Post Road Trip Blues

And I’m back. It’s been a lovely, sunny, exciting, relaxing two weeks which I’ve spent driving around Hungary and Croatia but now I'm returned, sat back at my desk and feeling distinctly gloomy. My 3 days in Budapest before heading to Zagreb, the idyllic Plitvice lakes before heading down to the Dalmatian coast seems a world away. Anyway as much as I desperately want to make you quiver with jealousy, I’m not going to spend a whole post telling you about my holiday. Ok I might slip in one photo. Or two. You know, just because.

To be honest, it wasn’t that much of a book-fuelled trip beside reading Alan Hollinghurst’s fantastic novel, A Stranger’s Child, but you will get a nice review of that later this week. For now, I thought I’d give you book-envy and tell you a bit about Budapest’s National Széchényi Library. It was founded in 1802 by the wonderfully named Hungarian aristocrat, Count Ferenc Széchényi. Don’t you just wish you were a Count? I know right.

Anyway, the library. Yup. The library has been located in different places across the city since its establishment but it now sits as part of the grand Buda Castle Palace. It is full with 2.5 million books, 3 million posters and small prints, 1 million manuscripts and hundreds of thousands of maps, volumes amongst other documents, the oldest titles dating back to the 12th century.

1014 Budapest

St George's Square 4-5-6.

Central Tel.: (1) 224 3700

Open: Tuesday-Saturday

9-20 hours

If you liked this post, you may be interested to read about the efforts made by a heroic few to save the books of the Library of Sarajevo. Click here

Plitvice Lakes