The last few days of our Danube River cruise were great, but for now I’m fast-forwarding on to Croatia and fully intend to eventually fill in the blanks regarding Austria and Hungary. As river cruise-lines go, Viking Cruises is as good as any, but one can only take so much queuing for buffet meals before the thought of launching out on your own starts looking mighty attractive.

My thought in planning the third segment of our European adventure was to transition with a romantic train ride through bucolic countryside between Budapest and Zagreb, and on Sunday the 21^st we planted ourselves in our reserved window seats with the confidence and pride of seasoned travelers.

Budapest Zeleti train station with porter

Helpful porter

Budapest train station monitor

Spy #1

Spy #2

The confidence and pride lasted for an hour after departure until our non-stop train stopped at a remote station labeled “Sarobogard.” Our portly conductor waving all the passengers off the train across rough tracks and onto waiting buses followed a static-y overhead Hungarian announcements. We had absolutely no clue what was going on and no one to ask. There was great competition by the more agile among us to load their bags into luggage compartments and grab the prime bus seats. One of the bus drivers saw us struggling, took our bags and motioned us on to his bus. We rode along in our seats made even more cramped by our smaller luggage as I followed our progress on my iPhone, posting slightly frantic updates to my Facebook account without regard to the global data charges I was incurring. We shared a hope that we’d just keep heading in the southwesterly direction towards Croatia. At just over two hours, we stopped at a station labeled “Kaposvar” and reversed the process, back onto the train and into our 1^st class reserved seats. This time we were joined by some lively English 20-year-olds who kept us entertained with a variety of trivia and riddle games. In the last hour I glanced at my ticket and noticed “Autobusz: Sarobogard – Kaposvar” – uh……

Passing Hungarian town

We finally pulled into Zagreb train station an hour late and immediately spotted the smiling faces of our family – Domagoj and his girlfriend, Ivana – waiting for us on the platform. We knew we were now in good hands.

Zagreb Train station

Sunday June 21, being the first day of summer, is also World Day of Music, and as we exited the Zagreb train station a concert was underway at the Zrinjevac Park. We waited for the #2 tram that brought us directly to the Hilton Doubletree Zagreb at the city’s edge. We checked in, had a late dinner, and fell immediately into deep and relieved sleep.