Last verified: September 2026 Andrew and I spend a lot of time travelling between Budapest and our little place near Balaton, so we see very different versions of everyday Hungary. We eat in city restaurants, stop at small countryside places and grab coffees on the...
We put up a poster near the bar and asked everyone the same thing. Where are you in your Hungary story? By the end of the night it was covered in answers, and a good half of the crowd could not squeeze themselves into a single box. That is the HOW TO HUNGARY September...
I have lived in Hungary since 2017, and until last Friday I had never once set foot in Memento Park. My sister has been several times. Her husband is a serious history buff. I had simply never gone. Then an invitation arrived for Up Reds, Whites!, the Memento Park...
Hungary’s bottle return system REpont adds a HUF 50 deposit to eligible bottles and cans. You reclaim it at a machine or return point. The system has recycled billions of containers, but broken machines, retailer disputes, and MOHU’s monopoly are now under government...
Classical music in Budapest is one of the great privileges of living here, and for years, it is one I did not use nearly enough. I studied opera, music theory, history and piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In fact, it is one of the reasons I moved...
Masks, Doughnuts, and Making Noise Farsang is one of those seasons Andrew and I have slipped into over time rather than consciously adopted. Over the years, we’ve attended everything from elaborate masked balls to much simpler gatherings where the only real rule was...
As I write this, Hungary is wrapped in fog. Thick, lingering fog that refuses to lift. It has been an unusually heavy winter here. The kind that makes you understand why some cultures don’t simply wait for spring to arrive. At the same time, the eastern seaboard of...
No Santa in Hungary? That line still makes people blink when they visit in December. Technically it is true for Christmas Eve, but the story is much better than that. Growing up in Canada, I managed to get both Mikulás on December 6 and Santa on the 25th, which meant...
The fog has settled thick over our little patch of western Hungary, the kind that makes the morning feel half-finished. Andrew and I are closing down the cottage for the season and preparing to migrate back to Budapest, where the Christmas markets are already in full...
It’s only mid-November, but Budapest has already given in to Christmas - and so have we. The air is sharp, barely six degrees today, and the lights are strung across Andrássy Avenue like a promise. The Budapest Christmas Markets 2025 open tomorrow, and Andrew and I...
I’m Anikó Woods, a Canadian-Hungarian who’s been knee-deep in life here since 2017 - bureaucracy, culture, and everything in between.
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