Budapest, Hungary

During my recent visit to the U.K. I also took a short trip to Budapest with my friend, Martyn. We've been on many European trips together, but this was the first time for both of us in Budapest.

With an hour or so to kill in the departure lounge of Heathrow Terminal 5, we sat in the bar where we joined by a six foot tattooed blonde lady wearing a stetson. She looked like she could be a female Terminator, taking out John Connor with one swipe of the hand. She was actually really nice and said she was off to the States to meet her American armed forces boyfriend who was just back home from time in Afghanistan.

Budapest was 37 or 38 degrees and clear blue sky; a great relief after two weeks in cold and grey London. By lucky chance our first full day there was a public holiday, which meant a lot of the main roads were closed to traffic and so it was easy to stroll around the city. There was also an air show over the Danube, with planes from various different ages flying over every few minutes. There was a great festival atmosphere, and with the perfect weather we really couldn't have hoped for a better introduction to the city. One of the main bridges was packed with people trying to get good vantage points for the airshow, as theswe photos show.

The city is a beautiful, elegant place full of statues, parks and grand old buildings.

There is also a very quaint Metro system, which looks frozen in a bygone era.

Budapest is also famous for it's natural thermal baths. We only had time to visit one of them. The place we went to had a variety of pools, both indoors and outdoors, some of them cool, some of them warm. Being a hot summer's day we spent most of the time in the cool pool outside, which had an interesting whirlpool feature in the middle where everyone was swirling around and clattering into each other.