Budapest Travel Tips

Here are some tips that won't make it into video form. Starting in May, BKV, the Budapest transport company announced some improvements in services. The number 6 tram that travel the ring road, will operate all night long. The tram will be monitored by guards for the rowdys. Due to this, the 906 nighttime replacement bus will be discontinued.


The airport bus 200E will continue its service until 1:15 am. No one has informed the drivers, so please do not disturb their nap by trying to buy a ticket on board. Be considerate and purchase it ahead of time.


Buses 7, 7E, 173, and 173E, all within two blocks of us will operate more frequently. Regardless of what the locals believe, this city has some of the best public transport of any major city in the world. 

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Measure, Measure, Measure

Size DOES matter, regardless of what anyone says. Before we ordered the tiles for the walls, our tile man measured and told us how many square meters we would need. It was after this that I convince Ron we really needed to redo the floor also, but it was up to us to do the measurements. We just showed the tile store the measurements and left it to them to figure out the number of boxes we needed. It was only the day before they were delivered that it occurred to me that our baseboards were also tile, not wood. After searching the tile stores' catalog again, I was assured that they did not carry baseboard tile, so called Anna, our liaison translator in a panic. She assured me it would not be a problem. The tile man would cut tiles and make a baseboard. Whew! Well, relief for a matter of minutes only, when it next dawned on me that we would not have enough tile to cover the floor and to cut up for baseboard. The tile order took two weeks. Today, this trauma was reinforced by our tile man. We decided we would get any color tiles from the Practiker store, like the local version of Home Depot. These would be hidden under the cabinets and then the saved tile from there would then be used for baseboard. We traipsed off to the store today, so he could finish up tomorrow. With our grocery trolley in hand and a giant Ikea heavy duty bag, we set off. Miracle upon miracle, Practiker had the identical wall tiles we already had. We needed two more boxes (30 pounds). We needed to pick up three boxes of grout at 5 kilos a box. For those unknowing, one kilo equals 2.2 pounds. The last item on our shopping list was two more boxes of floor tiles. We found a darker color in the same product line as what we bought for the floor already and thought this would make a nicer accent than monotone floor and baseboard. Each box is 20 pounds. I have to say that the employees at Practiker were beyond helpful and friendly from start to finish. We put the two boxes of floor tiles into the shopping trolley on wheels, but we could only fit one box of the wall tiles on top of it. The three boxes of grout and one box of wall tiles had to go into the Ikea bag. It was too heavy for either of us to lift alone. We had to each grab a handle. Now the trick was getting this on two trams and then three blocks home. By the time we reached the first tram and packed everything on, both wheels of the trolley broke off. Kaput! Never to be fixed again. We seriously thought of a taxi at the end of the line, but neither of us brought our phone. When we did get to the end of the first tram line, one of us was going to go home and call a taxi while the other waited. However, I had a better idea. We found someone waiting for the tram, a really nice African man. Explained what happend and he called a taxi for us. All that was left for us was to drag the stuff upstairs on the elevator. I think both of us were thinking heart attack by the time we finished. This is the progress made today. The electric outlets are wired, the walls were prepped, and Sandor put on all of the wall tiles today.

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Tram Ride to Opicina

The breakfast room was hopping this morning, by eight o’clock, it was full to capacity. Nine tables filled with guests, trying to get back and forth to the nourishment table, while scooting around those still seated.

We decided to take the only tram in the city, for a ride, needing only one ticket each way, for a euro each, it was a bargain. Walking the streets to get to the starting point, we noticed more stores were open today, but still plenty of them are closed yet. The tram runs every twenty minutes. Climb aboard and validate your ticket, take a seat on one of the wooden seats and don’t try to open the window. It is supposedly air conditioned, but it isn’t really, so some did try pulling down the stubborn top portion of the window to let some air in. Our goal was to take the tram to then end of the line, which is another town, Opicina.

Ascending in altitude, the panorama view became increasingly interesting with glimpses of the water. There was supposed to be the best view from the obelisk stop, one stop before the end. We thought we would stop off there on the way back. Opicina is a small village with basically one street of businesses, not much on the side streets. It is close to the Slovenia border, so many signs are in both languages. Wandering down the main street, we eventually found a restaurant and stopped for a plate of pasta. The elder owner must have a case of OCD. He put all unused chairs at 45 degree angles to the tables they were at. We were waiting for him to come rearrange our seats too. I had made a decision, not to pass up any opportunity for Italian treats. The pasta with Bolognese sauce was different from what I am used to with a minced meat clump plopped on top of the spaghetti, but tasty nevertheless.

After lunch, we started back to the tram and arrived just as it did. Riding down one stop, we disembarked at the obelisk to check out the view for ourselves. The land was artificially reforested by the Austrians in the late 1800s; there are walking trails, but not much else. Our tram tickets are only good for 60 minutes, so if we waited longer, we would have to buy new ones, but there was no machine to get them at. When the next tram arrived, we jumped on to get back to Trieste city center.

As we returned, we noticed that all of the stores that were open when we left earlier, were now closed. It seems that those that are open in August, close from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm and then reopen until 8:00 pm. The town was empty. There were not even many cars driving through, so we took this opportunity to return for a nap, but stopped for an ice cream on the way. I am working on my ice cream and pasta quotas.

After our rest stop, we went window stopping, but there really is nothing new and different. Thanks to globalization, you can find the same or very similar things all over the world. We went to a bar called The Tea Room for a popular local drink of white wine, sparkling water, and a shot of Campari. It is wonderfully refreshing on a hot day, but this evening the Boer winds were coming in fast and furious, necessitating a jacket for we tourists, while the locals were still in their shorts and short sleeved shirts.

We did our evening stroll on the waterfront to watch the sun, and then went to a pizzeria called the Copacabana. The place is huge and can easily seat 200 outside and just as many inside. We sat on the terrace, where every table was soon filled. The menu was only in Italian, but I discovered a pizza with roast beef called Stregata. I known strega is witch, so I went for it. It had a white crème sauce, mozzarella cheese, cooked kale, and was smothered in slices of roast beef. I am not certain how to say heavenly in Italian, but it was a gastronomic orgasm. Ron had cheese and pepperoni.

Plans for tomorrow are to visit another castle and then in the opposite direction, go to the only place in Italy where they had a Holocaust prison camp, complete with a crematorium. We will see if we are emotionally up for it when the time comes. Funny, when we arrived, we were not sure we would be able to fill our time here. Having so many things closed has made it interesting, but we are finding things to do without needing to rush here and there, making it utterly relaxing.

One thing I have noticed is that there are no WiFi cafés or marked hotspots and there are no Internet cafés. We have covered a great deal of the city by foot, since there has not been much else to do, so if they existed, we should have spotted them.

Another observation is that the Italians, I am guessing these are locals or Italian tourists, always dress nicely. You do not see many, not even the teens dressed in raggy clothes or even mismatched outfits. They all look like they are going to be someone’s guest and have dressed accordingly. It has fascinated me how many men wear sandals of all types, while women wear sandals, and a good number of them wear heels.

Also, the city is CLEAN. There is no litter and relatively little graffiti anywhere.

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