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Coming up in this episode of Budacast, Hungary's online radio show, "Change, of course." Drew speaks to some wonderfully friendly Aussies, Ludmila and Michael Doneman of Edgeware, "an education and support system for ethical entrepreneurs and managers." They're here in Budapest this spring to offer some special coaching seminars to entrepreneurs here in Hungary at the friendly co working space knowns as KAPTÁR. The point of Ludmila's presentation, which is entitled "Mapping Your Practice to Your Life" and takes place on 12 March from 5-7pm, is mainly to help women who have reached or surpassed the age of 40 to map out their life's experiences thus far to lead them to realizing their own business. "From both women in Australia and from local women I've met, they reach a point in their life where they are not wanted anymore in the workplace, or where they don't want to be involved in a particular workplace they've spent their life with - they want to do something perhaps more meaningful, something more sustainable on their own terms and some of them are not quite sure where to start." She continues, "So my presentation is based on those beliefs and on the experiences I've been through personally, particularly in Australia, where I've had a chance to work with people of different cultural backgrounds, people who are of an aboriginal, indigenous background or senior women, people who have particular special needs. We all have qualities and strengths in what we are doing, which are very applicable at the moment of starting a new idea, a new business, which would create new meaning for your next 20 years, because we are a generation who is going to live much longer than our mothers or grandmothers did." Michael, meanwhile, says his 2-day course, taking place on 13-14 March, is entitled "One Page Business Plan." He explains: "We have a process of helping people start businesses, grow businesses or change businesses based on what we call a one-page business plan. So, contrary to the usual process of business planning, which generates a 50-page document that more or less captures the state of the business at the time and then goes into a filing cabinet and never gets looked at again, the one-page plan is designed to be blown up and put on the wall of your workplace and consulted every day. "So the course, over two days, teaches people how to use 12-14 simple business tools, because for us business is not rocket science and people need to learn that there a

Coming up in this edition of Budacast, a longtime resident of Budapest shows us the “Places of Drama” connected to Hungary’s revolution of 1956, one of which has a specific link to Poland. In this archival show (from 2006), Uncle Drew talks to author Bob Dent, who offers some tidbits from his book 1956: Locations of Drama in which the author not only gives an objective account of what happened during the Hungarian rebellion, but also maps out how events unfolded in different parts of Budapest in October and November of that fateful year. “It’s a guide to the places in Budapest where something significant happened during the 1956 uprising, which of course happened 50 years ago this year (2006),” Bob Dent explains. “But as well as being a guidebook, it’s also a guide to history. It’s a history book written as a guidebook, so it’s a history book written by location. It tells the story of the 1956 events as they unfolded in different locations. And where we’re standing now is one of the most important locations.” He’s referring to Bem József tér, a green square not far from the Danube, which hosts the figure of Jozef Bem, a Polish general who fought alongside the Hungarians during their 1848-49 war of independence against Hapsburg rule. Bob Dent tells Drew about the square’s significance in 1956. “We do know there was a massive demonstration here on the afternoon of October 23, 1956,” he explains. “The demonstrators had come from two directions: from the south here along the upper embankment along the side of the river; that group of demonstrators had come from the Budapest Technical University, where there’d been a series of meetings over the previous 24 hours. It’s difficult to estimate, but thousands of people marched in a straight line in silence up to the Bem statue. “And another demonstration had gathered in front of the statue of Sándor Petőfi, who was the young radical poet leader of the Hungarians during the March rebellion of 1848 against Hapsburg rule. They had assembled there. Initially, they were students from different university faculties on the Pest side – the east side of the Danube in the capital – and they had weaved their way around the city and across Margaret bridge to where we’re standing now; Margaret bridge is very close to where we’re standing now.” He recalls that those marchers, on their way, picked up all sorts of other workers to join the demonstration, which by then c

