Our plan for the last day in Budapest was to get up at 5 am, and walk across the bridge to the other side of the Danube and take pictures of the majestic Buda castle just as the sunrise was lighting it up.
But we were tired.
My alarm went off at 5 am, but I made a quick physical evaluation of my body and decided to sleep in another hour. I was still pretty tired at 6 am, but how often in my life do I wake up in Budapest, really? Up and at ‘em!
Kuniko and I walked across the Chain Bridge, and once we got moving we were feeling really good. There were hardly any tourists at all. In the evening the places we passed were crammed with tourists, so it was nice to walk by unimpeded today. Although we had planned to be here an hour earlier, the sun was still in a great position and our pictures turned out pretty well.
We walked up the long slope to the castle, since it was too early for the funicular to be running. Since nobody was around it was a nice leisurely walk, and we drank bottled water as we went (because I learned my lesson). Up at Buda castle there was a lot of trash laying around – remnants from the huge crowds the night before. Apparently we were there before the cleaning staff showed up. We had a nice view of the sun rising over the Pest side of the city, and we walked around the grounds checking out the fountains and statues that were placed here and there.
After getting our fill of the castle we followed my GPS map down another side of the hill and to the base of the mountain that had the Citadel sitting on top. The Citadel was an old military base, and it had been converted into a monument because of the great position overlooking the city. We walked up and up through the forest on the mountainside, choosing trails that we thought might lead us to the top.
Halfway up we stumbled on a monument that we had seen from afar and had wanted to visit. It was kind of a half circle of Roman columns, arching in a way to draw your eye to a central statue of a priest, holding a cross outstretched (with almost a defiance) towards the rising sun. Because of our timing the priest seemed to be real – facing off against the sun just like every other morning.
The pathways up the mountain were pretty steep, and by the time we reached the top we were sweating and gasping. What a way to wake up! As we approached the Citadel some cleaning staff were working around the area. One guy looked at my head bandage and asked me what kind of trouble I got into last night. I just smiled, pointed to Kuniko and said “She won.”
At the edge of the Citadel was another monument being lit up by the sunrise. There were two warrior statues, flanking a tall pillar of stone with a massive metal sculpture of a woman offering a feather to the sun at the top. It was a bold piece of artwork, and something that reminded me of something you’d find in a video game like Dark Souls. There were just a few people there at that time, so I got some lonely pictures and also we could enjoy some quiet time up there (to catch our breath!).
From there we walked back down the hill, having a much easier time of it. We discovered that under the Roman columns and cross bearing priest monument there was a water spring, and it ran slowly down the hillside on green moss into a cistern at the base of the mountain. It looked pretty refreshing, and reminded me of the water back at Plitvice Lakes, which seemed like so long ago.
It was an easy walk back across the bridge to our hotel, and we settled into our room to milk the comforts of a nice bed, a clean toilet, and a functional air conditioner for as long as we could. Once we checked out of the hotel we’d be on our own until we got to our next hotel in Vienna, and that might take a while.
At check out we were presented with the hotel doctor’s bill in addition to our regular hotel charges, and we added that paperwork to the growing stack of documents that would need to be dealt with when we returned to Japan. We left our suitcase with the bellhop, and then went back into the city for some last sightseeing before we took the train out of town.
Climbing mountains first thing in the morning does wonders for your appetite! We found a little bistro situated right on the square in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica, and so we ordered a couple glasses of local wines (that were very good – Sauvignon Blanc and a Gruner Veltliner). I was burned out on meat so I just had a caesar salad with shrimp, and Kuniko had a really tasty paprika chicken dish with noodles and cream that tasted a lot like macaroni and cheese. Hungarian comfort food!
We still had more time before our train left, so we also decided to take a cruise on the Danube. It was easy to find a ship that did an hour or so loop on the river, and so we bought tickets and that just about killed off the remainder of our Hungarian Forints. Cruises are nice – slow paced, relaxing, and they offered some really nice opportunities for photos of the city. The cruise came with a drink on the house, and so we sipped cheap champagne served by the very young staff. We didn’t really pay attention to the headphone audio description, and instead just let the breeze flow by silently. The cruise was a very nice way to wrap up our time in Budapest.
