Autumn in Budapest & Bohemia: The trip comes to an end. Our return to Budapest, Hungary
We arrived back in Budapest via train at 8 p.m. with instructions from Barb to get her gate key from the office to let ourselves in to her place. Finding a phone, piecing together enough Hungarian to request a cab and to get to Barb’s…ah, the mentally stimulating joys of travel. I was quite proud of the pieced bits and pantomime that got us home that night!
Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest
Before heading home to Chicago, we spent a relaxing day on Margit Island. Fresh air, flowers, old trees, bikers, dogs walking. At the end of the island, we found the former Grand Hotel and the cafe. We ate a buffet breakfast there and made our way back to the Buda side steps down to the Danube. Sitting there for a little while enjoying the sun.
Train tracks in Budapest
Finished the last vacation night with margaritas and Mexican food. Tomorrow we’d be home to a squirming bundle of dogs!
What a trip…Autumn in Bohemia along the edges of Europe: art nouveau buildings, Mucha, Kafka, Freud, Strauss, Charles Bridge, Steve the Church, border crossings, murals, and mountains, and the magic that IS the Eastern cities of the West. Days lost lingering in coffee houses, meandering the cobblestone streets, dozing with the sun in your face at the golden hour, and drinking wine and eating by candlelight while gypsy bands play.
The night train: Budapest to Prague through Slovakia
We boarded the train around 10 p.m. on October 11, 1998… our one year wedding anniversary. It was about a 300 mile trip, scheduled for 7 1/2 hours.
Mapping the route Budapest to Prague on the Night Train
The train was no great shakes, an old hard-working train with tons of character. We had a tiny sleeper car–a bunk bed, a shelf, and a window. We bought paprika pork-rind looking chips and cokes, lit a candle and settled into a quick game of cribbage before retiring.
On the overnight train Budapest to Prague: Bryan in our “double sleeping, 1st class” train car. I’m standing outside the door in the aisle to take the photo.
We weren’t asleep long when the train stopped and there came a loud pounding at the door. “PASSPORTS!” (more like “PAHS-PURTS”). Sleepy and a bit shaken, we opened the door, showed our passports and watched as one of the uniformed border-crossing guards squeezed into our car to lift our bunks and have a look beneath. There was a lot of motion as the guards flipped pages in the passports and stamped. And then they were gone. We crawled back into our bunks and fell back to sleep to the cradle-rocking motion of the train. But this episode repeated itself again…and again…and again over the next few hours.
We ended up with 4 passport stamps that night. I was so exhausted, I don’t even remember the order of the stamps or the places we passed through. There are two with the date of Oct 11–SZOB and MZ STUROVO and two with the date of Oct 12–CZ KUTY and CR LANZH. It was like a weird dream–the border guards, the rocking train, the fresh smell of fields from the window, and every now and then seeing the lights of villages go past…the brilliant essence of travel.
Later I could piece together that we left Hungary at Szob, and a few miles later must have passed through the Štúrovo, Slovakia side of the border crossing. We left Slovakia at Kúty and entered the Czech Republic at Lanžhot. Best I can tell. We arrived in Prague around 6 a.m. at Hlavni Nadrazi station.
Our friend Barb was doing a work stint in Budapest–and she said “come see me”. That’s all it took of course. This trip would take us from Budapest, to Prague, to Munich and Garmish-Partenkirchen, to Vienna, and back to Budapest during two weeks in October 1998.
Mapping Our Route – Budapest, Prague, Munich, G-P, Vienna
Budapest has an aura. I read somewhere that “if one is traveling from the east into western Europe, it is in Budapest that one experiences the breath of Western civilization. However, if one is traveling in the opposite direction, it is here that one first gets a taste of the east…” It is a hearty yet wistful place–a practical Prague. We would go in the fall–and that felt right considering this Budapest quote from Gyula Krudy: “This city smells of violets in the spring, as do the ladies along the promenade above the river on the Pest side. In the fall, it is Buda that suggests the tone: the odd thud of chestnuts dropping on the castle walk…autumn and Buda were born of the same mother.”
Carol & Bryan in Budapest
We arrived into Budapest on October 8, a rainy afternoon–ironically, we disembarked behind a midget who we would later run into a few nights later in the Irish bar Becketts. $1 U.S. was about 200 Hungarian Forint and a ride to the city via Airport mini-bus was 1,200 Ft each. Barb rented an apartment up the hill on the Buda side from Margit Bridge. A giant yellow house, her apartment was full of shiny white marble. It is rumored that the former home owners, pre-Communist takeover of Hungary, now rent the apartment upstairs. Sometimes we would see a kerchiefed older lady walking up the stairs by the kitchen window. I wondered if the story was true–and if so, what she must feel about her home.
Old Budapest door
On the first night, jet-lagged but with a second/third wind, we went to Artichoka for dinner. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep, the place, the food, the drink or the magic of travel–but that night was like a dream. The restaurant was in a dark narrow street. Five foot high wrought-iron candle sticks marked the entrance. The candles looked like they had been burning for ages…mounds of white candle wax had dripped and dripped and dripped until the drips made a white mass that looked like a mop turned upside down. A few drips had blown in the wind and solidified that way–wayward strands. There was a band, dressed as I would imagine gypsies dress, playing accordions and guitars. A dog cleaned up bits beneath the tables…roaming about your legs and scratching his back on a hanging plant. Candles floated in terra-cotta pots filled with water. We had 2 bottles of Hungarian Pinot Noir, Bryan had beer too. We ate and ate…tasty pastas. We lingered over the meal–seeping up the atmosphere. To this day, this is one of my favorite travel evenings.
Dozing by the Danube
We spent our days walking alongside the Danube. Up in Buda, I heard the chestnuts dropping. Falling yellow leaves rustled quietly. We took frequent and long breaks for coffee at outdoor cafes with views over the city and river. Over the next couple of days, we ate and drank and wandered. We spent a morning at Cafe Gerbeaud–soaking in the sun. I wandered through the art market and went back for a stunning blue/periwinkle/pink drawing of early evening Budapest. Saturday, we had an afternoon at Varosliget Park and the outdoor restaurant on the lake there–watching the dogs run, the kids play and the ducks on the water. On Sunday morning, we took in the buffet brunch at the Marriott–I remember tasty fruit, champagne and pastries. And all the people soaking in the sun along the Danube.
We walked to the crown of St. Stephens (Szent Istvan Bazilika–I love the frequent use of Zs, Vs and Ks in Hungarian!) for views over the city. The base of the building is blackened by many years of city soot…but the spires have been cleaned to their creamy white.
St. Stephen’sFrom the crown of St. Stephen’s Budapest
Someone wrote to “look up” when you walk in Budapest. Good advice…the balconies, the brightly-painted (yet faded to pastel) colors, the figures carved into building sides/tops/alcoves of buildings, mosaics, spires…it’s lovely. We rounded out Sunday at a riverside outdoor cafe–juice glasses of wine, sunshine on our faces, and watching the dozing old couples sitting on the benches enjoying the day’s sunshine, and so many dogs on the promenade too. It was perfect people watching. And I joined in, taking a seat on a bench and nodding off, the sun warming my face. As the sun went down, we began making our way back to Barb’s place. Just as we entered the Chain Bridge, the lights came on…beautiful moment. LOVED this day. It would end with Barb dropping us at the old, tired Keleti Station for our night train to Prague.
