Advertisement
Trecking with our suitcases
Early morning exercise: dragging our suitcases to the train station!We got up at 6:30, made breakfast, packed up and were on the walking trail by 7:30. 45 minutes later, we arrived at the train station. At least we got our exercise for the morning. We got some “coffee to go” with milk and secured a seat on the outside bench to wait for out train. We lucked out today… we were on track #1. That meant that we did not have to drag the bags down 2 flights of stairs, under the tracks and back up! WHEW!!!
The train was on time. We were later than usual getting on the train due to a mass exodus out the door I picked. I could have figured out to get on at the other door but too late. We crammed into a compartment with two nice young men, and another young woman joined us. She watched a movie on her mac. Gary got a schedule so we could watch the stations, of which there were twenty seven. Very soon the conductor arrived and said we had to move to the two front cars (that were going to Budapest)!!!
We found a compartment with a nice young
Many stops on this train
7 hour trip, many stops, 2 for customs (going and coming) woman who spoke English. She was graduating this month with a degree in psychology from Univ. of Zagreb. She got off and we began the trip along Lake Balaton.
Soon many families jumped on the train with picnics and swim gear to go to the lake. In our compartment for 6 we had 10: 2 couples with their 2 babies and 2 young children. It was stuffed to the gills, and hot!!!! Try to imagine.... I did not take a photo! The 6ish girl was quite interested in my travel book and said “Budapest.” Then she watched me turn the Kindle pages and looked for words. We gave her the Castle of Otranto book and she spent 5 minutes on the first page! She was thrilled with the gift! 2 stops later they were off and we were joined by a family of 5. Two stops later, back to just the two of us! We had our sandwiches and banana and some of our water.
We got off the train, went to the “I” information, got maps and started on our way. It didn’t look too far to our hotel. 30 minutes later, after
2 asks, we had a beer and found out we had walked the wrong way. (Rule #10, bad experiences make the best stories… that must have been or at least felt like “2 hours”!) We started back, checking our map, and asking lots of people this time. A nice man practicing his English told us to buy a bus ticket and get on bus #18. We did and it delivered us straight to our hotel door, 6
th stop, in 5 minutes!!!
The hotel is a grand old hotel, very grandiose, beautiful, wide hallways, lots of ornamentation; but NO AC!!! We have a fan that helps but it is HOT HOT here. Yesterday was 97 and the next few days will be the same. I remember my mother saying, “Women glow, men perspire, and horses sweat.” I’m “glowing”, a thin sheet of wetness everywhere!!!
We showered and cooled off a bit. Then we walked along the river and caught a sightseeing boat tour along the Danube, very pretty at night. It had a running commentary about the sights in both English and Hungarian, but it was hard to understand.
We ate dinner
nearby at 10:15 pm, an Italian place with a very good salad and sausage crostini. We got home before midnight and tried to sleep in the warm room with warm air circulating.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0652s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
