Krakow
Getting from Budapest to Krakow wasn’t as easy as we thought it’d be. The old-school flickering board announcing all the train departures and arrivals listed trains which should’ve already left. We were told not to worry (I guess this happens all the time in such cities?) so we stood around with some other Aussies heading to Krakow and eventually the board flickered over to our train sometime after it should’ve left. I should mention we were told not to worry by a random travel agent guy we hit up for information. The official information section was like the RTA – take a number and after we serve 20 people before you and after your train has left we’ll get to you. We went to the platform and were told the train was going to Moscow so then asked for a second opinion and eventually made it to the right carriage.
I woke up around 6am when the train should’ve been getting close to Krakow but we were stopped at a station called Bonhomie. Kinda weird to wake up with no idea of what country you’re in. I still don’t know what country it was but it would’ve been one of the ones between Hungary and Poland.
By 12.30 we arrived in Krakow only 6 hours late. The cool Polish chick at the hostel (Greg & Tom – highly recommended) sat us down to tell us how it is in her firm yet perfect English starting with: “Six hours late? I feel sorry for you.”
Getting there took so long that there’s only time to summarise what we did there….
Pierogi (cabbage & mushroom were best). Schnitzel. Duck. Tour buses. American tourists. Giant Westfield like shopping centre across the road from our hostel. Park surrounding the old town. Reading in the park. Castle. River. Churches. Contemporary Polish Photography. Cheesey traditional music live at restaurants. Yes, I mean piano accordian. Pope John Paul II tour (no, we didn’t do that). Cheap gelato. Jewish quarter. Trams. Produce markets with berries. Bikes.
Supermarkets are fun
Cheese and chocolate shouldn’t go together but that’s exactly what this is. Think of it more as cheesecake with a chocolate coating and you’ll get the idea. Called Turo Rudi, it’s a tasty little speciman from Hungary and the tip came courtesy of Eszter Hargittai’s post on Crooked Timber. She put together a whole annotated Google Map of Budapest.
I love supermarkets in foreign countries but my experimentations aren’t always successful. I went to a Krakow supermarket in desperate need of tooth floss and decided I should support the local product. After all, tooth floss is tooth floss unless you’re buying that silly satin stuff, right? Wrong. What I bought would more suitably be classified as low-grade rope. Yes, ow.
Budapest
Getting public transport from the airport to a new city always gives the most honest and raw perspective. Usually the airport line is the newest and swankiest, but not so in Budapest. The 200 bus dropped us at the metro station blue line and after dragging out luggage up a set of ourdoor stairs we had to adjust our eyes to the smoke-filled gloominess of inside. To the left was tough skinny woman (probably with no teeth) holding a puppy to her face so it could lick her, and to the right was a shop front bar, probably with poker machines as often turned out to be the case at Budapest metro stations. Then on asking for a metro map we were told it costs. I actually got quite excited by this whole scene – a new city to explore without the hordes of tourists. I’d hoped it’d be just like discovering various Asian cities for the first time.
But it’s Europe, so of course there were heaps of tourists.
There were also monuments and museums galore so I won’t mention them all. The National Gallery in the old Castle had some great 20th century paintings by unfamiliar Hungarian artists, but it was the only gallery we made it into. Luckily on the first evening a relative of Peter’s gave us a personalised drive-by tour of the sites of Budapest. Funnily enough she’s an academic in Australian Studies in Budapest and speaks with a perfectly neutral accent when speaking English.
On another evening we went north to meet another relative for dinner. He gave us an excellent post-dinner tour of an area that was a combination of 70s communist apartments, beautiful turn of the century buildings and Roman ruins discovered when constructing highway flyovers. Now that’s diversity.
Did I mention it was hot? Mid-30s is too hot to be walking around any city let alone one that is very concrete on one half (the Buda half is hilly, green and mostly residential the Pest half is flatter, more concrete and the ‘CBD’). On the first day we went to Margaret Island – a huge car free island in the middle of the Danube. On the island is Palatinus Baths, a rather impressive water park with every type of pool imaginable – wave pool, waterslides, fountains, massage jets, lap pools and on and on. Quite fun. Of course, no Hungarian attraction is complete without the ability to buy beer, sausages, and deep fried bread (Langos) with sour cream.
On our last afternoon we did the final relative visiting, this time with a feisty 96 year old great aunt I’d heard a lot about. Her apartment not far back from the Danube was covered with books and paintings. As well as Hungarian she speaks English, German, French and Russian – she mentioned that being able to read Dostoevsky’s work in it’s original language was inspiration for her learning Russian. Good thing that after a week in Paris I was already comfortable with my inability to speak anything other than English.
I should also mention that all above occasions involved lots of food – have more biscuits, have more beer, do take a bigger piece of foie gras (ew), etc etc.
And oh how I wished for those extra biscuits when we were delayed for 6 hours on our overnight train to Krakow. But that’s another story.