Budapest Day 4 - Godollo Palace, overnight train to Prague

Dad in front of Budapest Keleti train station

Keleti train station

10/13/2014

We went to Godollo Palace today via the train at Budapest's main train station, the Keleti. The train station is absolutely gorgeous—I’m not sure what people were complaining about online, about it being old and run down. It is old, but a good kind of old. All that beautiful glass, the arches and statues, the Victorian era feel…

The HEV suburban rail and the MAV train both go to the Godollo train station--it's the same station for both HEV and MAV. However, to take the HEV, you need to use the metro and transfer at the Ors Vezer Ter station, which was a hassle and also more expensive than just buying the MAV train ticket in the first place. Well, it was more a hassle to us because our hotel's so close to the Keleti. But I guess if your train isn’t close to Keleti train station, then the HEV would be a better bet.

One way trip:

Metro 350 forints (if you're traveling more than 3 stops) 

+ 

HEV 560 forints (HEV tickets are sold based on kilometers traveled. Godollo is almost 29 km away from Budapest, so it's the most expensive bracket of tickets) 

= 

910 forints

~~Versus~~

MAV train 740 forints for the longer trains (there's 3 trains going to and leaving from Godollo every hour. Only one is express, though it only saves you 10 minutes each way). The express train is 895 forints each way. 

BUT. 

We walked to the Keleti station, and I didn’t know exactly how to buy tickets, so I went to the ticketing counter. The ticket agents don’t speak English—the first ticket agent made a hand motion of saying she was busy, so she couldn’t help me. I went to line up in another line, and she started taking care of the customer in back of me! WTF!

Reminds me of Japan.

The second agent charged me 895 florints per person for the train tickets. I can only conclude that she couldn’t understand English, but as I was pointing to a piece of paper with “Godollo Palace” on it, she gave me the more general/less restrictive option just to get me out of her hair.

And go figure, after I bought the tickets, I saw the automatic ticket machines. Duh.

It was a short and sweet train ride--I thought 40 minutes was ample time for me to catch a quick nappie, but nope, out of luck. The scenery of the passing countryside kept us entertained, the rollicking hills, the autumn trees, horses and livestock. The conductor comes by regularly to validate people's tickets by scribbling some chicken scratch on the ticket, so make sure you buy a ticket! The train stops first at Godollo Allami Telepek station, but that will be a far walk if you try to get off there (it goes to the bee-keeping facilities of Godollo Palace). Get off at Godollo. 

Once we got off, we noticed that there aren't any walkways to connect the train station to the main road. Everyone--and I mean everyone--just walked across the railway tracks to get to the other side! That's three railway tracks! As if it was an everyday occurrence. That'd be totally illegal in America! Alas, I was too slow to whip out my camera. 

The signs aren't very good as to how to get to the palace, and there's a whole park in between the train station and the palace. We decided to just follow everyone else. Not that there were too many people going that way, but hey, there was nobody else to follow. It was a nice 10 minute stroll across the park, and it's a very unassuming palace. There's a winding cobblestone path shaded by trees blocking the entire view of the palace, and until you climb up the little hill, you won't see it at all:

But once you do:

Godollo Palace

Godollo was the summer palace for Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph. We saw it in the Sisi movie and I’ve been wanting to come ever since. She loved the Hungarians, and felt more at home in the Hungarian countryside than she ever did in Austria. We were able to see their rooms (reconstructed, as the Romanians looted everything during WWII, and what they didn’t get, the Russians finished off for them), complete with the same shade of violet damask she chose for wallpapering. *ahem cough cough…HINT Angel!*

The entrance ticket is 2200 HUF, and the audioguide is 800 HUF, which I thought was pretty worth it. The audioguide took us through a history of the palace, from the days of Count Grassalkovich—the first owner of the palace. By currying favor with Maria Theresa, Count Grassalkovich was able to grow his power and wealth to the point he amassed 5000 acres at Godollo alone. And that's only one of his many properties.

But wealth only stayed in his family for 3 generations (the golden rule, isn't it?) and after his grandson fell into debt, the estate was taken over by the government.

After WWII, Godollo was transformed into a senior citizen living facility and at different times, ideas were bounced around of what to do with the palace. They finally decided to reconstruct it to its former glory in the 1990s and now thousands of people are able to come and enjoy the summer palace of Sisi. Godollo is the number 1 attraction for Austrians visiting Hungary, cuz go figure, Sisi.

Photography is verboten though, so I wasn’t able to get pictures of the interior.

Budapest as a city is very quiet. There are tourists, but the city's large enough that there aren't too many tourists all concentrated in one area. There's no pedestrian congestion and it's a quiet, peaceful place, most the time (unless you get a punk teenager who's trying to show off his driving skills and screeching his car down every street lane, which we saw--and heard very painfully--once). But Godollo is overrun with tour groups. Japanese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, you name it, they all show up. Some are loud and obnoxious, some are respectful of people trying to hear the damn audioguides.

