The station in Budapest is the biggest we’ve seen. The arched roof over the tracks and platforms is massive. The clock is as big as I am tall, but I can’t tell what time it says from that distance. Not a quip about my age, it’s just that far. The dark tells me enough.
The cab ride is fast, and it’s hard to see anything other than the streak of lights outside the window and sidewalk cafes. To get into our rental is a scavenger hunt requiring codes, multiple gates and doors, rattling keys in locks and cramming ourselves into the tiny elevator. Locked doors separate the interior spaces and I laugh about it until I try walking into someone’s apartment. We backtrack the cab ride to a spot I saw. A burger joint. I know, I know. Burgers in a foreign country? Heathen American. What can I say? It was close. I was far beyond the 27 minutes I have from the time Ashley states, “I’m getting hungry.” To the hangry woman I was trying to navigate getting something to eat with. I only tease about it. (I may have 33minutes.) No matter how much time I didn’t have, hands down, one of the best burgers I’ve had in my life. That’s not just hunger, self-preservation or lip service either.
I’m up early and raise exterior blinds? Shutters? Whatever they are. When they go up, I’m blown away. I threw open the sash, literally. The sun is rising over Liberty Bridge and the Danube. The central market is just coming to life beneath the yellow-tiled onion domes across the square. It’s a view I replay in my head just to get the same swelling in my chest and flutter in my stomach. Like going over the drop after slowly clacking to get to the top of the rise on a rollercoaster. That first look was one of many reasons I fell in love with Budapest.
The combination of Obuda and Pest in November 1873, the city gained the new moniker Budapest while growing into “global city” britches. After attack and pillage by Mongols and a hundred and fifty (ish) years of Ottoman bullshit, I think it deserved it. Now the new co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it swelled. I know, I walked it. While I couldn’t walk all 203 (ish) square miles (that’s 525 square kilometers), I walked as much as I could. It’s so big. It’s a city and a county. 2944 square miles (7626 kilometers). Yep, that’s big. But amazingly quiet. The city at night is a sleeping giant and with an apartment next to a bridge and the central market. I was grateful for it. The stars still shine in the night sky, with the city lights that wink on after sunset.
In the light of morning, I spend most of my time with my head tilted back. The buildings and sculptures mounted on them and throughout the city give it the renaissance feel. And if it isn’t Baroque, don’t fix it, as the horrible dad joke goes or a Disney film, take your pick.
We walk for miles, taking it all in. And I mean miles. Twenty-four that day. Back and forth across the Danube, boats and barges leaving wakes behind on their way up or downriver. We stop at the For Sale Pub and have some of the best food I’ve had on the trip. I talk to staff and get a photo, even though, some I won’t mention by name, try to hide behind the bar. Notes, wishes and profound statements dangle from the roof and walls. Straw covers the floor and candles light each table. A fire hazard? Yes. Worth it? Also, yes. It adds to the homey, tucked in feel of the place. I add my cards to the mix. I look for one wherever I go now, but sadly, it must be regional. You can check them out here though: www.forsalepub.hu if you’re ever in Eastern Europe, find one.
Palaces on the western riverbank are lit with the last sunset light. I dodge the trolley to get photos of it. I’ve taken hundreds of photos and I plan on going back to take more another time but, duty (or more travel) calls.
The train pulls out late and continues getting later. We get up to speed, something lets go with a sound like a pistol shot, it hisses for half a minute as the trains screeches to a halt. The hissing fades followed by a much smaller “pop”. We sit idle on the tracks. The power goes out and restarts, so does the train. It takes a few minutes to build speed before it happens again. It continues to happen and I watch the time for the next train come and go. We will miss our next headed ride headed south, even though the train manger tells us “I will call them.” She says with a measure of sureness. “They will wait.” I know they won’t wait for two or three hours. I make other plans. Back tracking to a spot I can switch our tickets to. Because now I’m an expert in Eurail wizadry. Yeah. Sure I am.
The place we can switch, after much research, is in the middle of nowhere. Just a station with nothing nearby. Thank goodness that got figured out or it would have been a night to sleep on the platform. The best option for a stop is. Slovenia? Where the hell is that? I don’t know how good you are with geography, but I’m not bad and I’ve never heard of the place that I can recall. It’s so small its hard to find on the world map I carry.
Small, but exceptional. Prosperous and beautiful at the same time. Green hills and low mountains, forests and glens in a continental climate. Continental climate is temperate in the summer, and you get to freeze your ass off in the winter. Both cheeks. Plenty of history in just this little berg, I find out. Walking through the doors and into Celje, I don’t know what to expect. The hotel isn’t far. The little town center is just across the street from the station. It’s off season in the little hamlet, if there really is a season here. There’s skiing somewhere nearby, or so the freebie flyers tell me.
Wandering well is a skill. I know, sounds weird but, it’s one I think or like to think I have and practice often. When I choose to wander without intent the ethereal happens. It can happen with intent or planning too but, it feels less like magic. Maybe it has something to do with simply letting what may present itself do just that without meddling. And contrary to the bumper stickers doing their best to ruin the wandering mantra. Some people wandering, are indeed, just lost.
Slovenia was like that. Magic. Forced to take a detour, the village couldn’t have been any better, plucked right from the pages of a fairy tale. It sits in a pass, two citadels perch on the top of ridges on either side.
The rock and trees are cut in two by the confluence of Savinja, Hudinja, Loznica and Vogljina rivers flowing through the lover Savinja Valley. The crossing of the roads connecting cities like Ljublijana, Maribor and others, along with rivers, made this, now sleepy place an important one. When the citadels were in their prime, going back millennia to Emperor Claudius. A leather foot bridge (yes, leather) connecting the Celje Citadel on one side to the top of St. Nicholas Hill, the Savinja River burbling away below, fell some time ago. Until it did, I understand some still used it. Now, they have the green light to rebuild its 505 meter span. With something better than leather, I hope. It will be the longest of its kind in the world.
Dinner in a steakhouse and some kind of jam band outside the hotel singing rock and roll in another language. The walk along the river is amazing, as is the museum. Roman era walls and columns under the glass beneath my feet. I would have missed this if my train hadn’t broken and I’d have been on time. There’s something to be said for fate at work here. It’s a beautiful place and when the footbridge is rebuilt it would be amazing to see it from that view. I might come back just to take it. Sumday.
