Budapest where even the best laid plans can go wrong

Adventures on Budapest transport system.

Days often begin with high expectations, excitement and the best laid plans for the next adventure. Then it all seems to go AWOL without any effort from yourself.

Today that happened to me in Budapest. I had a plan, I knew how to get there with a tourist bus, expensive but did include entrance.

My planned destination, Statue Park, some 10 km outside the city.

This was my forth or possibly fifth visit to Budapest, on those occasions if I had time between work commitments I also aimed to visit the park.

Today I had a day to spare. The tourist bus leaves at 11.00 and 15.00 from Deak ter. My helpful hotel receptionist wrote out in neatest upper case English, all I needed to know

Take the number 7 in direction of Etele Ter, a terminus then look for a yellow bus going to Erdor, these place names of course did not look like this in Hungarian. Tickets for the city buses, purchase from a news kiosk.

Tickets for the local bus had to be purchased at the terminus.

Tickets bought, stop found, letting a couple of number 7’s pass with out the final destination I had been given on their boards. Time to ask, a couple of blank looks followed.

Missed the 11.00 tourist bus by now.

Clutching my 300ft ticket I boarded the number 7. Forty minutes later still clutching my ticket, having no idea who to show it to.

Built in natural directions were telling me the bus had gone the wrong way, checking the number 7 buses travelling the other direction I still saw none with the destination I had been given.

Finally somewhere out in the parts of Budapest that looked as if they were the locations used for filming Munich, it was filmed here. I left the bus and crossed the street, boarding the next 7 determined to ride to its destination, hey I might have just got on a bus going the wrong direction. 

Oh no I hadn’t this bus terminated 45 minutes later, not a yellow bus to be seen.

No worries there is a tourist bus leaving at 15.00, I’ll bite the bullet and get that.

Another bus ride back to town, still with the original ticket crumpling between my fingers, a selection in pristine condition in my wallet.

Wandering backstreets to Deak ter, discovered you could just wander into a shop and show your interest in purchasing automatic weapons and some serious ammunition for said weapon. Along with some good second hand record stores.

There was no tourist bus at 15.00 during the winter, only 11.00, so a big thanks Eyewitness Travel for that hopeless bit of information. The existence of the 15.00 bus managed to keep my hopes up as I traversed the city’s hi-rise hinterlands.

Imagining I would be able to have some kind of serious comment on the psychogeography of Budapest from looking on fascinated by the blocks of flats to my left and right.

The statue park is on my hit list next visit, maybe I will take the tourist bus, or even a taxi.

The park is a final resting place for the socialist statues that adorned squares, parks, street corners, and public buildings and just about everywhere during the Communist rule of Hungary, until 1989.

When the Communist rule ended most countries destroyed the statues. Hungarians with a little business savvy put them all in a park out of town so tourist could pay to get there and pay to get in and look at them. Once there you can spend a lot of money on Communist Years memorabilia. I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff, but do find the passing of large amounts of money for such items has a certain irony.

That of course is if the tourist is smart enough to get himself there.

This tourist will get there next time as he has had a good look at his bus map and found the bus he should have been directed was number 7E.

Again bus number 7E, looking forward to pointing this out to my friendly receptionist in the morning.

I did come across a great relic later in the day, the right hand of King St Stephan, he died in 1038, but his mummified hand is housed in St Stephan’s Basilica.

I love a holy relic.

Tomorrow I return to Endmoor by van, driving back with a friend who has made a delivery here this week.
Keep an eye out for those adventures. Off to find a tv to watch Arsenal now.


Sean

www.headtofoot.eu