I was reading the plaques in one room and admiring the intricate weaves of a Turkish rug when a French tour guide said, very pointedly to me, "Done?" Geesh. She wanted to stand where I was standing so she could address her group and point to the various artifacts in the room. Hey, last I checked, I paid too, didn't I? I can't even read the damn plaque now? Rude. Why can't you stand five feet away? Why do you have to stand exactly where I'm standing? 

There were a lot of field trips with little kids running around too. And I thought going on a Monday would be quiet. 

For lunch, we had a delicious sandwich in the Godollo courtyard. Angel made it earlier from the hotel's breakfast bar. As well as a chocolate croissant, also from the yummy breakfast.

We walked around the vast Godollo parks after lunch, where Sisi used to ride her beloved horse. We had wanted to go to the stables, but it was closed for the day. I think it only opens during the weekends and they do equestrian shows.

Statue of Maria Theresa

Entrance of Godollo

Entrance of Godollo

Angel had read in the one of the descriptions at Godollo that there was a contest to make a statue of Sisi in 1913, and the winner's statue is on display at the Buda side of the Erzsebet Bridge. We'd walked past this bridge multiple times the past two days, but since (we thought) it was a dinky little bridge, we never thought to cross to the Buda side and check that part out. 

And then we figure out that Erzsebet = Elisabeth in Hungarian. Doh. 

Since we finished early at Godollo (we spent 3 hours there), and we had a little time before our train tonight, we rushed back to Budapest to check out the statue. 

Only, we couldn't find it. :T

What we found instead was a beautiful waterfall, with steps leading up to a bridge:

And heck, since we now have time, we might as well squeeze in a last meal of foie gras. We were detracted by this:

 McD's has a foie gras burger! No freakin way! (Libamaj = foie gras in Hungarian)

The burger is 1190 forints. Not bad for a foie gras burger, eh? The McD's is next to the Astoria metro stop, if anyone's interested in trying it out. I don't think all the McD's carries it, but Astoria's pretty posh.

We seriously stopped to consider whether we should eat at McD's or go back to the restaurant from yesterday. At the end of the day though, who knows the next time we'll be here, so might as well stuff our stomachs full of foie before leaving. So we went back to Voros restaurant:

...where I got the same thing as the day before

Seared foie gras with poached pear, blueberry sauce, honey and fresh salad

Mom's - Beef Tournedos with foie gras and portobello mushroom in a red wine reduction

Voros Restaurant

Oh yeah...foie gras, baby!

So Dad ordered the Transylvanian Wood Plate, which is a beef tenderloin with Mangalitsa pork neck chop and foie gras. This is a specialty by a famous Hungarian restaurateur, Karoly Gundel (who incidentally also lent his name to the famous Hungarian pancakes):

Transylvanian Wood Plate

Do you see the pork neck chop? Cuz I certainly didn't. I thought that king's crown was a slice of pineapple...turns out, it's a whole piece of pig fat. Back when I was a wee lass, I'd scarf down that sucker in no time. As it was, I could barely eat a bite of it before I felt ready to throw up. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious...just way, way too fatty. Just look at it!

Tipping in Budapest is 10% of the bill. If you pay by credit card, the waiter will take a handheld machine to your table and you tell him how much you want to swipe on your card. The amount you tell them should include tip. There's none of the American style of 1.) swiping your card, 2.) waiter giving you the receipt, 3.) you adding the tip, 4.) then the waiter swipes that amount later. 

There are, however, some restaurants in Budapest that add on tip automatically. This will be stated as a separate line item on your bill under "Servi" something (it's a long word), but you should get the gist. Voros has a compulsory tip, though the percentage changes from waiter to waiter it seems--the day before, we were charged 15%, tonight, around 12%. 

Drinking your own water bottle is not allowed in restaurants in Budapest. At the first restaurant we went to in Budapest, I'd tried asking for tap water. The waiter countered with, "Only sparkling available." Grrrr. I hate sparkling water. I hate anything carbonated! At Voros, I was so thirsty, I took out my water bottle to have a sip. The waiter was watching (so Angel says), but he didn't say anything. Later, Mom takes hers out to drink and the waiter comes by to say that it's not allowed. Well, how come nobody has regular water??? It's one of the things that irritates me about traveling. Most Europeans drink sparkling water or beer with their meals, and those are the two things I'd rather barf than drink. All I want is plain water. Is that too much to ask?

The waiter was nice about it, so it didn't ruin our meal. And honestly, it's something I've been bracing for, since we usually eat meals on the go or in the comforts of our hotel room. Restaurants aren't usually are our thing, for precisely this reason. But beyond this little hiccup, the meal was wonderful.

We were all so full after dinner, so it was a miracle that Angel walked past a bakery and still wanted to buy something. Lucky for her (or smart of her, since she knew down to the forint how much cash I had on hand), I had barely enough cash to cover the pastry. Punk.

Pastry with a heapin stuffin full of cream cheese

How--how in the name of God--does she have the room to eat that?! *sigh* To be young again...