Working in the travel guide business conjures up visions of an exotic lifestyle: hopping on planes and trains, crossing borders to hear exotic tongues, savour strange flavors, and encounter what may be even stranger ways of thinking. But if you're the editor of a big time travel guide, you may find that the exotic trips only take place in your head, as you sit planted behind your desk. That's where Adrian Philips, editor of the Bradt Travel Guides series found himself. In this archival edition of Budacast, Hungary’s online radio show and podcast, Drew talks to Adrian, one of the authors of the Bradt Travel Guide to Budapest and to Hungary, and he tells us why he believes Budapest is the best city in Central Europe. Adrian says that after a couple of years as contributing editor at Bradt, he wanted to see the publishing business from the other side. So, he took four months away from his desk to travel all around Budapest and Hungary, researching every nook and cranny. Adrian’s first visit to Hungary in the early 1990s was colored by a personal connection. He recalls: “Well, I was actually at that time going out with a girlfriend when I was 21, whose grandparents were Hungarian, and they had fled Hungary after World War II, leaving their house and all their property there. And so she’d grown up knowing this grandfather who, as long as she had been alive, had been living in England and still actually didn't speak very much English despite all that time. “We decided to go on a central European tour for three weeks. We went to Prague and Vienna, and Budapest was one of the cities we went to on that tour. When we went over there and actually tracked down the old family house that they basically fled from after World War II and I kind of fell in love with Budapest during that trip there. I mean it was only a short stay, it was only four-five days, but it stood out for me ahead of both Vienna and Prague. Prague vas slightly too quaint for me, slightly too enclosed really and compact. Vienna was a bit sort of too tonic, too straight lined. Whereas Budapest just had romance, the river going through, and was a bigger, more cosmopolitan city, a more lively city really, a beautiful city, but one where you really felt things were really happening in the here and now as well. Broadly speaking that was, well it was, my only experience of Hungary before I went there to write the guide book.” “So the Hungarian capital cast its spell on you,” Drew qu

In this edition of Budacast, an online radio show about how to live the high life in Hungary… "Summer Socializing." Drew and Andrea give a rundown of where they went and who they met in their great summer adventure in Hungary. Plus they offer their ...

Take a hike, grab a cab, or tipple some cabernet. In this archive edition of Budacast, "Cabs and Cabernet," Bradt Travel Guide author Adrian Philips talks about how to get around in Budapest, recommends where to breath some fresh air in the Hungarian capital, and suggests where/how to sample the flavors of Hungarian wine. Co-author of the publisher’s guides to Budapest and Hungary, he shares that and more of his expertise on all things Budapest and Hungary. First, he talks about the wonderful greenery surrounding Budapest. “It’s quite unusual in a city to have so many green spaces, you’ve got the parks, the Margaret Island and the City Park and so on. But to have the Buda hills literally right hard fast up against the city center is unusual I think and gives a real breathing space for people especially in the summer months when it gets very hot in the center.” Adrian mentions several stops of the two railways heading up there, the cogwheel railway (“Fogaskerekű”), and the children’s railway (“Gyermekvasút”). “Both of them take you to the Buda landscape protection area, which is an area of about 10 000 hectares,” he says. “There are various stops along the way that make great points to get off and explore the trails around there. You’ve got János-hegy or János Hill where there are a load of walking trails; it’s the highest point in Budapest, so the views are amazing from there. But it’s also got a chair lift (Libegő) that you can take back down and again, it makes a very nice vantage point for views over the city. There’s the Széchenyi Lookout which is just at the very end stop of the cogwheel railway. Again, that’s a great place to get some good views of the city.” He also mentions the Budakeszi Wildlife Park, on the route of the Children’s Railway, which is also part of the protection area, with great picnic spots and lots of nature trails as well. “One thing that I always notice whenever I go out that way is that it seems to be quite a contrast compared to Budapest,” suggests Drew; Adrian agrees. “There’s a massive contrast, you really feel as if you could be out in the countryside - actually you are out in the countryside. I mean, as I said, it’s a landscape protection area, much of the hills there. You’re getting right out away from the sort of congestion, buildings and the roads and everything else.” This green space in the Buda hills is quite popular among inhabitants of the