After two nights in Krakow where we visited Auschwitz, the salt mines and a shooting range, Mark and I were Bratislava bound via the 10:47 to Budapest. Or Prague. Confused? So was I.
When I booked the tickets with reserve seats, I was unsure as to whether we had to change in Bohumin, Czech Republic. There appeared to be a 30 minute wait in Bohumin and one website suggested we change train as it continued to Prague but another sold it me as a direct route. Either way, 30 minutes would be ample to figure it out and I wasn’t about to miss out on the early bird price of 93 PLN (about £17.50) while I dilly dallied. A truly amazing price for both us to travel about 350 miles.
On the day, things were equally confusing. We arrived at the correct platform for the 10:47 to Prague/Budapest. This baffled me as they are in two very different directions from Krakow and I was getting rather nervous.
We set about finding our seats. Once we found them, after sitting in the wrong carriage, we found someone doing the same by sitting in ours. After a brief interchange, I asked the guard and she explained that they were, indeed, our seats and that these three carriages were going to Budapest (via Bratislava) and the other three were going to Prague. Confusion over, the train would split in half at Bohumin and everyone would have a direct journey. Phenomenal by any standard.
We had the most pleasant journey possible due to the conversation from four travellers on the opposite table. A Danish couple headed to Budapest, a French translator meeting friends in Bratislava and a Ukrainian woman headed home with suitcases full of things she can’t get due to the war. As always, the English spoken was exceptional and really drew attention to the lack of languages spoken by the English. I blame the Americans for spreading English around the world through film, TV and music but I’m grateful for it.
Bohumin arrived in what felt like next to no time and Mark headed off the train in search of supplies as the dining car was not operating. He returned with cold drinks and snacks but I needed tea so headed to the little bistro on the main concourse. As I was paying for our tea and coffee, my phone began to ring. It was Mark telling me not to panic but the train had split in half and was now on platform three, not where I had left in on platform one. Me, the French girl, Judy and the Danish girl headed back towards the platforms and stopped to check to board. We were leaving in ten minutes from platform four. The phone rang again! It was Mark, again telling me not to panic but the train had left me. I thought he was teasing me and I confidently told him I had ten minutes yet but then the Danish girl’s phone rang and she was also informed that we had been left behind. They were half a mile down the track! I felt sick! Mark informed me that he would get off at the next stop and make his way back for me just in time for the train to slow and come back to platform four! Crisis over but for a few minutes, we sincerely thought I been left in the Czech Republic! We laughed a lot when I boarded the train as this is exactly the kind of adventure I was looking for! Two hours later and we were in Bratislava so we bid farewell to our fellow passengers and laughed again about our ordeal.
You can’t get rid of me that easily, Mark!