Wednesday 6th August 2008 – Northern Budapest, Hungary

The satellite navigation knew the exact location of the motorhome repairer and, leaving plenty of time to get there, we set off. When the Garmin said that we had arrived, we parked up and tried to find the garage. There was no sign of it, so I went into an office and asked for directions. I was surprised that he directed me to a location quite a distance away but he was confident that he knew where it was. To cut a long story short, we had to ask for directions twice more before we arrived, half a hour late, at 'Karavan City' (not the name that we had been given), close to the original location. They were very helpful and within a hour they had diagnosed the fault and told us that they would either be able to repair the unit (50% chance) or install an equivalent charger. The only issue was that they did not have another slot until next Tuesday but there is plenty to do in the Budapest area in the meantime.
With had already chosen a campsite in the north of Budapest, close to the west bank of the Danube and we plotted a scenic route around the western side of Buda. This area is a park of hills and woodland and there is no direct route through it but we were able to skirt it and admire the views.
We had spotted that there was an archaeological site on our map near Zsambek, marked as 'Romtemplom'. This was on our route, so we called in to see it. Walking up to it, on a hill above the town, it appeared to simply be a ruined church but when we arrived we found that it had been built on the remains of a Roman temple and the site had a commanding view over the surrounding countryside. There had been a church there since at least the 13th century although the remains on view seemed to date from the 15th century. It was a pleasant diversion and also provide somewhere to have a picnic lunch before we continued our journey.
Romai Camping is a busy city centre site but there is plenty of space and we found a large quiet pitch at the bottom end of the site.
Photos: Galopp Major Very Late Iron Age roundhouses; The ruined Mediaeval church on the Roman temple site at Zsambek.