Soak up the Sun

Actually, I'm too tired to write, and I don't even have the photos to illustrate the post. Nevertheless, I just feel I have to. So, about our big day out in Szentendre. Most specifically the Skanzen.
Today was probably the hottest day of this summer, and not only because there were a lot of days looking as if it was September or October. There was about 36 degree Celsius, though it's only a guess. I woke up at abour quarter to seven. I made sandwiches, packed my blueberry sponge cake, washed my hair, and so on. I also had to wash up cause these days it's always me who does the washing up (and it really pisses me off).
We travelled about three hours. The reason I'm going to be precise here is that I would like to provide you, my dearest reader, with all the information you would possibly need to set out for the same trip. So, first we got from the south of Budapest to Batthyány Square. We took the 8.08 bus, then changed two times, (actually three, because one of the buses turned out to be heading for the garage). Thanks to the August 20 preparations, bus 86 couldn't go straight along Bem rakpart (wharf). Instead it jammed it's way through Széll Kálmán Square. We got off at Mammut and walked to Batthyány. The suburban train to Szentendre left at 9.48 if I remember correctly. The journey took about 40 minutes, and we had to buy a complementary ticket from Békásmegyer, which cost 305 forints (only 100 meters above the 10 kilometers zone). We arrived to Szentendre at about half past ten, and had about 5 minutes to buy the ticket to the Skanzen. We took coach 879, and a return ticket cost 400 forints. We went 8 stops. It's only 5 kilometres from the center, but that would have taken more than an hour in the sun.
If you haven't heard of Skanzen yet, let me summarize it. It's a kind of museum spread out on a huge territory, where you can see the main ethnographic regions of Hungary. Each region looks like a village, and in this quasi village, all the houses are taken from a different village in Hungary. They are literally taken, as the beams and the bricks are original, and the houses have been rebuilt using the traditional method and the traditional materials, for example adobe. This means you have traditional houses from all over Hungary, with the specific facilities of a typical house in that particular region. Many houses are also added a special function, for example there is a house in which you can see the traditional way of making pretzels. The whole thing is quite interesting, and there is a lot in there for everybody. We've come across tourists from all over the world, friends, families, retired people, literally everyone.
The entry fee for an adult above 26 is 1400 forints, the discount ticket is half this price. Also, there is a nice old train working there, which costs another 500 forints, but you can use it all day. However, it only goes once per hour. We took the train to the final station and started walking back from there. At first we took our time, but then we realized there were eight regions and we wouldn't have time to see all of them. Finally, we saw all of them, though in the last two or three regions we didn't go in, only walked past the houses.
We saw all kinds of things, for example I really liked the churches and chapels. Probably my favorite region was the Bakony-Balaton region. And there was also a nice temporary exhibiton from the works of a stonecutter living in Szentendre.
The staff members are really nice. They all wear some traditional-looking clothing, for example linen skirts for the women. And some of them were really kind and talkative. They just enjoyed telling about the place so much. We met two of them on the bus afterwards, and they recognized us and greeted us so kindly.
The museum closed at 5, and the bus back came at 5.28, so we had to wait a bit. Then of course we had to travel another three hours, and by the time we reached Margaret Bridge I'd fallen asleep. We had to buy some mineral water because we were really hot and had drunk and eaten everything by that time.
So, to add up: we travelled abour six hours, spent the same amount of time at the Skanzen, spent about 2000 forints each, and got sunburnt (again), but we had a great time. That's a place I can heartily recommend, and one I should remember to take my children to.