December is neatly divided into two phases, which follow each other abruptly and without any form of transition. Phase one is the oh Christmas is still ages away, I will take my time and enjoy this bit, when you cheerily look at a shop window or two and passingly check out a Christmas market with…
Further Signs Christmas is Coming: First Names for Sziget 2017
Whenever you feel like perhaps you didn’t get exactly what you deserved from life, you might just need to think twice and see opportunity where there was lack. So here it goes then: we’re only at the first Sziget 2017 announcement, and I can already venture into two of my favourite line up related activties….
Vienna Beyond Christmas
I have already entertained people with the ‘arrival in Hauptbahnhof’ drama this summer, but there is no escape from it yet, for this was the first time it was actually inflicted on me. Objectively though there’s nothing wrong with disembarking in Vienna’s shiny new central station: metro line 1 takes you to the very centre…
Barlove: Kaffemik
As per their website Kaffemik is a Greenlandic word (obviously), which stands for a traditional open house get together, where coffee is served. Presumably plenty of it, since staying awake through the eternal darkness of Greenlandic winters is probably not for the faint hearted. My first association though was with the Romanian word mic, spelled…
Christmas Lights of Vienna
Certain things have a language which best suits them: rock songs are English, opera is Italian, assembling furniture is Swedish and Christmas in German. Come to think of it, Tannenbaum might have been the first word I learned in German when for the yearly kindergarden event, which had just gone from celebrating socialist ‘winter holidays’…
Barlove: Café Central Vienna
Last time I visited Vienna it was on an absolutely ridiculously glorious spring day- incidentally, my birthday, so I could hereby venture into claims of controlling the weather, only then it would be somewhat hard to explain the infernally cold drizzle which greeted it on other occasions. And speaking of infernally cold drizzle, that’s what…
Barlove: Wild Flower Bar
Update September 2019: The Wild Flower has now moved and changed its name, it is called Plante and you can find it at Madách Imre út 8. When you’re a child you imagine many many wonderful and ultimately impossible things about your brilliant future, and for me one of these was gaining the dexterity which…
The Final Stretch of Autumn
In the past few years, the last days of November have become somewhat of an obstacle race through Budapest: I simply won’t have premature festive cheer shoved down my throat and that’s my final word on it. A pleasant walk through Vörösmarty square? Think again, or you might just land in a pot of scalding…
Danube Mists
In the old days, all roads led to Rome – quite literally, as my very infrequent TV watching revealed when I stumbled upon a rather interesting documentary while on a noble quest to look for some football. In Budapest, on the other hand, all roads lead to the Danube- again, pretty literally, as three out of…
Barlove: Grand Café Liberté
2025 edit: the place, in the iteration described below, is now closed. Another coffee house is still operating in the space, with some of the same décor, but otherwise quite non- determinate. For some reason, while the location seems auspicious, none of the businesses residing in it survive for long. I’ve oft lamented the lack…
Pocket Diary Budapest 