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Published: September 4th 2007
The overnight train was the only option from Krakow to Budapest, so it had to be done. It would have been okay ïf we didn´t have to share the compartment and didn´t get woken up what seemed like every hour by someone checking our passport or tickets. It also seemed to be the slowest train in the world. Adam spent the whole of the morning being eyed up by the old Hungarian lady sitting next to him, she obviously liked what she saw! Needless to say, when we finally made it to our hostel on the Buda side of the river we were in need of a shower and a nap, followed by a big dinner on the Pest side of the river where most of the restaurants and bars are. I was excited by the prospect of Hungarian wine after drinking so much beer in Poland and wasn´t disappointed.
Our first day was spent doing the tourist thing: seeing the citadel, Castle Hill and some great views of the city and the sparkling Danube. I then dragged Adam to Memento Park, where all of the statues of Hungary´s Communist era were put after the fall of Communism. I thought
it was fascinating, but Adam was a little dubious about being in the middle of nowhere and was less than impressed when on our way home we got "gringo" fined on the train for not validating our ticket properly. Oh well, we decided that there is no use arguing in an eastern European country about a €20 fine. We sucked it up and I went and had a big Schnitzel and some wine for dinner to make us feel better.
The next day we had a tough decision to make: should we go to the Sziget Festival or do the old people´s thing and head out of the city to a sleepy little town on the Danube called Szentendre. Szentendre won, and here we found the best coffee that we have had since leaving home in a tiny cafe. It restored Adam´s faith in the coffee gods so then we had to go and have a beer to celebrate and watch the afternoon rain thinking about how muddy we would be at the festival and how old we are getting.
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