Via Jenn:
Last night we rented Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn thinking a classic movie was just what the doctor ordered. To tell you the truth, we were disappointed with the flick, but did develop little crushes on Mr. Peck. Ms. Hepburn's scooter skills in Rome were reminiscent of my own in SF.
We tried to sleep in this morning since our train was not until 5pm and there was not much left of Budapest for us to discover. The cleaning staff at Novatel Budapest Danube had very different ideas. Basically every 30 minutes, beginning at 8:30am, we got a knock on our door and an immediate disruption of them opening our door and me saying "hello?" By 10:30, we thought we would help them out by putting the "do not disturb" sign on the door as a signal that we were not up yet. Apparently that placard has no meaning at this hotel because they continued to barge in every 30 minutes. Check out was not until noon so I'm not sure why they were being so insistent. Accordingly, we exited our room at 11:59.
After leaving out bags at the front desk, we hoofed it up the Buda stairs to Castle Hill. Castle Hill contains multiple eras worth of history. There is the Old Town section home to commoners in the Middle Ages and the Royal Palace (the original one was built in the 13th Century). After cruising about we grabbed some coffee and 2 pieces of cake (one chocolate and one almond) at a café up there. We wanted to continue of our dessert tour of Eastern Europe. We were pleased. At the café, we met two Americans from Chicago and joined them on a tour of the Buda Castle Labyrinth. Below much of Budapest is a 28km network of caves formed by thermal springs that were used in prehistoric times, by the Turks for military purposes, air-raid shelters in WWII and as a secret military installation during the Cold War. The Labyrinth is a 1200 meter long section of the cave system under the Castle District that you can explore. We had a great time with our new pals from Chicago being silly in the caves, as you can see in our pictures for this entry.
After an hour or so in the caves, we said goodbye to our pals and did a little shopping in the medieval shops and grabbing lunch at a café where Marisa gave goulash another try. We finished lunch up with a Magnum ice cream for good measure. I guess the two pieces of cake were not enough.
Via: Marisa
We love Budapest, and apparently, Budapest feels the same way about us. So much so, in fact, that it was not in the in cards for us to leave it so soon.
Despite the fact that we had our bags all packed this morning and got to the train station a good 45 minutes before departure, we missed our train. How, you ask? Well, after standing in front of the departures sign for about thirty minutes without it providing any information as to which platform we should go to for our train to Zagreb, we just sort of figured our train was late. They had been running late on our other trips. Finally, at 5:21 (our train was supposed to leave at 5:20), we went to the information desk to see what was up. Our train had just left, the woman there told us. Apparently, the train we were supposed to take was Venice-bound, and merely stopped in Croatia. Of course, neither our tickets nor any signs in the station gave any such indication, or really provided any train numbers so that we could figure this out, and since I left my crystal ball at home, we seemed to be out of luck.
Understandably, we were bummed-the next one wasn't leaving until eight the next morning. It was 80 degrees and sunny in Croatia and we wanted to get there, dammit! We found an internet café and did some quick research-the ticket office at the bus station was already closed, but we were able to find a car to rent so that we could make it to Zagreb by nightfall as planned. All we had to do was take a taxi to the airport to pick it up.
It must be said that while I have traveled a great deal, I am a little more risk-averse than Jenn. She was all about driving to Croatia, and while I was excited for our automobile adventure, in my mind's eye, we might find ourselves stuck on some muddy road, lost at one a.m. and surrounded by bleating sheep. But the rental car agent assured us that it was a straight shot down a brand- new highway, very easy, four hours, we couldn't miss it! And with the road map of Hungary and Croatia that Aaron oh-so-kindly bought us for our trip (thanks, Aaron!!), we figured the stars had realigned in our favor. We'd have time to hit the beach by late tomorrow after all!
Not so much. Snafu number two was that, while the price for the rental car was $100 euros, we would be charged $300 euros extra because we were dropping it off in another country. Funny, our reservation on Expedia made no mention of this. We wanted to go to Croatia so badly that we even checked for flights, but none were leaving tonight. So we resigned that we would go back to Budapest and stay at the Novotel near the train station.
We nearly encountered death along the way, in the form of a minivan driven by a young Hungarian. Evidently, he had never have driven in Budapest in his entire life, and had little conception of the city's layout or street names. He pulled over almost immediately, even before we had even the airport, to fiddle with his GPS system. Now mind you, our hotel was on the main drag of a major road in Budapest; after three days there, we knew exactly where it was and probably could have found it ourselves. Our driver started sweating like a hog and got on his cell phone at least 12 times to call his boss and ask for directions. "Um, do you need the address?" Jenn offered, to no answer-he was fiddling with his GPS system again and was starting to swerve into the other lane of what was the equivalent of Market Street in San Francisco. We were pretty horrified. After a few more phone calls and near misses with other cars, we made it to the hotel intact-and when the driver got out to unload our bags, I swear to God he was not more than 13 years old. How on earth he ever got a job driving a taxi is beyond me-do they not have child labor laws here?
Anyway. We are now in our jammies and watching American movies on pay-per-view. While blissful, it is no beach. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it on the train tomorrow and to Zagreb in one piece!!
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