JO napot kivanok! This was the first phrase to come back to me as the plane landed in Budapest, capital of Hungary, where 12 years ago I lived as an English teacher.

It means an enthusiastic hello. I was taking part in the poetry festival to celebrate the country joining the EU.

The British Council was our host, and over the next week, schools, reading evenings and a translation weekend awaited myself and the other British poets: Owen Sheers, Matthew Hollis, Antony Dunn and Clare Pollard.

Budapest is a stunning, cosmopolitan city, spanning both sides of the vast Danube river.

Huge bridges link tranquil Buda to bustling Pest.

The city itself is on a grand scale with buildings along the riverside tall ornate affairs.

A big part of our trip was teaching in schools. It was an experience. My school in the south of the country was unprepared for such a momentous event as a poet arriving, and made the most of it by packing the room with as many pupils as possible and training a video camera on me for the entire lesson.

The Hungarian children took to poetry with the same excitement and imagination as British children do and I emerged from the class with my head ringing with their spontaneous, mini-poems.

They had never done anything like a creative writing class before, which made it all the more wonderful.

The highpoint for us was the translation weekend, held in a country house beside Lake Balaton.

Translation is a major part of poetry in Hungary. By contrast, none of the British party had ever done any.

What we discovered is that translation is as creative as writing a completely new poem.