Скачать или смотреть A Few Days in Budapest in Lockdown (Saturday Archive)

Budapest during early lockdown, March 2020

Saturday Archive is a weekly mix of archive memories. This can include hikes/days out or more miscellaneous moments captured over a longer period of time (for example over a month).

I had a significant birthday in March 2020. The previous year, I booked to go to Venice. That clearly wasn't going to happen as that was the first area in Europe to go into lickdown. So, I decided on Budapest as Hungary hasn't gone into lockdown. I'm really not sure why I didn't just stay in the UK just in case things progressed throughout Europe (as they obviously eventually did!). I flew to Budapest on Sunday 15th March. It was eerily quiet. I heard on Monday morning that Hungary had gone into lockdown, so I realised it was probably a good idea to get back home as soon as I could. The earliest flight back that I could find was on Thursday 19th March. I was constantly keeping an eye on the flight, but that got cancelled. An Easyjet flight became available for the Wednesday, so I booked on that and just enjoyed a couple of days in a very empty Budapest (I guess everyone was indoors). I was able to walk around during thd day, but I stayed in my hotel room in thd evenings as I couldn't find anything open (I think the Hungarian government closed all thd pubs, restaurants and cafes), so I went to the supermarket for food and spent the evenings watching Hungarian music TV (there were no English speaking channels on the TV). Luckily the Wednesday flight didn't get cancelled and I was able to travel home. I remember being quite philosophical about the whole thing, asking myself what was the worse that could happen? and thinking I could become fluent in Hungarian after all this! It was only only once I arrived back on British soil that I realised how close that had been and I was so glad to be home!

Photos and videos taken on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th March 2020.

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