New Year's Budapest
I want to share my impressions about the New Year's tour in Hungary "Real New Year's Hungary", which took place on 29.12. 2006-03.01. 2007, the tour was organized by the company "Accord-Tour".
It all started with a meeting at the train station in Lviv on December 29, we were simply not met (although our representative promised it). Taking our suitcases, we went to seek the truth on the square in front of the station. On the porch of the station, we saw a large group of people, as it turned out, they were tourists with one of the representatives of the Accord Tour company. We began to figure out our further actions, because in the morning we still had to have a tour of Lviv.
The representative of the company told us that our bus was waiting for us at the square, the gathering of vacationers would be at the "patch", where all the buses would be at 9:30. There was no bus at 9.30, 9.40, or 9.50. Everyone walked together on the street for 40 minutes and looked out for which bus our tour number would suddenly appear on, namely 704. At about 10.00, the bus nevertheless appeared and we went on an excursion.
I liked the tour conducted by the Lviv guide, the city is beautiful, with a centuries-old history and sights. Thanks!
The tour ended at 3 o'clock and we still had time to walk along the old streets of the city, as well as visit the local catering.
The gathering of vacationers, which took place at 17:30, took place without a bus, and no one could answer the question when it would arrive; our "precious" bus arrived after 18:00, although departure was scheduled for 18:00. But already everyone was happy from the very fact of his arrival, loaded onto the bus in 10 minutes, and we "safely" went to Hungary.
Moving to the border did not take much time and effort. The people refueled with cognac and rested calmly. The only thing that interfered was the flowing water on the windows of the bus, because. double-glazed windows were single and strong condensation accumulated on the windows (we were already sick of wiping it, and the sleeve of the sheepskin coat was soaked through to the border), plus those sitting in front were lying on our knees, because the distances between the chairs were not calculated even for my height of 168 cm, there were no folding tables on the chairs either.
True, we must pay tribute to the drivers, they drove us very well, without extreme sports and excesses. (Drivers 5 plus).
The leader of our group Pavel, the man turned out to be very young, not yet experienced, he has everything ahead, organizational skills are 0. But why experiment on vacationers. It was rare to get a clear answer from him to the questions posed, and it was simply impossible for those who sat after the second entrance to shout at him. It seemed that he hears everything in general, but simply does not want to answer, because. My voice is loud and resonant, if I shout, then the neighbors' ears are pawned, but then even I could not get through to him.
The border was crossed well, quickly, without incident.
The next stop was the Baths in Miskolc-Tapolca. I really liked the baths themselves, only they are designed for only 100 people, provided that 20 people get into the locker room at the same time, because. there are only 20 changing cabins. But we were brought there by about 20 buses - that's 40 people in each.
And this crowd at the same time runs into a small locker room, and then not very large baths, it resembles the Primorsky beach in Yalta at the height of the season.
Everything would be fine if they told us the system of lockers and changing rooms, when you stand in a sheepskin coat and boots, and people in swimsuits and swimming trunks run around you, you don’t feel very good, although I was not alone, there were a hundred of us.
In Hungary, there are no separate women's and men's changing rooms - this is one large room with lockers and changing cabins, so without a free cabin you change like at the station in the central hall. From the baths themselves, the impressions are very good, but why take everyone to one place at the same time, I don’t believe that in Hungary you can’t find other baths, albeit simpler, but with fewer people. Moreover, we all left at the same time, so at least we planned different times for visiting buses. And when we were already getting ready, changing clothes no longer in the locker rooms, but wherever necessary, decorous Germans began to come with children in dressing gowns like white people, and we, as always, all in a crowd and running.
Having safely visited the Baths, our bus went to Budapest.
We drove quietly and calmly, but not having reached 20 km. to Budapest, our bus broke down, and it was not a trifling breakdown, but rather serious. It's good that they broke down exactly near the technical stop on the autobahn. The drivers worked well, two more Accord buses immediately stopped, the drivers agreed and after 30 minutes a bus (of another group) arrived for us, everyone loaded it together, but then Accord itself and its organizers in Lviv intervened. A command was received that another bus had already left for us, and we had to get out of this one. Frightened people unloaded from the bus back to the parking lot and with optimism began to wait for the next bus, and this one naturally turned around and left. So 30 minutes passed, the people began to freeze and get something to keep warm, after another half an hour they began to make a fire. And on the street it is frosty, although not strong, but -3 C, -5 C somewhere.
Pavel steadfastly answered all questions about where the bus was going, but in Budapest there are heavy traffic jams in the center, he cannot pass. For all the time after my stay in Budapest, I did not see a single traffic jam, the roads there are wide and designed for a large flow of cars. But Pavel began to stay away from the group, because. they began to cast sidelong glances at him. After another hour (total 2 hours) of being in the fresh air, optimism began to fade. If we knew that the bus would arrive only after 3.5 hours, no one would have left the previous bus anywhere, but who knew that. In total, we walked on the street for 3.5 hours. During this time, the local police joined us, because fires cannot be lit on the highway, and our men (God forbid they did a great job and the fire was enviable, but it was already the only place where you could warm up). And although I was in a warm sweater, a sheepskin coat, and after drinking wine, the chills had already begun to pound me.
