Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
before catching the night train to Budapest; the entire journey takes around twenty hours in
total. A standard second-class
return ticket
on this route costs around £320. An alternative
is to go via Brussels, Cologne and Vienna: it involves more changing of trains and takes up
to twenty-four hours but the views along the Rhine Valley are delightful. There are discounts
for students, and those under 26 or over 60.
A
trainpassfrom
InterRail (
interrail.eu
) or Eurail (
eurail.com
) - both cover Hungary
- makes it convenient to take in the country as part of a wider rail trip around Europe.
RAIL CONTACTS
European Rail
UK 020 7619 1083,
europeanrail.com
.
Eurostar
UK 0843 218 6186,
eurostar.com
.
Rail Europe
UK 0844 848 5848;
raileurope.com
.
By bus
Eurolines (
eurolines.co.uk
)
operates two
buses
a week directly from London to Budapest,
which take around 28 hours. Otherwise, you can change in Vienna. A standard return fare
costs around £140, though advance deals and special offers can bring this down considerably.
Although by no means a particularly comfortable journey, buses are air-conditioned and have
on-board toilets. The usual route is to take the ferry across the Channel to Calais and then on
via Brussels and Vienna.
Driving to Budapest
Driving
to Hungary from the UK can be a pleasant proposition, particularly if you want
to make stops in other places along the way. It's about 1600km from London to Budapest,
which, with stops, takes two days to drive. To plan your route, try
motoring organizations
The most common cross-Channel options are the
ferry
links between Dover and Calais or
Ostend. However, the quickest way of crossing the Channel is to go via the
Eurotunnel
ser-
vice(
eurotunnel.com
)
,whichoperatesdrive-ondrive-offshuttletrainsbetweenFolkestone
and Calais/Coquelles. The 24-hour service runs every twenty minutes throughout the day.
Once across the Channel, the most direct route to Budapest is via Brussels, Aachen, Co-
logne, Frankfurt, Nürnberg,Linz and Vienna. Toavoid the long queues at Hegyeshalom, con-
sider entering Hungary from Deutsch-Kreutz, just south of Einstadt, instead. The main cause
for any queues is the need to buy an electronic motorway
vignette
(e-Vignette) - compulsory
if you are driving on Hungarian motorways. The shortest vignette you can get is the ten-day
one which costs 2975Ft (around €11); see
motorway.hu
for details. You can buy the vign-
ette online ahead of travelling, or at one of the petrol stations in Austria before you cross the
