We invited Hedi and her family to tea last night. We had intended to eat at our hotel, but found out the restaurant was closed on Sundays. So we followed the advice of The Rough Guide to Hungary and booked the Arany Griff in the centre of town.
Well we had either caught it on a bad night or it had changed a lot. We were very disappointed. First we were the first group to go to the restaurant (another group joined us much later) and the room was dark and unwelcoming, we were just sent in, not shown in and left to sort ourselves out. The menu looked ok (once we got it) but there seemed a fair few things unavailable. Service was very slow and by the time everyone had got their food it was cold. The quality was very mixed. On the whole Maria and John were rather embarrassed by the whole thing and would never take anyone there again.
Still, at least the company was good. Young Hédi ( I can’t call her little any more, she’s getting quite grown up) had made a bear who took rather a shine to me.
In fact he tried to stow-away in my rucksack. Hédi has potential to be a real good bear maker one day.
Despite the restaurant everyone seemed to have a good time.
We had to break up early because the next day was a school day for Hédi and Gabi (the youngsters) and we were due to set off for Budapest pretty early.
We got up in good time and had a quick breakfast before checking out, luckily one of the young men helped carry the bags down, for which Maria was grateful, she doesn’t mind going up but hates coming down, especially if she is carrying something.
We first set off for Ajka to look at the crystal factory. The crystal comes in lovely colours and Claire has hankered after some for ages. Having now seen it (and the prices) I can categorically say, ‘she can’t afford it.’ John kept saying he couldn’t afford it but he still ended up paying for six liqueur/pálinka glasses.
We then went to find the Herend Majolica pottery. We had picked up a leaflet about it and the dishes looked lovely, bright and colourful. The trouble was all we could find was a derelict looking factory. In the end we phoned, and found out the derelict looking factory was the right place, we just had to go round the back. Maria fell in love with a very large soup tureen. John tried to divert her by saying it was far too big and pointing out a small casserole, a bowl and an oval plate to her. The end result was he had to pay for a small casserole, a bowl and an oval plate as well as the soup tureen. As a reward Maria said we didn’t have to go the Herend Porcelain factory as well. So we quickly headed off to Budapest.
We are not staying at the Gellért, John got an extremely good price at the Hilton. The room is nice and comfortable, it even has air conditioning (very welcome in the heat) but it’s like a Hilton anywhere, you’d hardly know you were in Hungary. So in the evening we went off to have a meal at the Gellért and see our favourite waiter Zoli. Then we really felt we were home.
They have finished work on Szabadság Hid and it looks fantastic.
