Je N’Aime Pas Les Champs-Élysées

So this one is the confessional piece- as the title says it, because even bad things have a certain je ne sais quoi in French: I don’t like the Champs-Élysées. Or, even worse, I am totally immune to its charms. As far as I am concerned, it might as well not be there- something must surely…

Morning in Montmartre

One of those things which is just as hard in the morning as you’d envisaged it would be in the evening is waking up at 7 AM after you’ve consumed copious amounts of French rosé. Also, let me here mention the fact that I belong to the Jeremy Clarkson school of thought which considers rosé…

Evenings on the Seine

It took me ages to start this piece, as I was harbouring a vain hope that there is still something that has not been said about the banks of the Seine in Paris, something that has not yet been laid down in a novel, a poem, an essay, a travel blog, a column of fashion…

Arad 50/mm Continued

The first Arad 50/mm installment was a bit of a Schrödinger’s cat of intentions situation, so I can proudly declare that I really meant the second one, as a sort of late spring follow up to the late autumn edition. I also decided to try and take some snaps of my nieghbourhood, which, since I…

A Limes Ran Through It- Aquincum and Római-part

Our recent visit to the Kiscelli Museum came with the extra bonus of a free ticket to either the Castle or the Aquincum museums, which can be used for up to 30 days from the purchase of the first ticket. Emboldened by this prospective, we decided to go for the Aquincum museum, which proved to…

Splendour on the Estuary- Lisbon Guide Part Three

What to see. When a bit of a city looks like a chessboard, it is highly likely some luminary’s fever dream, and in keeping with the maxim, the Baixa was thought up by the Marquess de Pombal, the minister of Joseph I of Portugal, in the wake of the devastating quake of 1755- being on…

A Glimpse into the Hidden Budapest

One of my most frequent compulsions when walking the streets of Budapest is stealing a furtive glance into the inner courtyards of the houses when an unsuspecting inhabitant is going in, perhaps lingering a few seconds to hoist a shopping bag or lead a reluctant mutt over the threshold. Every now and then, I glimpse…

The Easter of Taking It Easy

Since holidays often have that tendency of getting slightly (read totally, completely, fundamentally, catastrophically) out of hand, I decided to have a Lebowski Easter this time, that it, just take it easy. No definite plans for any of the days, except perhaps the Sunday service I reluctantly attend to please my grandmother, but that works…

Saturday Starts at the Hunyadi Market

It might sound somewhat odd from someone who is particularly ill fitted for both haggling and cooking (I have an impression this blog is slowly turning into a litany of all the things I can’t do), but I have an irrational love of markets. Not that I buy much, see probable reasons above. I simply…

Silence and Neon Lights

If I had any serious literary talent I’d probably be able to write a short novel about what it feels like to return to my home town, luckily for you though, I do not, so this little piece is the closest I’ll get to articulating what it’s like to be back on home turf after…