places to stay: March 2008 Archives

The puszta - the great plain - is very important to Hungarians.  It may not sound very interesting to outsiders: it's the flattest part of the country, dotted with fairly shabby isolated farms, wells, marshland and perhaps not a great deal else.  But here it means more than that: it holds an important place in the Hungarian imagination and sense of national identity.

As we found out, though, it's also a place to hear lively folk music, eat the best bread and pork fat we've found so far (and that's saying a lot), and learn how to play the pig's bladder while cracking a whip. At least, it is if you're coordinated enough, which one of us was ...

Of course, the best place to stay in Poland is where we spent most of our time - with Richard and Marzena and their two lovely daughters at their home in Zakopane. 

But if you’re not lucky enough to know them, you could try one of these other places which we would highly recommend.  (Places we would not recommend not included.)  Most fun is to stay in an agrotourism, along with the goats, rabbits, cows and sheep...