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Posted on March 25, 2016 by Julie

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Year Abroad: My Switzerland Scrapbook

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Julie
Traveller, adventurer, hot water fan, loves Iceland, kayaking and writing.

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The House of Music, in Budapest’s Városliget, t

The House of Music, in Budapest’s Városliget, the City Park, was an unexpected favourite. It went on my list because it was recommended by my Hungarian colleague who’d never been there but heard it was a great building. I popped by to see it and stayed for a drink on its terrace, which was lovely and shady, with green views over the park. In fact, the entire building, which is mostly a concert hall with areas for music education, blends in really well with the park, from the full-height curtains becoming one with the tree trunks and the ceiling of random shapes like a great leaf canopy. It has a cafe downstairs but the upstairs one is quieter and has the terrace. If you’re in Városliget (and you should be - see Heroes Square, Széchenyi, the zoo, Balloon Fly, the museums, the lakes, the expanse of nature), you should stop by the House of Music for a drink on your way past. #budapest #varosliget #houseofmusic #hiddengemsofbudapest

I’ve read books set in Fantasy Venice and books

I’ve read books set in Fantasy Venice and books set in Fantasy Amsterdam but I’ve not come across anything set in Fantasy Budapest and it’s just crying out for it! Buda as the city inhabited by witches, up on the hill with no obvious way up for the unpowered inhabitants of Pest, who live in the flat city on the other side of the river, with just one bridge joining the twin cities. By daylight, the Fisherman’s Bastion is like something from a fairytale but the green-tinted lights at dusk turns it to proper grimdark fantasy and I love it. #budapest #fishermansbastion #travel #fantasy

It is slightly annoying to visit six thermal baths

It is slightly annoying to visit six thermal baths in one week and come home having discovered that your two favourites were the two recommended by your Budapesti colleague - how dare the local know which ones are best!

Gellért is one of the big touristy ones but it’s surprisingly quiet and low-key considering its reputation. It could do with more than the one small outdoor thermal pool (in winter; during the summer, there’s a big “adventure pool”) but the indoor pools are delightful and the lane pool is possibly the most beautiful in the world. #budapest #gellertbaths #thermalbaths

The House of Terror sounds like a great fun spoopy

The House of Terror sounds like a great fun spoopy thing to do the day before Halloween… but it’s not. I knew that going in. It was on Boti’s to-do list with several warnings that it’s “not fun” and “heavy”.

The House of Terror is a museum in the former Nazi headquarters “House of Loyalty” telling the story of Hungary’s double reign of terror, first under the Nazis and then under its own communist secret police. The museum is spread over three floors, features recordings, interviews, photos, clothes and a reproduction of the basement torture cells to tell the story of the last century of Hungarian history. Even now, I know I’ve got so much research to do filling in the gaps in my understanding when I write the blog post on this. I knew nothing about Hungary a week ago and now I’m realising how much there still is to learn. It’s very easy to see Budapest in a bubble of bastions, baths and beer buses but we travel to see a little below the surface, right? #budapest #houseofterror #communism

It’s my last night in Budapest and instead of pa

It’s my last night in Budapest and instead of packing, I’m using it to start going through the pictures from the last week, starting with the first adventure on the first day: going to Szechenyi Baths. I have a colleague from Budapest who made me a list of things to see and do and this bath did not make the list, no matter how many times I observed “Oh, that’s near the yellow baths, isn’t it? Oh, the yellow baths? Yellow baths???”. And now I see why.

Oh, it’s all very beautiful (needs a fresh coat of paint) and the outdoor pools are lovely but the indoor pools and saunas feel very clinical in an almost Victorian way and it’s very busy and stag parties do love to yell WOOOO in the whirlpool. I love thermal baths but I didn’t love this one as much as I expected to. Luckily, Budapest has a lot of thermal baths… #budapest #thermalbaths #szechenyibaths #travel

I like to swim and this is easily the most exotic

I like to swim and this is easily the most exotic dip I’ve ever had: in a flooded crater on the edge of a flooded caldera lake over an active volcano. Not recently - last time I was up here, magma activity underneath had made Víti a bit too cold and a lot too acidic to swim in, the time before that I left my swimming stuff in the truck because I thought we wouldn’t have time but the time before that, in 2013, on a hideous cold foggy day, I waded into this warm, milky, unfathomably deep water and had a very tentative swim around the perimeter, petrified of putting my foot through the fragile bottom and sucking us all down with the water to the bowels of the Earth.

That day finished with the truck breaking down and all of us, many hours later, walking into Mordor (we broke down for the fourth time a hundred or so yards from the edge of Möðrudalur, which we were told was too difficult for our non-Icelandic tongues and to just call it Mordor) and eating lamb soup at 9pm before finally being ferried back to civilisation for 11.30pm. Worth it to swim in a volcano though. #iceland #travel #viti #asjka #volcano #swiminavolcano✔️

Here’s something that I don’t think I really m $Here’s something that I don’t think I really made enough noise about at the time: my No-Cruise Cruise to Southampton. Not being a fan of big boats, I was never going to do a cruise but I’d heard people raving about the facilities on modern cruise ships - theatres and bars and spas and activities and I began to think… I can do all that for a fraction of the price without leaving solid land. So I booked a cheap plasticky hotel room that approximated a cabin for a fraction of the price in cruise capital Southampton and went off to: • a spa evening • buffet breakfast • swimming at the adventure pool complex • sea views • shopping • glass atrium • axe throwing • dinner out • a theatre evening • a morning stroll along the deck • mini golf (scuppered by not being open so early in the year) You can call it a weekend in Southampton but I was pretending to be on a giant ship the whole time, but with no risk of seasickness and for less than two years’ salary! #nocruisecruise #southampton #weekendsaway #hampshire$

I haven’t done anywhere near as much camping thi

I haven’t done anywhere near as much camping this summer as I hoped I would and now it’s far too late in the year to get a tent out again. That said, this camping trip to the New Forest was too early in the year - I was just about the only tent on the campsite and I froze half to death both nights. Oh, it looks idyllic. There are cows and horses roaming free and the sky is blue. But the horses invaded my tent and I never sleep well in a tent even when I’m not cold. Maybe I’m getting too old to camp. Maybe a caravan is over the horizon of my future already (it’s not. Do you have any idea how much those things cost, to buy, to store and to insure? Give me a tent any day!) #camping #newforest #outdoors #shecamps

My all-time most-hated Instagram vs reality is thi

My all-time most-hated Instagram vs reality is this myth that autumn is cosy. People waste the entire summer looking forward to putting on jumpers, drinking spicy overpriced milkshakes, lighting candles and the world turning orange and brown.

In reality, autumn is grey and wet. My swimming pool is closed, kayaking is over for eight or nine months, it’s dark too early to do anything but too late to stargaze and it’s going to rain for the next four solid months. See me out in full-length waterproofs and wellies for this afternoon’s walk.

But I’m making an attempt to be cosy this evening. I’ve got out my pumpkin glass! I’ve got a Lush Halloween bubble bar and I’m taking a book into the bath. I’m supposed to be reading some non-fiction again today but cosy autumn calls for fantasy fiction and, to be honest, so does my soul. I don’t read nearly enough fiction these days. Still don’t feel particularly cosy. Just feel like I’m trying to fake it for Instagram but then again, I think that’s what most people are doing. #fallisnotcosy #bathbomb #autumnwalk #instagramvsreality

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