We had a good breakfast before we left the pension, and I used one of the rolls, with some smoked cheese and ham to make a sandwich for today's nine hour train trip. So that, with a little bottle of wine, an apple, the last of my pistachios and some water will have to do until 18:00. We boarded the train, one of those eastern European kinds where the car is divided into compartments (but the seats are wider; in Poland it was eight to a compartment, here it is six). We shared our compartment with a nice older German woman, who immediately blocked the door with her large suitcase so no one else would enter. By god, it worked! Gotta remember that one. So we took off promptly at 9:00 passing slowly through beautiful Slovenia; villages, canyons, fields and rivers rolled by as the three of us talked, then read, then stretched out in our comfy compartment. I got up and stood by the open window. The tight valleys of pine trees turned into rolling hills, green with pine but opening up into lush green fields, which soon turned into the mixed green and brown of corn and hay fields.
She got off about 12:30 right before we crossed over into Hungary. Somehow I missed the border crossing; I vainly tried to remember what color the line is on the globes at school. Or even on the maps; I know they paint the line on the ground, right? I must have blinked right as it went by. (Or perhaps the line was green? Camouflage.) Gail and I each took half the compartment, and as the countryside rolled by we ate lunch, and it was delicious. What a relaxing day, listening to my iPod and watching the country go by, spending a lot of time hanging my hands out the window, breeze in my face. The three teenage girls in the next compartment giggled and sang little ditties, maybe advertising jingles, or TV show themes? At one stop we stop and add on several Hungarian cars and an engine, now we are a mixed train. The cute Slovenian villages have turned into cute Hungarian villages, then farms, then communist era concrete apartment blocks (let me pause here to say they were not decrepit, or trashy, or poor looking; just box-ugly in this pretty landscape. They looked out of place; strict, linear and grey in a soft gold and green landscape. In fact, amazingly to me, it is like there is no trash anywhere in Slovenia, and thus far in Hungary either.) I could tell we crossed the border, every station has a conductor wearing a red hat, the license plates have M and red, white and green, and the trains are marked MÁV-H. The letters on the signs have less ^ and ~ marks, and more ' marks. Lots of those: ÉÁ combinations, umlauts and so on. No hills now, flat farmland, drier and more dusty. Funny water towers in some towns, looking like silver flying saucers, or the martians from War of the Worlds. Twisted hay piles looking like Hershey’s Kisses. The train rolls along then just randomly stops any old place for a short break, then we zoom off again. The Budampista Spezial it is called on our tickets. At least the train itself is comfortable and in good shape.
It is fun spying in everyone’s back yard as we go by: some people stockpile, some are neat as a pin, some have animals, others a table, chairs, pool and kid toys. Everyone however has a nice garden. I can tell we are drawing nearer Budapest, there are now some newer homes mixed in the neighborhoods. The rails split, then split again and again until we are one branch in a massive steel tree bearing trains. We wind in, right here, left, left, screech to a stop and we are in Budapest!
We pick up tickets for Monday, to Bratislava, Slovakia, then stop at the ATM for whatever the local currency is (Forint, about 250 to $1 USD so I get out 50,000F which is five 10,000 bills. That is like $215USD. I can't get over that I am carrying around $10,000 bills.). We drop down a deep deep level to the metro, four stops, walk two blocks and we are home for four nights.
This place is wonderful. I remember setting it up, thinking we might need a nice place about this point in the trip. We have a room with balcony (only two rooms have balconies) overlooking the café below. The pension and café just reek of Paris, yet we are about three blocks off the Danube. It is very romantic, with a twelve foot high ceiling and the patio is just the nicest little half-circle. Anyway, a fantastic room; we settle in for an extended stay and head downstairs to the cafe for dinner. What a dinner. Gail orders avocado salad with fried ravioli and "Flute Rustikal" bread: "…the recipe has been unchanged for 200 years." I order green salad with honey-lemon vinaigrette and orange flavored duck breast with rosemary and celery puree. Half litre house white, one glass of sauvignon blanc for Gail and one glass of merlot for me, gas water with ice! What a fantastic meal to introduce us to Budapest. I guess I am feeling hungry in Hungary. I didn't want the duck to end. Or the salad. But about the time it did, thunder roared, the sky opened up, I smelled that familiar rain smell I haven't smelled in months now; the temperature plunged and it poured! Everyone else ran for cover inside the cafe, we stayed put under our little awning and ordered dessert. Lemon tart.
Rain. Coolness. After six weeks of hot hot sweaty weather, what a nice change. And to think, along the way I had considered ditching my fleece (why did I carry this damn, space taking thing anyway?). Well, we are still eating, but this might but the brakes on walking along the river tonight. What a great introduction to Budapest.
Actually, after writing that, we wandered out in the mist and drizzle for a delightful few hours along the river. I think we are in love with BudaLOVEpeast.