Baroque City of Eger

After 3 days of riding and a day trip to Budapest, my last visit was to the city of Eger. A picturesque city famous for its baroque architecture. Ellie (my roommate), Edina (our host) and I walked around the castle, and had a leisurely lunch at the town square, before we scooted back to the ranch where we were staying to watch our riding instructor perform in a traditional Hungarian horse show.

Day Trip to Budapest

Here are some snaps from my daytrip to Budapest. From top to bottom, 1. Buda Palace taken from a river cruise on the Danube; 2. Parliament Building in Pest; 3. Fisherman's Bastion in Buda - one of the best spots to view the city; 4. Fisherman's Bastion reflected through the bronze mirror facade of the Budapest Hilton Hotel; 5. Matyas Church in Buda (loved the colourful lego-like rooftop); and 6. Dohany Utca Synagogue in Pest. I will have to go back to Budapest in the future, as one day was really just a quick run around in the city. Was fortunate enough to catch the rehearsal of an Air Show/Race whilst I was there. Small planes were looping above the Danube, flying under bridges and criss-crossing through these markers on the river. The pilots were practising before the main event on August 20, St Stephens Day in Budapest.

Horsey Hungarian Adventure

After spending days on google searching for a holiday destination (a last opportunity to travel before I start working again in September) I came across a website about a horse riding holiday in Hungary. So last week I found myself in a village called Paradsasvar in the Matra Hills, about an hour and a half north east of Budapest. I stayed in a guesthouse in the middle of a forest clearing, and for the first three days of my trip, I had afternoon horseriding sessions organised by the the ranch (Fenyes Major Equestrian Centre) next to the guesthouse. We rode through the forest, fields and plains...no words can adequately describe the scenery, it really was special. Some guests described riding through the forest as scenery similar to Narnia, although I haven't seen the film myself. Personally, the forest riding scene in 'House of Flying Daggers' came to my mind. Anyway, when the late afternoon sun shone through the forest and the leaves started to glow with an almost magical translucent green, it was surreal. Riding through the plains with views of the Matra and Bukk Hills was great and cantering through fields was definitely exhilarating.

Of course, there's the harder stuff as well with horse riding, like the sore muscles afterward, huffing and puffing away (a sure sign of my lack of fitness) during the trotting sessions, holding on and keeping balance when the horse freaked out a bit and jumped around, and stinking like insect repellant to avoid the flies, mozzies and ticks.

The ranch itself is almost worthy of a separate blog posting. It was like a mini-farm with pigs, goats, horses, bulls, roosters and dogs in need of a good shampoo (their coats were so long and combined with all the dirt they had developed natural dreadlocks).

Unfortunately, the husband didn't come along on this trip. No, we're not having marital problems, the truth is that apart from work commitments, Mr Cessy is also allergic to horses and the last time I made him go riding with me, he sneezed the whole way!

Sorry, only have photos of the guesthouse and the view from the room balcony. Was too tricky riding and taking photos at the same time.

Spaceships have landed in Den Bosch

Was that a chicken stock cube??

Willis came to visit us last weekend. Here are a few pics. We went to the theatre festival in Den Bosch on Friday night and also had a lovely tapas meal. The boys had a wee too much to drink on Friday night, and let's just say Cessy was a little bit sick and not feeling the greatest on Saturday morning, and Willis got back to our apartment, felt like some chocolate to snack on, went to our pantry and popped a chicken stock cube into his mouth by mistake. I woke up on Saturday morning and found some remnant bits of chicken stock cube in our bathroom sink. The problem with visiting friends who are bloggers is that when you do something funny or embarrassing, and in this case, it's absolutely hilarious, it can end up on their blog.

We spent Saturday in Amserdam. It was a beautiful sunny day. The GayParade was also on so we got to watch a bit of that....lots of people dancing on canal boats with pink balloons and pink feather boas. Cessy spent all day talking about going to MaMa Shoarma so in the evening he got his shoarma fix. We had some cocktails and a few nibbles at a great bar/restaurant called Walem. And caught the last train back to Den Bosch.

On Sunday, the boys went for a 20km bike ride to a National Park near Den Bosch, and came back red-faced, sore and hungry. We had a hearty dinner at home and connected the laptop to the plasma and watched Willis' travel photos on the big screen.

It was Willis' last night on Monday, so we went to a restaurant for the Indonesian rijstafel...Cessy and I are on a mission to find the best rijstafel in the Netherlands. Our favourite thus far is Kantjil in Amsterdam, although we've still a few more years of rijstafel eating up our sleeve.