Sunday evening we decided to go on our first adventure and travel to Pecs in southern Hungary. Pecs is about 3 hours away by the Intercity train and it left around 6:30 in the morning. That meant getting up really early to get to the train station, buy tickets, find the train and get on board. Trains in Hungary are generally right on time.

When I lived in Hungary, buying a train ticket was a simple thing. You went up, asked for a ticket to the city you wanted to go to and it was done. I thought it would be the same now. I was wrong. Now they have Intercity trains, Fast trains (not so fast) and Szemely trains (really slow, what we used to call mail trains) and they have additional train stations that require you to go to and possibly switch to a different train. Not knowing this, I went up and asked for 4 tickets to Pecs. What the cashier unleashed on me was a series of questions that I had no idea what he was saying. Complete trip? Student ticket? Elderly tickets? Buying a reserved seat? Completely different that what I was used to. I finally got the tickets and he indicated that we had to catch a train to Kelenfold where we would get on another train and go to Pecs. We asked the track number and he told me 13. We went to track 13 and waited. Something didn’t feel right so I asked a train ticket checker where the Pecs train was. She looked at me and pointed to a train that was just leaving. Oh boy. She could tell I was a foreigner and gave up pretty quick on helping me. Well, there goes our trip to Pecs. Not knowing what to do we found a more helpful train station worker who told us to go and talk to information in the station. We walked back to the cashiers station and I spoke to a different cashier. He told me that I could not have a refund for our tickets. Not knowing how to argue that we were told something wrong, I left. As I recall, we were walking by the original cashier and he signaled us over and he actually gave us a refund on our tickets for what I now know as the Intercity train and we kept the tickets for the next train which was a Gyors (fast) train at 7:30.

So the adventure was back on. We waited for the train and when it arrived, loaded up and off we went. Because it was a fast train it took 4 hours to get to Pecs which was not ideal but we would take it. Upon arriving to Pecs, we bought some bus tickets and got our return tickets to Budapest. We then headed off to where the town square and the main tourist attractions were.

One thing you need to know before I tell this next story, is that when the door bell for the bus or tram or metro doors goes off, you had better be on the bus or off the bus. There is no middle ground. Mom found that out the hard way as she jumped off the bus right before the doors closed with us still on the bus. She almost would have cleared the whole thing but her elbow was in the way and got slammed in the bus doors. Dad, Juli and I had to go onto the next stop and walk back to where she got off. Apparently Mom forgot the lesson we give little kids in that when you are separated or become lost, stay put. We quickly walked back to the previous bus stop and Mom was no where to be found! We briskly walked back to the square and guess who was sitting on the bench just enjoying the day. We only worried a little bit.

The city of Pecs has a long history of being conquered and reconquered. That is evident in the main square mosque which has a Muslim crescent moon below a Catholic cross. The interior of the building is covered with both religions symbolic icons. We wandered through the building, looking at the artifacts and paintings and then it happened. I caught Mom living her secret religion. That’s all I am saying about that. ; )

We then decided to get some lunch which was always an adventure in and of itself. After finding a delicious lunch at a very chic restaurant, we decided to have some ice cream. The ice cream parlors in Hungary are fantastic and so we got a few scoops. Mine was good and Juli and Dad both enjoyed their ice cream cones. Mom however didn’t agree. I’m not exactly sure what happened but as I turned around, I see Mom, in a violent fit of rage, throw her ice cream cone down on the ground. Maybe the bus door incident cause a momentary spasm. We’ll never know. Fortunately I was able to record the result of said action. I think she just wanted to get another flavor. I was afraid to ask.

We walked around a little bit more and found the Cathedral of Saint Stephen. I was asked to not take my camera monopod into the church which probably gave them the idea that I wouldn’t be able to take pictures. Yah right. She didn’t say I couldn’t take pictures but after being there about 10 minutes they turned off the lights. Who knew, like taking pictures in church is bad or something?

After coming out of the cathedral, we walked down the street and I had one of those moments where I recognized the area but didn’t remember it. As we walked further down the street I remembered that the building we were in front of was where we held church! It is interesting because I have very specific memories of my time in Hungary, but the surrounding details were fuzzy or non-existent. Only until I walked into one of those memories did everything came back to me. It was an interesting experience. Anyways, we took pictures in front of the building and made our way back to the train station.

Overall it was a good day but very tiring. We didn’t arrive back to the hotel until very late at night.