Changing trains in Budapest

Today around noon, we arrived right on time in Budapest Keleti Palyaudvar after a good night rest on board the EuroNight Wiener Waltzer from Zurich. On the train we got a small breakfast, consisting of a disgusting chocolate filled pre-wrapped croissant (which by the way didn't tast like a croissant at all), a cup of tea and an orange juice. So you can imagine we were starving upon arrival in Budapest.

So first things first, we went to a local bakery were communist procedures were still maintained. To get your slice of pie and coffee, you had to follow a very strict procedure: chose your products at the counter, pay at the cash register and go back to the counter, show them your receipt and collect your food. Luckily, we didn't have to pass at another counter to get our receipt stamped after filling out a form D436XC bis which had to be validated and signed at another counter. The triple-layered chocolate pie was really worth the effort though and the coffee tasted fantastic too.

After our late breakfast we went on to Nyugati Station to check out the local train souvenir store. Among all the railway stuff they sold tie pins with almost all types of Hungarian trains. I bought one with a Taurus locomotive in blue-yellow MÀV livery, which should go well with my blue-yellow Eurostar uniform.

As soon as we left Nyugati station, we took the tram which brought us straight to the Gellèrt mineral baths. These baths are housed in an old art-deco building, which features tons of mosaics, columns and beautiful stained glass. We enjoyed the outdoor wave bath, the outdoor thermal bath of 36°C, the indoor thermal baths of 36°C and 40°C, the indoor swimming pool, the indoor steamroom and the outdoor sauna. We spent about 4 hours in total. Time flies when having fun and looking at cute guys in their swimwear.

When our body was as clean as it never has been, we left the baths to take care of our inner selves. Szép Ilona is a wonderful restaurant, just outside the city centre of Budapest, and took great care of our mouths and stomachs. I had a wonderful veal dish with some kind of creamy mustard sauce and potato dumplings, followed by a pancake filled with orange-flavoured cottage cheese. To pour this all down we had an amazing bottle of red wine.

We left the restaurant and went back to Keleti Station to catch our train, the Dacia international night train to Bucharest. We will get off at Medias to travel onwards to Sibiu via Copsa Mica. On the train we met a German doctor who will go to Sibiu too, but he will change elsewhere (early in the morning - too early for us) and reach Sibiu a few hours before us.