On 28th May, we finally left Budapest behind and drove onwards to Eger, stopping in Szentendre on the way. I had hoped to be able to head up to Hollókő on the way but as we didn't leave Budapest until the afternoon, it ended up being too far to drive. The drive to Szentendre was only 30 minutes and when we arrived it was very quaint to wander around, if hot! Szentendre (meaning St Andrew) is the southern gateway to the Danube Bend with an art colony and plenty of galleries and churches.
From Szentendre it felt like a long drive to Eger (138km, 1h30), but improved vastly after I pulled over and popped Tiger's ipad on for her! We had booked into an Airbnb right in the centre for two nights, costing £100.75, and stopped at the Lidl just outside of town to pick up milk and supplies before we drove into the town.
The Waze app didn't quite get us to our destination but the owner, Suzy, who spoke no English at all and I chatted through the Airbnb app and we managed to find it quite easily in the end. It was a beautiful Airbnb with two rooms (Tiger slept in her cot in one, and I was in the big studio room), a kitchen, shower room and loo but probably the best bit of it was the toy cupboard (for Tiger) and the views (for me). It had its own private car park and was right in the centre of town. The apartment was on the second floor which seemed a bit daunting at first but ended up being no problem at all as Suzy's amazing husband carried our bags all the way up, and down again when we came to leave.
After our first night, we headed out to the Eger Thermal Baths (Eger Termalfuerdo) which has 13 pools and cost 1900 HUF (£4.20) but free for Tiger (over 4s are 1600 HUF). Not all of them were open but we went in to one outside pool, and one very warm inside pool and Tiger loved every moment of it. We had forgotten her arm bands which our friend Chloe had kindly given us (and which seem to give her confidence) but she had her swimming costume with integrated float which we had bought in Mexico and did so well with her swimming.
We are quickly learning that swimming tires us both out, so after a hot dog after swimming at the baths, we walked back 'home' for a sleep, before heading out to look at the Minaret (I got as far as paying 1000 forint to go up, and then completely bottled it 10 steps in and the lady gave me my money back!), take a ride on the Eger ferris wheel (which we did go on, but I was pretty scared and had to hold Tiger's hand the whole four rotations!) and wander around the Old Town.
All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Eger and loved staying so centrally. It was very easy to walk around and plenty to keep children occupied!