Seems like you're always jetting off for stag dos. When will you run out of mates getting married?

As a connoisseur of stag dos, which place has the best ones?

The irony is so obvious it must be deliberate.

Ahem, cough, ahem. You may call me many things but politically correct is not one of them.

Off to the same villa in Xaghra, Gozo as last year. This time around it'll be me, husband, mum, dad, dad in law and sister in law as my mum in law passed away in October.

The parents in law were meant to come last June but that’s when she was diagnosed with cancer.

It’ll be strange going back to the places we used to go to with her.
Think we’ll all raise a Pimms and tonic in her memory.

Ha ha, hopefully soon. I made a promise to myself that last year was going to be the last year of my attending destination stag do / weddings as I haven't been on a trip that I actually choose the destination of in years which is annoying! However, these ones kind of squeezed through....

As for the best destination..... i'm not really sure, they all generally follow a similar path when you look back on them. Amsterdam is pretty good as its pretty relaxed and folk don't mind joining in on the joke, that said we're don't exactly go all out with regards to costumes or pranks. It's more mates getting together and getting pissed up with a heavy helping of piss taking.

Quite looking forward to Budapest tho as I haven't been before and the actual stag is an absolute menace who always makes a point of destroying us on our birthday brunches..... as such about 30 folk have confirmed just to take their revenge!

Just a patronising know-it-all then? I can live with that as a fair summar.

I hope you have a wonderful time as a family and enjoy many Pimms for your Mum in law.

Tallinn in Estonia - Ticks all the boxes breaks all the rules and not for the faint hearted.

Budapest is wicked. Careful in the booby bars though, came close to getting fleeced in one. Otherwise was awesome, worth seeing the bridge and old town at night, looks incredible.

Thanks Scamp

The taxi scam or the drinks being like 5k each and they don't let you leave until you have paid one?

Noted though, thanks.

Budapest has these "ruin pubs" which are large cavern-like pubs inside semi-derelict buildings. Fun charm. Cheap beer. I did see a stag do group on a peculiar cycling machine, sitting at a table drinking beer while cycling through the city. Don't be that daft

Food is mediocre but it's a great city with a nitty-gritty vibe that's missing from Vienna or Prague. Plenty of great architecture. River is lovely especially at night.

Since you're a geologist you may be intrigued by the underground caverns underneath the city. They can be visited.

Budapest is the only place I've been to where I've had to resort to a McDonalds for food. Some people have told me the food is amazing, I just never found the decent places I guess.

There's fabulous food n wine in the city (and no doubt throughout the country), IMHO; we ate extremely well when we were there. Just for something different, and following some of the TripAdvisor reviews, we decided to go to a Jewish restaurant, Rosenstein: very up-market and sophisticated, and utterly superb. No riff raff / stag-dos.

I don't doubt you can get good food, we did eat particularly well at one place and it did come at a cost. But despite careful research all the other places we went to were average to decent and one or two outright mediocre. You just have to be careful where you go because the typical joint you walk to off the street will be selling mediocre glop and passing it off as goulasch. And most of the pastries are filled with margarine instead of real butter. The consequence of the Communist legacy. A Hungarian friend explained it succinctly when he said that to have high quality dining you need a high quality supply chain of produce and meats and cheese and everything else that goes into making a great meal, and that was destroyed by the communists. It's slowly coming back but it will take a while. It's not like Vienna or Munich where you can reliably eat well.

We were only there 3 nights, and were well pleased. Rosenstein, Paprika Jancsi, and Hachapuri (Georgian cuisine). Food markets were good, too.