It has a bit of an air of faded grandeur but it is very interesting and I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of a trip to Eastern Europe.
We met two of our residents there from last summer, Andrew & Nora Vanya who is a tour guide nora.vanya@gmail.com which came in very handy as we were informed about the history behind the buildings and to be honest, one day with her was nowhere near enough (I hope she'd say the same about us ;) ) as there is so much to see.
Although it was still early in the year, the weather was beautiful, so the second full day, we decided to take the tram to Margaret Island which sits in the middle of the Danube.
They have 'Boris Bikes' or their Hungarian equivalent but unfortunately, I was too unintelligent to complete the hire and although I'd taken the huge trouble to spend the flight over, trying to learn the entire language, it was never going to be enough for this situation.
Therefore, we opted for one of the four wheeled two seater pedal vehicle and proceeded to do a lap of the Island which incidentally has a one lane athletics track around its shore.
This was thirsty work, so we decided to stop at the spa hotel for a coffee and a glass of sparkling water while sitting in the sunshine. It was when we came to pay that the nightmare began!
Despite having read the warning sign on our carriage, which was in English, telling us to be careful to protect our valuables from falling out, I had had my wallet in my back pocket and it was no longer there.
Fortunately, Irene had her debit card, so we managed to avoid being arrested but despite retracing our wheel tracks, it seemed that along with all my forints, euros, pound notes, credit cards, driving licence, Hungarian bus/train pass and a few other things that I had gathered in it, my wallet was gone forever.
We were able to ascertain that there was a Police Station but it was unmanned and the telephone call I made to the number on the door wasn't the easiest as the operator's English wasn't great despite being three hundred times better than my Hungarian but I thought she told me to wait for the Police to collect me.
Having waited there about half an hour, obviously by this stage, my darling wife was reminding me that I was the best thing since sliced bread and she was also thirsty. We had been told that there was a swimming pool with a cash machine very close by so we agreed that I would continue staying there in case the Police came and she went to try and find the means to buy a drink.
After another thirty minutes, the local constabulary turned up and were very eager to put me into their car. I even thought I caught that they had said my wallet had been found, so I made the decision to let them take me (I had thought that my property had been handed in somewhere on the Island) and I'd come back to Irene very quickly.
At first she hadn't answered my calls but eventually, as I was whisked away, I managed to get through to her after I had been in the vehicle about ten minutes. To say that she wasn't best pleased is probably the understatement of the year, as the swimming pool was closed and there was no cash machine and therefore no drink either. She demanded that I tell the officers to bring me straight back but they said we had nearly reached our destination and in fairness, it wasn't really a taxi service.
A man had been walking with his child and had found my wallet! Absolutely everything was in it and he had delivered it straight to his local Police Station. My delight was slightly tempered by the fact that I was still in major trouble with the boss who was lost and stranded back at the Island and it seemed to take forever for them to lay out the aforementioned contents, take a statement and have me sign for my property.
Unfortunately, they wouldn't give me any details of the finder but told me they would pass on my thanks and were horrified when I tried to offer a reward to put to their Police fund (The word 'Charity' was another one I'd neglected to add to my huge Hungarian vocabulary) but they were very courteous and insisted on driving me back Margaret Island.
Another swift phone call to Irene who was now beside herself and was unable to take on board any information other than when I would unabandon her. I had feared that it would be at least another 15 minutes but it became apparent that it had taken so long to reach our original destination only because of the big city one way system and we were back in a flash.
I was able to buy Irene a drink and pay for the hire of the cycle carriage, though it would take a little longer and an evening dinner cruise along the river before I was properly able to make it up to her.
So why am I telling you this now?
Well, you've probably guessed looking at the title of this post and I had to promote Douglas from a town using a little artistic licence to make it fit.
I had just arrived at the Hotel the other day on my bicycle, dropping a few replacement lamps that I'd bought earlier when one of our guests arrived, telling us that she thought she'd dropped her purse on the bus.
As you can imagine, memories of that horrible morning flooded back, so we did our best to try and help. Irene rang the bus company and as I had wheels, I zoomed off to check the toilets on Loch Promenade.
While I was in the vicinity, I also popped into Lord Street Police Station to see whether it had been handed in there.
Unfortunately, it wasn't there, the toilet cleaners hadn't found it and the bus driver hadn't bee n able to locate it on his vehicle.
Having started the search very confident we would reunite purse and owner, quite frankly I was pretty disappointed that the Island people who are usually so good on these sort of occasions, had let us down.
The next day, she had to purchase another 'Go Card,' quite relieved that unlike me she hadn't been carrying most of her eggs in one basket.
Quite frankly during a busy day at work, it had slipped my mind when in the afternoon, I received a telephone call from the Police Support Officer, informing me that a lady bank worker had taken the lost article into the station and that it was ready to be picked up. Like my Hungarian hero, she had not touched the cash or contents and our guest was delighted. It's great to know that with all the bad things that you read in the papers and hear on the news, there are still so many members of the human race on all sides of the World that will do the right thing!
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