Budapest: Part 1 Travelling by train is a social experience.
When we fly directly to a distant destination one easily remains in isolation. Change may be dramatic and may not even be noticed if one stays within one’s own ‘cultural bubble’.
Rail travel is very different…. Vienna Hauptbahnhof, through which we’ve travelled many times displays, because of its crucial position in Europe, a variety social backgrounds… and a sense of change from our personal NW European experience. For me these changes are encapsulated at the southern entrance where there always seems to be a considerable congregation of rather poor looking smokers. These are found at every railway station…. But in Vienna the numbers are more significant than in eg Paris or Brussels…. And certainly any German or Dutch station.
We only had a brief stop there before taking a train that, after Budapest, continues to Ukraine (Chop) with coaches for Romania Baia Mare & Oradea.
Our Travel Options in Wien had been:
leave Sarn, Mid Wales at 06.30 (07.30 CET) 9th October
arrive in Wien before 09.30 CET. 10th October
take first train to Budapest: 10.42
Option One: Keep travelling
17.40 Budapest to Miercurea Ciuc arr 08.10 11th October, dep 13.25 arrive Iasi 19.40
Journey time: 2 days
(flying in one day requires dep c. 02.30, car to airport, arrival mid afternoon)
Option Two: Rest-Awhile
Stay overnight in Budapest, allowing time for afternoon & daytime explorations
17.40 Budapest to Miercurea Ciuc arr 08.10 11th October, dep 13.25 arrive Iasi 19.40
We had decided on Option Two
We had a modern locomotive but though we had a good speed we were subject to considerable turbulence…. ‘ride quality’ on trains are sometimes assessed by watching the response of a cup of coffee…. on this train it would have been unlikely to have lasted long.
Lunch on a lurching train
The train to Ukraine & Romania continued – the Romanian portion is detached en route & the restaurant car is removed at the last station before the Ukrainian border
Keleti station
Budapest: 2
Last year (2023) we travelled through Budapest with time to take a brief walk away from Keleti station.
As we walked there were 2 reactions: First ….was the sense of being in a place very different from what had been, in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a near equal to Vienna. Now, compared with Vienna, we felt ourselves to be in a town whose economy, architecture and general spirit was still a considerable reflection of the years of Russian Communist control.
Second…. it was obvious when looking at scarred elements of the upper levels of some originally very fine buildings, that we had entered one of the areas where heavy fighting had occurred during the 1956 uprising (brutally suppressed… as usual… by Stalinist forces).
That was last year….. ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’
Budapest: Part 3 ‘O, where are you going?” said Milder to Molder, “O, we may not tell you,” said Festel to Fose,…..’
This is the way of things…. And in similar vein to the song (above), Jacqui and I had stepped into a city…. But only a small portion…. A significant city and one about which I knew something…. But inevitably, only a very small amount…. Enough to stir thoughts and reflections of my own personal history…… driving through in 1990, remembering (just) the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and connecting, through having stayed with our young family, in Szeged after a first visit to a part of Europe (the ex communist part) that has absorbed me ever since.
We remembered previous impressions but desiring to understand more…. And despite considerable tiredness resulting from struggle to reach Wein, took a straight line from Keleti to the River Danube. WOW…..
……we seemed to have walked through a physical space that was a simple living example of the processes of change that hit central and Eastern Europe in 1990 and which continue to impact not just on ‘their’ lives but as was always the reality, on ‘our’ lives.
However much some people in the U.K. may shout about being ‘separate’, ‘different’ (implying, of course, ‘superior’) they are profoundly and dangerously wrong.
The issue of development in Budapest or Iasi, is ‘our’ development…..
The day was completed at a very fine restaurant in the city centre.
The night was spent in the delightful Hotel Bristol very conveniently near Keleti Station.
The hotel has been recently re-decorated with a scheme that has each floor coloured to represent a different season
They are almost cetainly named after John Augustus Hervey, the 4th Earl of Bristol (1730 – 1803), Anglican priest & Lord Bishop of Derry, bon viveur and tireless traveller whose name was taken up by the first Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendôme in Paris in 1816, later a favourite of the Prince of Wales. It used the coat of arms of the city of Bristol.
This Bristol Hotel became famous for the highest hospitality, so others adopted it.
Day Three: 11th October
We walked around the centre of the the city.
Budapest: Part 4 Some photos that fail to represent the fascinating nature and delights of the area of the centre by the Danube
Last time we were in Budapest you would have been six foot under water where you took the riverside photograph. Great to see photographs of Iasi again, I remember parascheva well. Will you be seeing Dana?
The details & grandeur of the city are gradually spreading
Inspirational Pathways 