Seven Capital Cities in Seven Days (5 of 8)

Beautiful Budapest…

Made it to the train station and boarded the Bucharest train at 2:20am, which stopped off in Budapest. I tried in vain to find Shane on the train (hey, I’m a poet and I know it!) but bunked up in a first class apartment. However, I was soon moved viciously by the ticket guard, who reminded me that I had only paid for a second class ticket.

I wobbled down about four carriages and found the sleeping body of a very familiar Corkman whom I had dubbed Passpart-3 (as opposed to Passepartout; Phileas Fogg’s best mate). I wanted to barge into the

cabin and scream out “PASSPORTA, PASSPORTA”, claiming to be another obnoxious border control guard, but Passpart-3 looked so placid as he was curled up, foetus-like, on one side of the cabin. I knocked gently on the window and opened the sliding door, telling my buddy the whole

sceal (’story’ as Gaeilge).

Through Bratislava, the capital city of the Slovak Republic. More border control gits, frightening the crap out of me, as they flung open the sliding door, turning on the light, howling “PASSPORTA, PASSPORTA”. I yelled after the ones who never bothered their nabs to close the door after them but either they didn’t hear me or they couldn’t understand my curses directed at them.

Through Slovakia and crossing into Hungary, we encountered yet more uniformed officials. Arriving in Budapest at around 8am, we proceeded to tour the capital of Hungary. Ate breakfast in McDonald’s and were given directions in a tourist office to the Rumbach Center, the home of Price Waterhouse, Budapest.

Us two Irish men-of-the-world walked for what seemed like light years until we eventually found cheap flights to Dublin (in a travel agency) and the Rumbach Center. Into the building and I quipped at two Americans talking about Irish beer that “Guinness was the best”!

The receptionist told us that Price Waterhouse was located on the 4th floor. On arrival on the 4th floor, the Price Waterhouse receptionist called Andi on her switchboard and told us to take a seat. Andrea entered the fray a couple of minutes later and we received a few more bear-hugs. Made some small-talk and we invited Andi to invite us out for lunch. Arranged to make it back to her place of work at 12 midday for lunch.

Nearly drowning with my own sweat we familiarised ourselves with a very inviting Price Waterhouse washroom where, while Shane cleaned his teeth,

I doused my face and flowing locks into the wash basin filled with ice-cold water. Leaving our bags in a locked room, we viewed beautiful Budapest.

The castle district on the hilly western side of the Danube, in Buda (The Hungarian capital is divided into two areas, east and west of

the ‘Blue Danube’, called respectively Buda and Pest which apparently combine together to form Budapest) was our first stop. We treated ourselves to a ride up in the cable tram which left by

the chain bridge. The view of the city was amazing as the parliament buildings dominated the eastern side of the Danube.

Following a few photos and profound chat about what sort of grub

the king liked, we descended in the cable car and made it back in pristine time to Price Waterhouse.

Andi brought us on a small tour of the city centre which ended in a downstairs restaurant which served superb meals. We chose from the menu and as myself and Corky chose a roast chicken with pasta lunch, our Budapest babe chose a fish dish with chips. After consuming three-quarters of the meals we desserted (had banana spilts – not blew the joint!) and walked Andi back to the Rumbach Center, where we collected our bags and left, like the James Bond’s that we are.

Taxied back to the train station after spending a sleepy end-of-afternoon in a tranquil park in the city centre. I wrote a few postcards and rested for a while as Shane did laps of the castle. Did a little bit of shopping near the train station and our train for Venezia (Venice) left Budapest at 5:45 that evening.

This journey was a quiet one, apart from the border control officers, as we passed through the capital city of Croatia; Zagreb and into the neighbouring state of Slovenia and it’s capital, Ljubljana.

Read all eight parts of Seven Capital Cities in Seven Days
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight

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