After the departure of the grandparents, and due to our busy schedule while they were with us, we still hadn’t made any arrangements for our onward travels. We were also seriously behind with the girls school work, so after a couple of quick email exchanges with our new best friend and favourite landlord (Patrick) a further two week stay in just the larger apartment (closing up the studio apartment) was arranged at a very reasonable $320 per week, especially considering this included all heating, electricity and in such a central spot in a wonderful European city.

This would provide us with some much needed time and breathing space to plan ahead and catch up. There were a few days in a row days when we barely left the apartment and then we  took the time to find some activities that we would not normally be able to enjoy at home: one day at the puppet theatre with a hundred other screaming school children to watch ‘Puss in Boots’, and a night at the exquisite Hungarian Opera House to see the Budapest Ballet Company performance of ‘Don Quixote’. Both which we all enjoyed immensely.

Whilst the ballet performance was fantastic, the real star was the Opera House itself. Budapest truly has some beautiful old buildings but this magnificent new-Renaissance style structure built in 1875 is stunning from the outside but even more spectacular on the inside. Dressed in our best we walked through the gallery and up the wide staircases and found ourselves in our own private stall (truth be told there was one other lady but we had the front row!). It would have to be the most opulent building I have ever visited with wonderful craftsmanship and mind-boggling detail. Wow.

Budapest is not a perfect city and that is what gives it it’s charm – some of the buildings are in various states of repair with damage from the war and the revolution of 1956, and it has a real comfortable lived in feeling.  It doesn’t have the cold look-but-don’t-touch feel that some beautiful cities have – it’s beauty is discovered more gradually and really is a lovely city to get to know.

Our onward travel intentions were to go through more of the Balkan countries; perhaps Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, then onward to visit our French friend Lara in Paris and Juli at her home in Germany. We had booked a flight out of Berlin to Canada with a week stop in Iceland due to depart the first week in March. We had also booked our final flights home, Honolulu to Brisbane, during a Jetstar sale. These were the only fixed dates we had, so it was time to do some serious planning.

Sally again spent many hours (doing what she does best) on the internet researching and looking at options. Turns out the biggest hurdle in our plans was that none of the low cost carriers fly out of these parts of Europe during the winter months and the chat forums are awash with stories travellers experiencing difficulties with the trains and buses within the Balkan countries, most disturbing was the fact that the Belgrade to Sarajevo train has been cancelled indefinitely.  This left the option of several overnight bus trips often arriving/departing at ungodly hours which is difficult at the best of times, let alone with kids and in the dead of winter. So, we looked farther afield and considered escapes to Morocco or Portugal. In the end, we opted for a last minute ‘deal’ 7 day cruise around the Mediterranean which we bought through a cruise broker in the United States.

Although I have attended a few cruise ships as part of my work during their stops at the Whitsunday Islands, Sally and I have only been on one cruise together as fare paying passengers. Even so, this experience was enough for us to realise that we had to seriously expand our wardrobes as our tired looking travelling clothes weren’t going to leave a good impression on our fellow European cruise guests over dinner. Fortunately, second hand clothing stores in Budapest are a huge business.

There is even a chain of second-hand stores, often found in the same large shopping centres as designer wear. A quick Google search revealed a couple of stores within a 10 minute walk of our apartment! Before you could say “Vinnie’s to the rescue”, we were all kitted out with black, bling, and even a purple neck tie, ready to strut our stuff on the promenade of the cruise ship ‘Costa Pacifica’.

We were all a bit sad to leave Budapest – we had well and truly settled into the neighbourhood and felt very much at home and could quite easily have stayed longer. It was great to be able to just walk out and come face to face with the wonderful architecture and history, head to the park around the corner and be able to have the girls experience living in a vibrant European city and all it has to offer albeit for a short time.