Getting to Budapest

A direct train to Budapest, Hungary from Zagreb, Croatia shouldn’t be hard right. Train leaves Zagreb at 10am then gets into Budapest at 4.30pm.

Wrong.

9.35am Arrive at the train station glad to be out of the pouring rain. Hmm that 30 next to the train on the departures board might mean it’s delayed

10am So the train will be late

10.15am Approached by a random guy asking if we’re going to Budapest “umm yes?” Tells us to follow him to a train parked down the way
10.20am Random man on the train asks what we’re doing “isn’t this the train to Budapest?” He shrugs, we head back down the platform to wait.

10.30am I think this is our train pulling up, quick get two seats together. Lots of free seats? Okay we’ll take one.
10.40am The train is moving, hooray! Ticket collector comes to check our tickets. Turns out we’re in first class and our tickets for second, oops.

11.30am The trains slowing down. Here comes the conductor “Budapest, autobus” umm okay? So off we get with the rest of the train. It’s pouring with rain and we run across towards where three buses are parked “Budapest?” He nods.
11.40am Back on the road, this time on a bus. Starting to feel a bit peckish. Snack time?

1.15pm  Bus is turning into a train station. Yay! Maybe we’ll get back on the train now
1.20pm Everyone headed to Budapest in now standing I a car park looking confused. Where do we go from here?
1.25pm Turns out we needed to get onto another bus, because we can’t expect that first bus to go to far can we?

2.10pm Pulling into another train station. This time I know we’re getting on a train. The guy on the bus told us. But which one?
2.12pm  Lots of confused looks as he yells out instructions. “I think he said first carriage?”
2.20pm Sitting on the train, time for some rice cakes and cold spinach borek. Yum.
2.50pm Trains due to leave.
2.59pm Train leaves

4pm So I’ve eaten, had a can of red bull, drafted a blog and read.. Now what?
4.35 Trains stopped. Time to get on the next bus.

5.35 The bus has stopped, out we get. This should be a train direct to Budapest, oh so they say. Time to find a seat. None in second… Fine I’ll take one in first, I deserve it after all this changing.

7.15pm That sign says Budapest, I think we could be here Huzzah! and only 9 hours later.

**we thought we had it bad travelling since 9.30. Another couple had started at 5am from Ljubljana, thinking this direct train would be better the a couple of stops of the Ljubljana train. Boy were they wrong. And another two had come from Poland on an overnight train and still had to get on another one after this! To add to their bad day, the last two also lost an iPhone somewhere during the day the had two months of travel photos on.