Day 26 – Budapest

Today was a long day’ We got up very early at about 5, packed and got ready. We went to pay and the hotel even got us breakfast ready early. We managed to get to the staion in plenty of time and boarded our train at 7.20.

Unfortunately this train was not as good as the last and was very hot with no air conditioning. It also had very little leg room for an 8 hour journey and the toilets were disgusting.

Anyway we arrived in Budapest at about 3.30 and immediately took out some money as we had none. For some reason the machine would only let me take out 20000 Forints (about 55 GBP) but we needed a lot more than that to pay for the room. I would just have to explain when we got there!

Next we went into McDonalds to use the toilets and get a drink (we were stupid and took very little on the train). When I came to pay though I only had a 10000Ft note. This seemed to shock them and the manager had to sort out the change. Not only was this embarassing but also confusing. Had I taken out way more than I thought? Was I out by a factor of 10? If so, oops! I turns out that I was right after all but it was a bit of a daunting start.

We made our way to the guesthouse which is fine and in a good location. We then went back to the station to sort out Vienna tickets but were told we didn´t need to make reservations – hopefully this will be OK!

Budapest does not seem like any city we have visited so far and seems a lot rougher around the edges. The people seem like that too. The men are very tall and broad and they are naturally angry looking. Their body language is quite aggressive but I think this image is quite misleading as they seem nice to talk to.

Dinner was interesting and very nice. After choosing goulash and being informed that it is in fact a soup here and not a stew as it is presented everywhere else in the world I chose to try their gnocchi. Emma even tried it too! It wasn´t really pasta but more like potato dumplings and was covered in a pesto, chicken, bacon and paprika sauce – yummy.

We will try to experience some of the nicer parts of Budapest tomorrow.