So, right up front, NOT a good idea to pack one’s very expensive Pixel smartphone into a particular point on the back of the bike where there’s serious pressure on the screen, including from a heavy spare battery. Yup, elromlott, as I now know the Hungarians say. Broken. Although I feel more like saying, Kifeküdt … Read more …
Time perhaps to catch up on Hungary and the turn from language learning to cycling home from next week – through Slovenia, Austria, CH and France, dropping in on old Reuter colleagues on the way in Geneva and Paris. Seems my Hungarian continues to come along nicely. My last night in Budapest brought reunification with … Read more …
Indeed, why on earth (in devil’s name, which is closer to the Hungarian above) am I – and have been for so long – learning Hungarian? Sitting in Budapest half way through a three-week (almost) sojourn in Hungary in the early summer of 2025 with the specific intention of getting to grips with this intense, … Read more …
Listen carefully, and (my previous post refers) God is laughing his (their?) head off now as we prepare to drive home after a fascinating fortnight in Transylvania (writing this in Alba Iulia as the Romanian presidential election results come in – at the moment, looking good for Europe.) Instead of tandeming from Hungary to Bucharest … Read more …
From one bloodthirsty dictator to another? Ever wondered what Bran Castle is like, supposed home of the Transylvanian ruler to beat them all, and even Nicolai C, Count Dracula? Also known charmingly as Vlad The Impaler? (Don’t ask, as what that means as a way of despatching your enemies is pretty gruesome). The bulk of … Read more …
Then and now pictures below (scroll down) of the Ceausescus’ palatial Bucharest residence, including the photo I took of their bed at Christmas 1989 literally still unmade from their last night in the building Dec 21-22. Three days later, both were dead. Recalling that first visit in the emotional heat of the immediate post-revolutionary days, … Read more …
Blog been very quiet for over a week as first I recovered from this year’s nasty cold-and-chest, and then we recalibrated our trip to drive round Romania rather than tandem, with a view on return to pedal round Lake Balaton instead. So this is from Bucharest, a return for me 36 years after covering the … Read more …
Yes, tell him your plans. The view on the left is not of some Great Caparthian Mountain, but of what I can see from my sick bed just a few hundred metres north of Hungary’s border with Serbia, hunkered down for a few days as I finally fight off the back end of a month’s … Read more …
Pausing en route to Hungary with some very old friends from student days in East Germany 1971 (old in every sense) here’s experimenting with a very brief pictorial post using Jetpack on my mobile (nerdy web builder reference there). With some captioned photos reflecting how very English German continues to become. The wonderful Gutsfelds, with … Read more …
Well, this is nearly it, and for the third year in a row (after 5500 km round Germany in 2023, and 4000 km round France last year) , Jutta and I are about to head off on our now-regular spring/summer cycling adventure, this time driving first to Hungary then on with Daisy2 round Romania and … Read more …