a sleep.

We are both a little disappointed to have left Hungary, but excited to see what Paris has on offer.

After dreading the RER and Metro journey, it actually turned out to be quite pleasant. In Budapest, the metro tickets were checked manually, but here in Paris they are done electronically. We're still not sure which one we prefer.

Our hotel room is fairly small, but comfortable. We are only here for one full night, so it isn't a problem. Although now, we only have one English TV Channel!!

Now we are going to head for some food and do a bit of sightseeing. I think the Hard Rock Cafe sounds good.

Au revoir for now!

Ferihegy

Our flight to Paris boards in just under half an hour. We have exchanged our remaining Hungarian Forint into Euro and we are now waiting in the departure lounge.

If all goes to plan, our estimated arrival time at Orly is around midday. After this we have a trek across Paris on the RER and Metro. Hopefully, we will be in our hotel for about 1pm.

In other news, the suitcase passed the test and managed to get to the airport on it's own two wheels. Hopefully the two trainers I wedged in the corners will stay strong during the flight and there will be no more trouble to come of it.

We ae going to skidaddle now, and the next update will come from (not so) sunny Paris.

Bye Bye Budapest

It's 7am, and Mel and I have just returned to the room after having a very large breakfast. We just have to seal our suitcases and then get the metro followed by the bus to Ferihegy Airport. If we can get on the metro before 7:45, we've done well.

And on a random note, we were woken up by Mr. T on a home shopping Infommercial because I left the TV on last night.

Maybe not as famous...

Okay, just an update on a post earlier. It wasn't the Olympiacos football team that was in our hotel. Yesterday, Honved Budapest played against Olympiacos Piraeus...

...at Water Polo.

Makes sense really.

Magyar Madness (Part Two)

The Puskas Ferenć Stadion is named after Hungary's most famous son. It is home to the Hungarian National Team and this was where England were beaten 7-¹in the 1950's.

After this we went for some food and decided that we were going to do some shopping.

We headed to the Arena Plaza Shopping Centre, which is the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe, but apart from there being a C&A, we thought it was a bit pants.

We then took the metro back to the centre of the city and did a little souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel.

Now we are spending our final night watching German football and resting our tired legs before leaving for France early tomorrow.

Magyar Madness (Part One)

Finally we are in our room. We left it at around 9am, and we've been walking around for 10 hours.

We have hopped on and off the metro and visited a fair few places.

We started early on at Szent István Bazilika (St Stephen's Basilica), which is a massive and beautiful 19th century church and from there took a walk along the Danube River. The river is extremely wide and the breeze across it is absolutely freezing!!! The path along the river brought us to Országház, which is the Hungarian Parliament building. The scale of this building is immense, and it is a fantastic building.

Here we escaped the cold with a metro trip to Hösök Tere (Heroes' Square). It is home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and has a central column similar to Trafalgar Square, on top if which stands Gabriel, the Guardian Angel.

Next was a trip for my personal pleasure. The home of modern football, the Puskas Ferenć Stadion.

Random Greek Football Team

We've just been for breakfast, and whilst down there, the whole Olympiacos football team came down to eat. I have no idea why they are in Budapest, but they are.

Day 2

It's a lovely Budapest Sunday morning. A little on the cold side, but lovely nonetheless.
Today we are heading for a little breakfast before catching the metro into the city. A bit of sightseeing, and photo opportunies await.
The good news is that I think the suitcase is fixed. I just had to shove a pair of trainers at the bottom. If it works, it will give us a little extra for shopping.
Last night, we went to the Spar over the road and bought some Cherry Coke, Milka and Cheetos. We then settled in to watch "Burn After Reading" on my iPod.
The room here is a little boring. We have a balcony, but it is too cold to stand out on it for more than 5 minutes. We have a TV, but with only 2 English Channels - BBC World (which gets boring very quickly), and Eurosport (which is intent on showing just adverts and Cross Country Skiing).
Anyway, time is pressing, so we better go get ready.

Budapest

We landed in Budapest at around 11:30 local time, which was pretty much right on time. After collecting our bags, I discovered that my suitcase is broken. When you wheel it, it is wobbling around, and the bumpy streets weren't helping. So after carrying the thing up and down stairs, and across roads, we finally arrived at our hotel. It is a little way out from the city, but it is easy to get to on the Metro. Now, we have just had some food in the centre of Budapest, and we're going to head back towards the hotel for an early night. We've got a big day tomorrow, including the search for a new suitcase.

Luton Airport - The Beginning

And so the journey begins... we've been at Luton for around half an hour now, and we've just ate breakfast (see picture). We'll be checking-in in around half an hour. After we'll head to do a little duty-free.

Packing

Packing has commenced. Only 11 days until we're on our way to Hungary.

In-flight entertainment.

I ordered a book from Amazon.co.uk for me to read on the connecting flights. It's Jeff Stelling's "Jelleyman's Thrown A Wobbler". If you don't know who Jeff Stelling is, he is the Anchor of Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday show.
This is the only football show that runs for six hours, shows absolutely no live football, consists of several ex-professionals watching TV screens and shouting occasionaly. Yet it manages to keep grown men all over the country glued to their seats.

Hopefully this, and my new iPhone will keep me entertained through these no-frills flights.

I also might see if I can download "Inglourious Basterds" to watch (again) on the trip.

T-Minus 27 days.

Everything is booked. Just spending money to save up for, and an iPhone so we can update the blog whilst on the move. I've spent a while looking at the different transport options we've got, to get from the airports to the hotels. The only one posing a problem at the moment is Berlin. They are having a bit or trouble with their S-Bahn trains, which we want to use all the way from Schoenefeld to our hotel at Anhalter Bahnhof. The status of these trains keeps changing though, so everything might work out fine.