How to Live like a Local in Budapest (Summer Edition)

The Expat Goes Home

The trouble with being an expat is that you end up being a stranger to your own hometown. In your absence things move on; after a few years you being to feel alienated. The post How to Live like a Local in Budapest two years ago was born of the experience of visiting my own city with the eyes of a tourist: I was trying to show off the attractions – especially the unique ones – to my children. It was a wintery experience of Budapest, however, so today, you’re going to get the summer edition. If it’ll inspire you to visit one of the most lovable and liveable cities in Europe, good. 🙂

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge spanning the Danube, Budapest. Photo by Anon. via Pixabay.

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7 Things You’ll Regret Not Doing in Lisbon

Having taken a somewhat negative view last week with 7 Things You’ll Regret Doing in Lisbon, I think it’s time to look on the bright side!

Good Enough for Byron

We’ll take our cue from Byron:

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,
And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay.
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
New shores descried make every bosom gay;
And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way,
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;
And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,
And steer ‘twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

(Lord Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto I, XIV)

(Welcome to Lisbon.)

If it was good enough for Byron, it should be good enough for you: Byron had a real talent in picking the most memorable places in Europe to visit (and then writing them up in his poetry).

7 Things You’ll Regret Doing in Lisbon

Just having come back from Lisbon, I thought I’d share the kind of insight that you should be able to gain from guidebooks – but you can’t always.

View of Lisbon from Castelo de Sao Jorge

So seven mistakes to avoid when in Lisbon:

How to Survive Semana Santa in Seville

Tips to Make Your Semana Santa Memorable

We spent Semana Santa in Seville this year – and although we enjoyed it, we could have enjoyed it so much better if we knew what we know now. (And it’s not like we didn’t do our research in the internet and guidebooks first.) So read this to find out how to make the most of your stay in Seville during Semana Santa!

Let’s start with…

How to Live like a Local in Budapest

I just came home from home. The experience was slightly unnerving in both directions (as usual). To begin with, there was the inevitable confusion of languages: while at home, I tended to do it all wrong. I spoke Hungarian to Young Friend of the Elephants and English to my father, not to mention when I creatively mixed the two languages to the changing room attendant in the thermal baths. To end with, back home there was the immigration officer at Heathrow who asked cunning questions to find out if I was trafficking my child into the country to be some sort of a domestic slave. (She’s washing up after dinner right now but don’t tell that to the border police.)

How Blue is the Blue Lagoon?

The short answer is: very. 🙂

So you picked up a Maltese travel brochure and saw these glorious photos of the Blue Lagoon in which the water is implausibly blue, a shade known by people who care about such details as ‘cyan’.  And you weren’t born yesterday, so you conclude that the colour of the sea water is the result of a photo filter and the name of the lagoon is probably an advertising gimmick.

And you’re wrong.

Walking Samaria Gorge

By way of giving you relief from Venice – which I’m sure will be subject of many miscellanies – I thought today we could go for a walk in Samaria Gorge in the White Mountains of Crete.

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How To Be Plied with Free Raki

If you’ve ever been to Greece, you know that the Greeks are both hospitable and friendly. (They’re also not averse to take the clueless foreign tourist for a ride, but that’s another matter.) And one of the surest way to win their hospitality is to make the effort and speak a smattering of Greek. This generally holds true in any country, by the way, and the more obscure the language, the more your effort will be appreciated by the natives. Take this as travel tip of the week. 🙂