Friday 8th August 2008 – Northern Budapest, Hungary

Our guidebook and the very informative Budapest brochure provided by the campsite both recommended the town of Szentendre north of the campsite. Very conveniently, the railway line runs just the other side of the main road outside the campsite and runs all the way to Szentendre. We were able to buy a ticket at a ticket machine on the platform but discovered that this only covered the part of the journey within the Budapest metropolitan area, having to buy a second ticket for the rest of the journey from the conductor on the train.
We had not been able to use the Internet for some time and I had bought the laptop with me in the hope of finding somewhere that I could use it. Only a short distance from the station we found an Internet service but without wireless or the option to plug in the laptop. He directed us to an Internet café a hundred yards further on and we soon had the laptop plugged in. There were a large number of emails waiting for us, lots of blog to upload and many other things that we wanted to do, so 3 hours later we finished! At a total cost of £4, it was very reasonable and it was great to accomplish so much.
After an excellent lunch, we set off to visit Szentendre. It wasn't very busy as we walked in but when we got to the centre, we met the coach trips. Tourist shops, restaurants and cafés lined the roads and the crowds filled them. The architecture was interesting but we have seen much more attractive Mediaeval towns. One interesting feature was the Serbian and, to a much smaller extent, Greek influence. In 1690 Emperor Lipot I called for help in his attempt to expel the Turks from the Balkans. He promised that the Balkan people who helped would be given sanctuary in Hungary should the attempt fail. The Balkan War followed but the Habsburgs were defeated and at least 40,000 Serbs, fearing retribution from the Turks, moved to Hungary and settled mainly in the area of the Danube. Szentendre became home to a large Serbian community that retained there language, customs and religion. It was only after the First World War that conflicts between the nationalities lead to an exodus of most of the Serbs. We visited the Serbian Orthodox cathedral adding to our list of Orthodox churches visited – Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian and Russian (in Sofia, Bulgaria).
Photos: The Danube at Szentendre; The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral.