“Floating” Restaurant, originally uploaded by DSNelson.
The bus service in Budapest follows a pattern we found again and again during our stay; while there are rules and threats of penalties, they are completely unenforced. On Budapestian buses you are expected to purchase a ticket before boarding, however we found that the locations whereby you can purchase these tickets are few and far between, only in the city, and from machines that are almost always broken. But the driver will not sell or check tickets and as there was never any sign of conductors, it’s no wonder then why people frequently praise Budapest’s public transport system as the end result is a virtually free bus service across the city! However uneconomical this may be the buses were actually frequent and on-time which came as a culture-shock to us used to buses that never turn up on time and arrive in 3′s. However on our first day in the city we didn’t know any of this.
After nervously riding our number 8 down the hill we disembarked fearing a chastising in a language still completely alien to us. The subsequent walk took us just over a mile down the valley past Gellert hill towards the Elizabeth bridge although at the time we had no idea where we were which if I’m honest was quite liberating for I was now truly outside of my comfort zone! Budapest is in stark contrast to what we are used to back home in Manchester. Much of the city is still very old, or at least it seems so given that damage to buildings either through age or incident goes without repair and likewise there seems to be little or no effort to clean up graffiti which consequently is absolutely everywhere! Most buildings have tall security railings though this is possibly a cultural legacy more than anything as I didn’t feel even slightly threatened while walking though this strange and foreign land. Another cultural architectural phenomenon in Budapest is the balcony. Almost every building has at least one which I thought was wonderful because a balcony, a pint of beer and a book in the evening are one of my favourite combinations, sadly it seems most locals take them for granted as I didn’t see one that was in use for our whole stay.
Crossing the bridge from Buda into Pest marks a border of the old to the new; while Buda contains little of the glass and steel of new Pest contains much of it intersperced with medeaval churches and 19th-20th century architectural delights. Compared with Pest our walk through Buda was twice the distance and we crossed paths with no more than 3 people, Pest was quite the opposite with bustling crowds and plenty of traffic driving in the typical Budapest style i.e. like suicidal maniacs. To get to the city park we needed to catch the underground Metro which has 3 lines indicated by an “M” with a number 1 through 3, simple when you know but it took us about half an hour to figure this system out after trying in vain to interpret the various colours of the M-signs that turned out to be completely meaningless!
Budapest has one of the oldest underground railways in the world and it’s probably not changed much since it first opened. It is also very shallow in the ground, unlike London Underground which operates close to the inner bowels of hell, Budapest metro can be resurfaced by a strong gust of wind; I even kept a full mobile signal all along the line! The Metro has signs of automation though it’s mostly unused; you present your ticket to the staff on entering the station and make your way to the platform which is rarely more than 10 seconds walk away. The trains are reminicent of 1970′s trams and are also present on the street-level tramlines. When you stop at each station a recorded male voice mutters something incoherent (probably even to the natives) punctuated by a little jingle which reminds one of a theme park transit system, of course this made Carolynne smile – every stop! The carriages are rarely busy and we never needed to stand on any of our journey’s, completely unlike our sardine-tin experience on the London Underground on the way over to the airport! In all I figure transport in Budapest is about 30 years behind the UK however this isn’t so bad when you consider that for the last 30 years the UK’s transport system has been going backwards!
To be continued…