We gathered our poor squeaky suitcase, and subjected it to a trial by fire – an almost 3 km walk from our hotel to the Budapest train station. The roads and sidewalks conspired to make it a more difficult affair, but strangely our suitcase wheels grew quieter under the stress, and maybe our problem was that we weren’t moving them enough. Once we arrived at the old and quite beautiful train station Kuniko ran across the street to do a little shopping, and I did some suitcase babysitting in front of the station and watched the people coming and going.
While I sat next to the main sidewalk a chubby Middle Eastern guy came up to me and asked me if I spoke Serbian, which is a hell of a conversation start. I told him that I only spoke English, and so he proceeded to grunt through a conversation in keywords while I did my best to keep my end going. He wanted to know where I was from (Canada), how work was in Canada (slow), what happened to my head (baseball accident), and where I was going next (Venice). I was feeding him bad info because for all I knew this was a forward agent for ISIS or something. Unfortunately I couldn’t just say goodbye because Kuniko was shopping and this was the meeting point. He got bored after a while and took off, and just in time since Kuniko showed up shortly thereafter and she didn’t know I was a Canadian going to Venice suffering from a freak baseball mishap.
Inside the train station we were happy to discover that our train was already in position, and after just a few minutes we could pre-board and get our seats. We were the first people in the car, so we could put our suitcase in a rack right across from our seats and it made it easy to keep an eye on it during the trip.
It’s nice to travel by train in Europe. Things slide by at a pleasant pace, and you can sleep or relax and not worry too much about anything but what you’ll eat for dinner when you arrive. At least, that was what our previous experiences had been like.
About an hour into our journey, the train suddenly slid to an emergency stop. We weren’t at a station – we were out in the middle of nowhere next to an unidentified river. We waited patiently for a restart of the train, but there was no movement and no announcement.
After about a half hour of waiting there was an announcement that said that there was some technical trouble, and we could expect to start again in 90 minutes. Two hours later there was another announcement saying they had no idea when we’d be restarting.
With each passing hour people were getting antsy. The expected travel time was only two and a half hours, but we had been on the train for more than four hours and still not even sure when we’d get moving again. People bought lots of alcohol from the restaurant car, and Kuniko and I decided that we’d skip the alcohol for this situation and wait and see. We overheard passengers panicking because they were missing flights at airports, missing hotel reservations, and generally ticked off at the inconvenience. Smokers stuck on the non-smoking train decided to ignore the law and smoke in between the cars, which meant that every time the doors opened we could smell the smoke – yuck.
Faced with the real possibility of spending the night where we were sitting, Kuniko and I broke out the snacks and turned to entertainment, playing a version of shiritori that had us drawing pictures instead of saying words. It was fun, and as always I was impressed with Kuniko’s drawing skills.
A Chinese couple near us were eating so much of their food that I wondered if they thought they should eat it before hungry passengers started shaking them down for their snacks. They were hoping to go to Salzburg that night, but I doubted that they’d make it. Their original arrival time would have been 10 pm but their best case scenario now would be around 3 am.
Suddenly, a train locomotive passed us on one side, and then about an hour later, our train restarted. Some people gave a little cheer, and we were off. No explanations were forthcoming, and the total delay ended up being four hours. We pulled into Vienna station around midnight, and we grabbed the nearest taxi and had him take us to our hotel. Luckily the staff still had our room for us, and we could check in and go right bed. What a trip!
Later I read on the news that on that day in Switzerland a crazy guy with a knife attacked some people on a Swiss train, and since we were on the same line it may have been part of the reason for the delay. People may still be a little jumpy with the terrorist attacks in Europe lately. I don’t know for sure whether that was the reason, but I have no other ideas.
