Five years after I originally planned my trip, I was finally there: Budapest! Run with the local hashers, drink the local beers, enjoy the local delicacies: lots of fun ahead!
Everything had to wait a little bit, though, because my rather dusty sleeper train arrived over twenty minutes late. On top of that, due to my accommodation downgrade, I hadn’t had the opportunity to change into my running kilt, so I had to sort that out first. Once that was taken care of, and I left my bag at the hotel, it was time for coffee and breakfast at Dorado.
From there I headed to Nyugati railway station, since the hash run would actually start outside of Budapest, in Piliscsaba, a 38 minutes train ride away.
Over there, I joined the Budapest H3 for Trail 1853 – The Jenga Farewell Run! The Jenga part referred to a recently torn down wooden viewpoint tower, on top of a hill. To get there, the hare picked the steepest way up, so even though we were only two kilometres from the start at that point, the beer stop there was very welcome!
After the run I could finally check into my ibis Budapest City hotel for a much needed shower and a change.
As the restaurant I picked for dinner turned out to be closed, I had something to eat with my beers at FIRST Craft Beer. While tasty, it was not particularly Hungarian, something I’ll have to make up for tomorrow.
Then it was finally time for a visit to Mad Scientist’s Madhouse. Finally, because it was one of the first breweries on my to-visit-in-Budapest list, although this actually isn’t the same taproom they had back then.
Last call was at the Hops Beer Bar: small—just seven beers on tap—but cosy and definitely worth a visit.
Good beers, good food, good company, and good times: after a rocky start, a perfect end of my first day in Budapest!
