70th birthday trip, Friday 16 June; travel day 6/15

Another long day of travel. Originally, we had been going to go to Budapest via Vienna and change trains there, but I remembered that years ago we had caught a direct train, and a bit of work with the timetable showed us we still could, so I reserved two seats on the 11:24.

We decided to breakfast in the hotel (although had I realised there was a McDonald's next door we might not have - I have a shaming taste for their Sausage and Egg McMuffins!). I was very restrained and just added fruit to my normal egg and toast (bread, in this case); the Swan Whisperer, who at home  thinks two slices of toast is almost greedy (although he does have an egg when we are in the motor home), was less restrained!  He did go for a walk after breakfast, though, which I didn't!

We found the train easily enough, and it was very nearly on time (only 12 minutes late in Budapest - that's practically early!). And then a long run to Budapest via Brno and Bratislava. We bought lunch on the train - it was delivered to our seats by a very nice waitress.

I should have liked a traditional meal with Czech dumplings, but the SW, unsurprisingly, wasn't very hungry, and I didn't want our appetites to be mismatched all day, so we just had a bowl of goulash soup (very good) and I had a slice of Czech honey cake. Later the SW got some rhubarb crumble, and I had some salted almonds.

When we arrived in Budapest, we had a terrible fright as one of my hearing aids fell out! Thankfully, the other one alerted me to its loss. We dashed back to the train, but no joy, so the SW retraced our steps towards the exit and, miracle of miracles, found it, not trodden on or anything! Phew! Much thankfulnesd. I suppose my neck pillow had dislodged it slightly. 

We took a taxi to the hotel, which had honoured my plea not to make us walk up too many stairs - our room is on the ground floor! After settling in, we researched local restaurants, and I realised that it was on our first Inter-rail holiday, ten years ago now, that I had first asked Google maps about local restaurants!

The first one we tried would have been lovely, but it was far too hot, and I realised I would feel faint if we stayed there any longer, so we came away and ate in the second one. I had cabbage stuffed with mangalica pork,

and very good it was, too, washed down with Apérol spritz

, and the SW had duck washed down with red wine. Then he discovered his phone was missing, so dashed back to the first restaurant to see if he had left it there, which he had, while I paid and said goodbye. Phew!

And so back to the hotel for bed. There is a Lidl a few yards away - we could easily be at home!