London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 4

Today would see us taking the first of our 2 sleeper trains which meant another day to enjoy Budapest. Given Mrs MA’s mobility problems we decided to take a very, very leisurely stroll along the river before crossing over to the Pest side. It was slow progress, especially with the wind, but eventually we made it to the first of potentially two bars in this area.

The first shock that we had when entering the cellar bar KEG sörművház was that it was packed. With two seperate, large, parties of school children! No, we don’t know either! And no answer was forthcoming. We found a quiet table in the corner and set about the extensive beer selection, and with 32 taps there was no shortage of choice. Normally on these trips I like to focus as much as possible on trying local beers but this bar, quite rightly, has a reputation for serving beers from some of the best breweries from all over the world. Rules are meant to be broken. We employed our usual tactic of buying the smallest measure possible and then swapping with each other. Thankfully all of the kids left after about 30 minutes and we were able to spend a very enjoyable couple of hours or so trying 14 of the beers on offer.

KEG sörművház, Budapest, Orlay u. 1, 1114 Hungary

We headed up to the street a short way to try another brewery tap but, despite it being after it’s scheduled opening time, it was very firmly closed. No doubt another casualty of visiting in August. Instead we got a taxi back to the hotel to collect our luggage. It turned out to be a good decision as the traffic was very bad getting back over the river. We had a bit of time to relax in the hotel before getting another taxi to the station where we had an anxious time watching the departure board waiting for our train to appear. Eventually we knew which platform to head for and we boarded our home for a night on the rails.