Pavel contacted someone, or pretended to. But for some reason it didn't work out well for him. The group itself began to call all the phones, but Lvov was stubbornly silent. The organizer of the tour in Budapest was constantly out of the zone and communication with her was lost. When people managed to get through to Lviv, they could not say anything intelligible from them, we only heard the following: “How many hours are you outside, and how many degrees are you outside. ” No one knew when the bus would arrive. We must also take into account that we were after the Baths.
At the beginning of the 4th hour of our festivities, Pavel issued a sacramental phrase to the question "Where is the bus? " he replied, “Well, they can’t leave us here for a while, someday they will come! ”. Everything, it was a complete miss. The only hope was for the local police, who had also been walking with us for an hour and a half. And suddenly Pavel shouts out the bus is coming, but it wasn’t there, it wasn’t ours. But about 20 minutes later, the bus still appeared.
On this day, we still had to go on a tour of Pest, and a boat trip on the Danube. After walking along the autobahn, of course, no one wanted anything anymore, and everyone, rather frozen and tired, refused from the Danube. And Pavel said that we would do a tour of Pest tomorrow morning. Everyone agreed and were delighted, but it was not there. It turns out that the agency does not have the right to change the program, even with the consent of the entire group. And please go on a tour today. So you can freeze people for 3.5 hours on the street, and then drag them on another excursion. Of course, it was possible not to go to it, but we would not have seen Pest then.
The hotel "Stadion", where we were accommodated, fully met our expectations - large, spacious, rooms, normal, fed decently, there was a pool, a sauna, this was included in the price of our stay.
The next day passed without incident. We visited Buda and the local supermarket and went to get ready to celebrate the New Year.
A separate story about the New Year's program! We were not only surprised, but shocked. Type "banquet" cost us 80 euros. If for this money we had to overcome obstacles, "fight" for Russian salad and some other snack, as well as for champagne to celebrate the New Year in Ukraine, then the organizers achieved their goal. All the buses of the Accord were collected in the "palace", maybe there was still someone who was not known. Most of the tourists were from Ukraine, although there were also Russians, the premises themselves are not provided for such a number of visitors.
The promised cultural program of national and Latin American dances was at the level of the “Culture and Leisure Club of the village of Zashchepino somewhere in the year, like 88”.
At first there was a buffet, namely, a fight near the table for Olivier salad who gets it. Exotic, however, where would you comrades still fight on New Year's Eve for Olivier. The same thing happened with champagne, because. if it was still there for the Russian New Year, then it had already ended before the Ukrainian one. And I didn’t even think that I would find champagne for our New Year, but I was very lucky - just at that time the people finished off the barmaid, and she still split into several bottles, in general, I got my 50 grams. After the celebration of the Ukrainian New Year, there was nothing to do there, and we left in search of the best on the street. It would be better if we left immediately, but the money has been paid. We were already at the hotel at 1.30 local time, looked at the light, and went to bed. This is how the New Year passed and the “Royal Night” for 80 euros.
01.07 As always, we left the hotel late, although everyone was on the bus at the specified time.
"Oceanarium" liked, but again everything is very fast.
Then we were brought to the jewelry factory, although it was on the program after Szentendre, and we lost no less than three hours there.
By 18:00 we arrived in Szentendre, the marzipan museum, of course, made an impression, the guides of other groups gave their wards the necessary information, we, as always, obtained it ourselves. The tour of the city took place at night, so it was difficult for us to appreciate the beauty of the old streets, small churches, museums. And then 30 minutes were allocated for the purchase of souvenirs, most of the shops were already closed, so they managed to buy ours.
02.07 Last day of stay in Hungary. Check-out from the hotel seemed to go without problems, but again we waited for some 40 minutes for some reason. there was little time, we ran into the first restaurant we came across and managed to eat only goulash soup (at least something). And then we went to the Valley of Beauties, where a wine tasting took place, they offered 5 types to choose from, and then in the same cellar they bought the one they liked.
The people rebelled and nevertheless sat down in a cafe and ate, like people, for the first time on the whole train.
At the same time, the guide tried in every possible way to expel people from there, citing the fact that lunch was not provided for in the program. And the fact that people for 4 days could not taste the national cuisine, and generally wanted to eat, did not bother him much.
Moving Debrecen. Water park "Akvatikum" - a good water park, quite free, that's where they visited the thermal springs, of course for an additional fee. And on the way back, we were in a hurry all the time, Pasha, he scared that we would spend 8 hours walking at customs, customs went through very quickly. The rest of the road passed uneventfully.
03.07 We arrived in Lviv very, very early. Everyone unloaded from the bus, said goodbye like family.
We walked for another 2 hours until coffee shops open.
Have a great rest:
- steeplechase for 5 days.
- and this strange phrase "It is not planned by the tour program" is an answer to a request to stop and eat somewhere.
- there are no technical stops either
- late departure for all excursions
- shocking new year
- inexperienced guide
Thank you to the resourceful and fun group that saved this holiday.
There is a wonderful company "Akkord-tour", which has the best tours in Hungary.
And the motto: "Guaranteed departures + high quality service = excellent organization of the tour" - this is clearly not about you.