A short history of Hungary first: The area was subject to Roman conquest and occupation around the time of Christ. In the 5th century, the Romans were conquered by the Huns, led by the legendary Attila. Magyar warrior tribes moved into the region around 896, and Hungary's first king and patron saint, Stephen, was crowned on Christmas Day in 1000 signaling the start of the Hungarian State. Fast forward to the 20th century, where post-WWII years led to Communist control, a 1956 uprising which was crushed by the Soviets, and eventual independence in 1989.

We arrived at the Hotel Medosz on Sunday about 1pm after our hair-raising (if I had any hair of course) minibus ride. As is usual for a Tucan hotel, the hotel was situated in a seedy area of town, which was either good or bad depending on your personal interests. There was a small park next to the hotel and whilst waiting for our keys, we witnessed a young couple who obviously couldn't be bothered to wait until they got home to their bedroom, and a couple of hobos pissing against a tree. Oh, and after depositing my bag and heading off out for something to eat, a mad gypsy woman started ranting at me about something or other.

In the afternoon, we went on an orientation walk of Budapest. The city is the capital of Hungary and is split by the River Danube into Buda on the west of the Danube and Pest on the east. There are many beautiful buildings in terms of architecture, but after having seen quite a few similar cities on my trip so far, it all seemed like a case of deja vu to me. There were some impressive buildings though - The Parliament Building, and the Castle Hill complex of buildings. The city is also stated to be a bit of a party town in the summer, and a city of culture and the arts.

After a walk, some us decided to branch out and found a Scottish bar, the Caledonia, rather than the ubiquitous Irish bar, and then we had a group meal at Bohemia restaurant at 7pm. I ordered a Chicken Schnitzel, which was basically an enormous chicken nugget. Very nice it was too. We had 5 new people joining us for this final leg of the trip, although they had actually already done the Moscow to Budapest leg, but had then spent a few weeks exploring the Dalmatian coast countries (ie. those crappy small European countries England often play at football but you never know where they are, such as Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina). Four of our group were also leaving to do that same Dalmatian Coast leg. Oh, and we had a new Tour Leader for our last week - Mario, who looked very much like our last Tour Leader (Manuel), but counted amongst his hobbies driving around in a cart and collecting gold coins. After the meal, it was back to Caledonia for a few of us hardy souls, then to another bar with the incredibly-bearded owner, before retiring to our hotel at 1am when our lungs could no longer survive any more passive inhaling of other people's tobacco smoke.

On Monday, a few of us went for a walk to Heroes Square (and the Millennial Monument erected in 1896), had a look at the picturesque lobby of the Szechenyi Baths, then negotiated the Metro to the River Danube. Once there, we decided to take a one-hour cruise along the River Danube, but what a load of rubbish it was. We couldn't understand the pigeon-English of the woman doing the commentary and there really wasn't anything to see that we hadn't already seen from better vantage points on our walk yesterday. It was only the biting cold that kept us awake. To amuse ourselves, we decided to make up alternative song titles, the most humorous was "Killing me softly with his schlong, tearing my insides apart.......".

We had a 7pm overnight train to Brasov in Romania, so the rest of afternoon was spent mulling around the hotel and grabbing a bite to eat. Onto the train, which handily had a restaurant car which served cheap cans of Romanian "Ursus" lager. After a few intellectual conversations such as deciding which hand men should use for what, and guessing how many of the people in the cabin next door slept with their relatives, it was off to the land of nod to awaken in Romania.