Six days away was insufficient to fulfil our dream of a grand train journey from Norfolk to Budapest. Flying was the only alternative and much cheaper.
Ryanair from Stansted saw us into Budapest in time for dinner. The transfer from airport to hotel was efficient via a pre-booked minibus and allowed us to glimpse the bustling city before we were the last drop off in Heroes Square, some two miles from centre and in a quieter location next to the city park.
Heroes Square
An authentic and cheap Hungarian restaurant directly opposite the hotel offered variations on goulash and stroganoff and wine at $1.50 a glass. We had the Hungarian currency forints with us and found that although most places accepted Euros, it was cheaper to buy in the local currency.
The following morning, we opted to do a Big Bus hop on hop off tour as a way of getting to know the city. But first we had to collect the tickets which required taking the metro. The M1 line direct to the city from Heroes Square was our saviour. Barely below ground, we descended one flight of steps directly to the platform to ask how to buy tickets only to be told that it is free for those over sixty-five. Had we known that, I doubt we would have bought the bus tour. The Pest side of the city is compact, busy, flat and easy to walk around. The bus tour kept doubling back on itself and when we eventually got off on the other side of the Danube in Buda close to the castle, we decided not to take the bus again. Buda is hilly and we regret not having enough time to explore it more because on our boat trip which we took a day later, it appeared to have some stunning buildings.
The boat trip on the Danube was part of the price of the bus ticket. Unfortunately, there was no commentary and was somewhat spoilt by those who stood in front of us on the deck taking videos.
Our first two days were cool and rainy so before the boat trip, we decided to spend the morning in the nearby Szechenya thermal bath, a glorious baroque building with several baths and a swimming pool, just ten minutes’ walk from the hotel.
Our third and last day in Budapest was utterly memorable. We took the metro to the Opera House where we had booked to see Carmina Burana at eleven in the morning. For just over thirty pounds each we had seats in front stalls of this stunning building. The staging and singing were divine and a performance that we will never forget. Then it was back to Heroes Square and a visit to Hungary’s most famous restaurant, Gundel’s for a long lunch. Gundels is 130 years old and a Budapest institution. After a 23-million-pound refit following the communist canteen era, it reopened in 1992 as a splendid restaurant evoking the glamour of a bygone age. You need to book; we were very lucky as people were turned away after we arrived. Until recently, this restaurant had a Michelin star, but our food was out of this world, beautifully cooked and flavoursome, we ate while serenaded by a violinist and other musicians. Our three-course meal with wine cost around forty-five pounds. We heard other people discuss meals in Michelin starred restaurants in Budapest costing similar amounts.
For the price of an opera seat in London, one can fly to Budapest, go to the opera and eat at an upmarket restaurant. We could happily return as there was much we didn’t have the opportunity or energy to do.
However, the following morning we took the metro to the centre where we picked up a minibus to take us onward to Vienna. Sidetrip Tours offer English speaking transfers between middle European cities via a variety of interesting stops, in our case a ruined Esterhazy castle on the lake at Tata, the old city of Gyor, the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava and finally the conference of Danube and Morava Rivers at Denin where a memorial to the people who died trying to escape from communism offered a chilling reminder. As a fourteen-year-old, I stood in Austria looking towards the watch towers in Hungary wondering if they would ever come down. It took another twenty-five years.
Our guide dropped us off at our Vienna hotel next to Hauptbanhoff, main rail and metro station around seven that evening. The metro into the city, only three stops cost 1.5 Euros where we enjoyed a visit to St Stefan’s cathedral and window shopping in Vienna’s smart pedestrian shopping area. That evening we booked a classical concert of Strauss, Schubert and Mozart in the large banquet hall of the Palais Eschenbach inaugurated in 1872 by Emperor Franz Joseph, a delightful and intimate end to our stay. The following morning it was an early start to the airport for all of 4 Euros by train.
Every bit of planning worked out, apart from the train strike on the day we returned, but thanks to Scratby taxis, that wasn’t a problem. It was only our feet which suffered through all the walking. Overall, we had a wonderful time and were always impressed by the cleanliness of the stations and streets, the courtesy of young passengers in Budapest who invariably gave up seats to us oldies and the value for money, except for public toilets which cost a euro rather than a penny and sometimes guarded by a communist era Rosa Klebb character.
Would we go again? Yes. It felt so good being back on a city break after everything that’s happened over the last few years. Next Year, Athens, perhaps.
To accompany this trip, I read The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, the story of a Jewish Hungarian family in the 1930s/40s which mentioned many of the places we visited and gave an insight into the war years in Budapest.