Angel had 5 pieces of foie gras at dinner; she swiped Dad's and Mom's off their plates. Then she zoomed in on my last piece. Spoiled little brat. (Well, ok, I couldn't exactly finish the last piece, but I'd have stuffed it in anyway. Angel said very indignantly that foie gras is not meant to be "stuffed down" and it was a waste for me to eat it.)

We dropped by the Erkel Theatre on the way back to our hotel, as it's only a block away from the hotel. This is the ballet we saw the other night:

Merry Widow ballet

And then it was off on the overnight train to Prague. I gotta tell you, I was bracing for the worst. I still have nightmares of the Venice overnight train--mosquitoes, jolting ride, dirty, dirty, dirty. This was a dream in comparison, though it was still pretty bumpy in a couple of places. 

We arrived a bit early at the Keleti for our train--it leaves at 8:05pm, and we were there by 6:30pm. The information booth lady said that the platform usually isn't announced until 1/2 hour before the train departs, so we stood around waiting for an hour. Better early than late though, right?

I collected the "official" tickets from the automated blue ticket machine (different machines from the ones where you can buy tickets) by punching in my 10-digit confirmation numbers. When I first purchased the tickets online, they said to NEVER give out the confirmation numbers to anyone, even the train conductors. Because there are scams where "train conductors" will ask you for it, but they aren't actually train conductors.

After I just finished warning Mom, Dad, and Angel that we'd better watch out for pickpockets and scam artists because online, everyone says that the Keleti is like Rome's train station (aka ghetto and shady, full of scamming gypsies), a man approaches us to ask if we're going on an overnight train. I automatically said "yes" because he wore a bright yellow MAV vest. I thought he was an official train employee. 

Angel was next to him, frantically shaking her head at me.

Dumb me, it slowly dawned on me that this might be a scam artist too. Though he did have a cart, and his vest did say "Porter" on it. But we'd been scammed once in Rome and I wasn't going to take the risk of it happening again and having it sour our vacation. So I said "no." Right after I'd said "yes."

He gave me a weird look and walked off.

Angel said later that none of the other train employees were wearing vests, including the workers/porters on our train. Plus, she said he was missing half his teeth and his clothes were scruffy.

So lesson learned. Do as I say, not as I do.

Cabin a deux overnight train

I would have liked to fly from Budapest to Prague, but it's crazy expensive. I think the airline has a monopoly on the route, so it's something like $500 USD per person for this short journey (short by flight--1 hour--versus train, anywhere from 7-10 hours). 

I had tried convincing the parents that, to save money, we should get a 3-person couchette for us girls and Dad should share a room with another man. It'd save us about 100 euros, if I remember correctly. They were so against the idea, so obviously, I had to buy the most expensive berths--the 2 person sleeping car. If you buy the tickets right when they become available (I think 2 months in advance), it's 59 euros per person. There's a limited number of those relatively "cheaper" tickets, then it goes to 69 euros. Of course, you'll have to deal with the not-so-English-friendly MAV website of booking the tickets. Rail Europe will try to sell you these overnight tickets for a ridiculously expensive price. I think they tried to sell it to me for 140 euros. PER PERSON.

Screw you, Rail Europe. I'll figure out the damn MAV website, thankyouverymuch.

Later, as we arrived in Prague and got off the train, I noticed that all the 2-person sleeping cars were Asians and all the cheaper couchettes were Caucasians. Guess we're more Asian than we thought. :T

There's a "posher" restroom for the 2-person sleeping cars...complete with shower. The Cantonese couple a few doors down, the husband beat us to the bathroom and took a freaking looooonnng ass shower...which meant Angel and I couldn't use the nice restroom and had to go to the yucky bathroom in the next car, that, yup, stank of urine. 

Then, as Mom's trying to get into the restroom (the door handle's really hard to open--both Angel and I couldn't figure it out. Or, we lacked the strength), the Cantonese husband's wife comes up behind her and says that, as Mom's only using the bathroom, and that as she has to wash her face and brush her teeth, Mom should use the restroom next door. The wife opens the door adjoining the cars and ushers (pushes) Mom through. She then goes back to the nice restroom so she can use it herself. WTF??? When Mom told us later about this, I said to her that she should stop being so nice to people. Aka: she should've told that lady where to shove it. Mom was in line first!

WAIT YOUR TURN, LADY.

Anyhoo, tips for next time:

If you take the metro, you can buy a pass of 10 tickets for 3000 HUF, much like the cheaper carnet tickets in Paris. If your stop is more than 3 stops from your point of origination, you pay 350 HUF. Less than 3 stops, it’s 300 HUF.

I forgot this little tidbit going to the bridge earlier today, so we paid 350 HUF each for a trip that was only 2 stops. ;(

Also, 

Budapest in October is like the Autumn Tiger heat wave of Taiwan. It's freakin hot. I mean tank top and shorts hot. But as I'm allergic to the sun, I had to wear things to cover up and it was NOT comfortable. Nighttime isn't even a wee bit cold.