I'm writing this in the plane returning from a fabulous city break in Budapest.

Fi and I arrived in Hungary's capital city at about 17:30 in Friday and caught a taxi to our hotel just off Andrássy út (Budapest's answer to the Champs Élysées). A taxi was supposed to be waiting for us but it never showed (slightly disappointing) but the cab we hailed instead cost us half as much. That's karma I guess.

The hotel was really nice and the staff were fantastic. We had a one bedroom suite with an open plan kitchen (although Nesquik cereal for breakfast was about as much cooking as we mustered).

After unpacking, we got changed and headed out for dinner. We tend to stick to eateries recommended by the travel guide (in this case, Timeout) and so our first meal was at Klassz. It was a little smokey (Hungary has not yet banned smoking in public places) but the atmosphere was good. We had our first (and certainly not last!) bottle of Hungarian red wine which was very good. I spent the meal suffering from food envy of Fi's choices. I had fish soup for starters (a little too fishy for my taste) whilst Fi had cream of red lentil soup that she lovingly shared. For the main course, Fi had a delicious Hungarian pork risotto and I had veal schnitzel. We shared a very tasty chocolate pudding for dessert.

Saturday was sunny (but freezing) in the morning but rained all afternoon and evening - not that we let that deter us from sight-seeing. We spent the morning having a tour of the spectacular Hungarian Parliament building (free to EU citizens) followed by a walk along the river Danube. The tour was really interesting. I didn't realise that the Hungarian government in WWII gave their crown jewels (which we saw and are over 1000 years old) to the Americans to guard at Fort Knox. I also enjoyed the ceremonial salute given to the jewels every hour by the guards.

After lunch at Menza (a funky retro cafe/bar), we visited the museum of terror which was really really interesting. I'm pretty ignorant about Eastern European history and I didn't realise that Hungary was a communist country from after WWII until the early 1990s (forced upon them by the Soviets). The museum told the story of the Hungarian secret police (the AVH) and the atrocities they committed. Spooky stuff.

We had planned to eat at the Bock Bistro on Saturday night and, having battled the rain to get there, found it was full until 22:00 (we hadn't made a reservation). Somewhat downtrodden, we ended up at the restaurant in the Four Seasons hotel, right next to the Chain Bridge. The food, the service and the location were faultless. The bill was pricey (33,000 Hungarian Forints - around £100) but it was worth every penny. I had Goulash to start with, followed by duck breast and fois gras (guess whose not counting the calories!). We had yet another fabulous Hungarian Cabernet Sauvignon. The whole evening was delightful.

The weather on Sunday was better and we headed to Buda for the day. For those of you who don't know, Budapest used to be two cities - Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube. The main attraction in Buda is the magnificent Royal Palace (rebuilt, having been largely destroyed during WWII). We took the funicular up to the palace and walked around the grounds which were nice. We then spent an hour or two in the Hungarian history museum before having lunch in a cafe (more Goulash for us!).

After lunch, we wandered around Buda and visited the Fisherman's Bastion which was very impressive, before heading back down the hill and across the river to Pest. I had been lugging my camera around with me all day and Fi had been carrying my tripod (she really is good to me) so that I could take some nightscapes of the city. We grabbed a coffee and did some window shopping to pass the time until dusk.

I managed to take a few good pictures. I hope you like them. You can check out more of my pictures on my Flickr page.

After our photo session, we walked back to the hotel, got ready and then went out for our last meal in Budapest. We decided to go back to Menza (where we had had lunch earlier on the trip). I enjoyed pork with pasta (really nice) whilst Fi went for venison. We spent ages there and the service was excellent. This time we had a nice bottle of Pinot Noir (again Hungarian). We also decided to be decadent and have not only a cocktail (note to self - I'm not a fan of Mai Tai) but also some dessert wine.

Today was a pleasant surprise. It was still cold but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We had planned on going ice-skating but we stumbled upon a mixed-sex thermal bath and boy am I glad we went there! It was outside in the courtyard of a beautiful old building. The water was 38 degrees Celsius and very relaxing. We spent nearly two hours there for just over a tenner apiece. My favourite thing about it was watching some old men play chess on the side of the bath with a plastic chess set!

Hopefully our car won't be snowed in when we touch down in Bristol as I hear the weather has been foul whilst we've been on holiday. The best thing is though, that I still have annual leave until being on-call this Saturday...