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Published: July 12th 2017
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It was a short day for us today as we had an overnight train departing at around 7pm and once we'd had a little lie in, showered and packed it was getting close to 11am. We also had to sort out dropping our bags and booking some tickets to get to the station for our night train, which in our noobish attempt to save ourselves a EU rail travel day (something we didn't need to do we later realised), we had booked our reservations for the overnight train from a station 45mins away from Budapest instead of a central station.
We lugged our bags, which seem to be getting fuller and heavier each time I repack, to Keleti station in Budapest and, despite the totally inaccuracy signage, found the left luggage lockers. We had an even worse experience with them this time, again it was coinage only and in specific denominations (100 or 200 HUF coins). This time, the change machine was out of order and the shop staff were shitty about giving us the desired coins in change (or just straight up refused). Eventually we scrapped together 800 HUF in coins and we were done. The next step, buying
a local train ticket to get to Szekesfehervar
, saw us bounced around 3 different ticket/customer services desks, none of which could or would help us much apparently. We resorted to the automated ticket machines and were just about to purchase our resignations when a helpful local (with better English than most of the staff we had spoken to) explained we would be best to get the metro over to Budapest-Deli and connect from there.
By this point, we just gave up for the moment, planned to follow the locals advice later and headed off for breakfast (as it was now gone 11:30). We had already looked up an espresso bar called 'The Goat Hearder' which was #2 on TripAdvisor for brekkie. It didn't disappoint and I was pleased to find my long black coffee, cheese and salami grilled croissant and Bircher museli both delicious and filling! Over brekkie we had decided to begrudgingly go back to Keleti, recover our bags and get the metro over to Bali now rather than later, reducing our stress later, as we planned to be in Pest all afternoon and Bali was the closest station anyway.
When we arrived in Bali, we purchased
our seat reservation for the (nice and early) 17:35 train so we would feel no stress later and then took on storage locker number 2 of the day. This was single handedly the biggest farce of our trip so far, if you want to skip the rant, then move on to the next paragraph! Again, as expected now, it was coins only. I had preempted this at brekkie and requested some change from the Goat Herder but they 'didn't have any', thankfully customer services was right next to the lockers, so I politely asked if their was a change machine in the station, the middle aged ladies response was to repeat 'change machine' pause for a second and then say 'No', wave me off and break eye contact with me. I then asked if there is anywhere I can get change from and she kept her head down and didn't acknowledge me at all. Customer dis-service more like! The lack of forethought to provide machines where specific coinage is the only method of use and then to not provide any sort of platform to get said coins, coupled with the blatant rudeness of the staff in unbelievable. Having eventually managed
to buy enough drinks from different stalls to get the coinage required, we then had to battle with the locker itself, this POS swallowed half our coins without incrementing the 'paid' amount, coins got stuck and it took us no exageration 30 minutes of bashing, kicking and sticky a knife into the coin slot until finally we had successfully entered 800 HUF and the locker would close! What's worse is that everyone else around us, tourist and local Hungarians, we all having similar issues, we helped a few once we had sorted our own locker, who's thanks at least restored some of my faith in humanity after customer service lady had drained most of it!
Frustrated but relieved, we creamed up and headed over to Budapest Castle district which was of course, on top of a large hill. The sun was super hot again and I was starting to feel faint by the time we reached the top, I hate to be a typical Brit moaning its cold and wet all the time and then moaning as soon as the sun comes out, but I was getting a bit fed up of the whole cream up, sweat, find shade
and repeat business, especially in the 36° Budapest heat! We found the castle itself and had a wander around taking some pics. We watched some guy with a drone flying it around getting some amazing snaps, then headed on to get some water and take a look at the map.
We weren't hungry yet after our late brekkie so we decided to go across to the 'Hospital in the Rock' a medical facility (eventually) come nuclear bunker which was built into ancient caves within the rock of the castle mount. We booked ourselves into the 3pm tour of the hospital which I found really hospital was initially built during the 2nd world war as a secure add on to the nearby St. John's Hospital, aiming to hold 300 patients. It played a key role in the siege of Budapest in WWII where it was way over capacity stuffed with approx 650 patients. It was reopened during the 12 day Hungarian revolution against its Russian based rulers. In both instances it was a Red Cross hospital so no weapons were allowed and German, Hungarian and Russian armed forces and civilians were treated here simultaneously. The whole place is filled with
scenes containing wax dummies and original machinery and medical equipment. Later in its history e hospital was converted into an emergency nuclear bunker to be used to treat the first 300 survivors should there have been a nuclear attack during the Cold War. There are exhibits on Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the scary effects of nuclear weapons. Sadly there was no photography allowed so no pictures to share of this interesting place.
We then wandered back to Bali, found a Spar to get some dinner and snacks for the train and made our connections to get over to our night train station. The boarding process was much more enjoyable than last time now we know the drill. Our 4 bed cabin was shared with a young Hungarian couple headed to Split and Broć for a 4 day break. They spoke English very well so we chatted quite a lot and they were very considerate so we had no issues. I had the top bunk which was way too short for me so, combined with the open windows/noise (because it was roasting and e cooling system didn't work), I had a pretty terrible night sleep, thankfully we are in Hvar in
a 4 star hotel tomorrow, so I can sleep and chill out.
Spar, train shambles and night train
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dancortazio
Dan Cortazio
Estatuas
What a wonderful tour, beautiful photos ... Statues are historical marks and these are very old and thank you for bringing this content to people.