Vienna was not on our original list of cities, but we felt we could spare a day trip to finalise our train bookings to and from Turkey. We had a long tour of the streets of Budapest yesterday and the Railjet Austrian trains have good air-conditioning, so we would be spending the day out of the sun. The cost for a first class return trip from Budapest to Vienna would have been over 200 euros, so it was a handy use for our Eurail Pass.
We tried the ticket office in Budapest again at 8pm in case we got a clerk who knew more about the Turkish trains. The lady booked us overnight from Belgrade to Sofia on a couchette for 13 euros, but said the train from Sofia to Istanbul was private and could not be booked on the European system. She said we might be able to do it in Vienna.
We had not reserved our seats for today so we were lucky to get on board the first class carriage and grab two unreserved seats sitting opposite a young couple who were in the same situation. They turned out to be from Wakefield in Yorkshire, but had settled in Australia and lived at Terrigal for a while. He was a NAB manager and had spent several years as boss at the Carlingford branch. He was now a senior executive in Brisbane and they had a baby who was spending time with grandparents in England. We swapped travel and family stories for the entire trip. Great people.
When we were in Vienna in 2012 they were renovating the Hauptbahnhof and this time when we came through the passageways it was very modern and pristine. This was the massive departures board that people have to stand and watch to find out which platform their train will be on.
We took a queue ticket in the Reisezentrum which told us we would be served in about 7 minutes. The woman who booked for us was a complete contrast to the nasty officials in Serbia and Hungary. She explained why the overnight train from Serbia to Istanbul and the return train to Bucharest had to be booked at the place where the train departed. She handled very efficiently the other bookings we needed to get us back to Bratislava and charged us 100 euros. That was a major step forward. The rest will have to be stepping out in faith.
We had nearly two hours before our return train trip and noticed a sign for OBB LOUNGE.
We climbed upstairs, showed our Eurail Pass and relaxed with newspapers, free drinks and a cake. We felt we had returned to civilisation.
Once again we had to scramble for the last unbooked seats in First Class as the train was almost full. When we arrived back in Keleti Station the temperature had dropped below 30C and the thunder was rumbling. We spent our first money of the day at 5pm, an ice cream for AUD1 each.
For dinner we had a celebratory splurge at the Hungarian Traditional Restaurant we tried on Thursday. Excellent dinner and only 10,000 forins.
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