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Published: August 8th 2009
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That would be us. Or at least that's what we feel like.
Days in the sun and 'terme' at Fonteverde made our brains mush I think. We opted to skip Prague this trip so that it wouldn't be so rushed but we had to get to Budapest as we had pre-purchased our flight to Portugal from there.
We booked on an overnight train from Venice to Budapest as it was loads cheaper than flying and this part of our trip had never been minutely planned. So we drove back to Venice and found ourselvse waiting on the platform Friday night for what seemed like hours as the train was delayed. What a shot back to my old travelling days in Nice! We got in a carriage at the wrong end of the train and it took us 20 minutes to move through one carriage. Eventually, we had to stop as there was absolutely no where to move. Packed with hundreds of sweaty people and two of the sweatiest were us, I have no doubt. We were desperate to get to our 'couchette' carriage but had to wait for the first stop so we could run off the train and
get into our carriage from the outside. Ahhh, Italy.
We made it to our couchette (running some poor lady over along the way) and settled in for a not-so-good night's sleep. We're just thankful we paid a few extra Euros for a couchette rather than a 14-hour overnight journey sitting (that's right, sitting) cramped with 4 other people in a compartment.
In the middle of the night we're woken up (again) for a passport check, this time in Croatia. The toughest woman Controller comes on and ends up kicking a couple of Albanians off the train in our carriage because they're Albanian and they need a Visa to travel through Croatia. Shane and I just looked at eachother. Neither of us even considered looking at the train route in advance and making sure our passports were enough. You must understand, this is very unlike us. Mushy spa brain syndrome.
Luckily, the Canadian passports are enough.
We arrive rather exhausted in Budapest at our hotel and end up having a great lunch nearby on the self-proclaimed "famous restaurant street". We realize while we're eating that we have no idea what to see, where to go. We also
have no single Hungarian word at our disposal: we've forgotten to look that up too. Seriously, this is becoming rather embarassing. That is a huge no-no for us, arriving in a country without knowing how to say the basics. We felt like complete idiots having to say "hello", "please" and "thank you" for everything. Flippin' tossers. At least all the Hungarians we came across were nice about it.
So we spend 2 days in Budapest, wandering around the streets, dealing with tummy troubles (must be from travelling and eating out this long), visting the castle district, trying goulash and getting sour cream on whatever they put it on (which is a lot). Yum! Probably didn't help the tummy much.
And we also found a cinema showing Harry Potter in English, very exciting! We were unable to find one in Venice or Tuscany so we leapt at the chance.
We could have used a couple more days in Budapest but perhaps we can visit again when we do eventually get to Prague. And we will be much better prepared.
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Jane
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Thanks
Just want to let you guys know how much I am enjoying your blog. It is like I am traveling to all these places with you which I would never do on my own. Thanks