Budapest - getting there and our sad story
We had it all planned: drive to FRA, fly to Budapest, get the hotel shuttle to our lodging, check in by 11 pm, get a good night's sleep and hit Budapest by bicycle the next day. Well, the first part of the plan worked very well. The shuttle pulled up in front of the hotel at 10:59. But as I was getting out of the car, my wallet fell out of my jacket onto the street. We checked in, went up to the room and I realized I didn't have it. You can guess the rest of the story. The wallet had disappeared.
We spent almost an hour on the internet and international phone cancelling credit and debit cards. THAT part all went very smoothly. Visa even said that our bank has a program to wire money to people who've lost their cards. Sounds good, eh? Except that our bank's business day was over by the time we needed to reach them, and their next business day didn't start until 6 pm of our first day as tourists. We did finally manage to reach them, and they DID finally wire the money, but we were scrimping our florints until about noon on our second day.
Our hotel manager volunteered to let us use his credit card if we needed to book anything before we got the cash. And the front desk guy offered to loan us money if we needed it. We were able to avoid going into debt, though, by being extremely careful with our florints (1 Hungarian florint = 0.004 USD). But I want to give the staff at the hotel a big BIG plug here!
The Burg Hotel in Budapest is on Castle Hill right across the street from Mathias Church. We scored a good internet rate for our 4-night stay, with breakfast included. There's a bus stop right outside the hotel, so you can shoot down into Pest in a jiffy (and back, which is probably more important as it's all uphill - the bus is great!). The breakfast was good with scrambled eggs, sausage (rather like American hot dogs), cereal, sliced meats and cheeses, yoghurt, fresh fruit, etc. The room was small but comfortable and had all the amenities you need in a hotel, like windows that open and summer quilts on the beds. The hot water was a little iffy sometimes, but it never went cooler than luke-warm. The main thing is the staff. Wonderful! helpful, answer any question you can come up with, speak at least English, Italian, French, German as well as Hungarian. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful and sympathetic they were about our missing wallet. Way beyond normal duty. I would therefore rate this hotel 9.5 out of 10 (the hot water.....).
They even gave me a beer to help me get over my shock. What more could you ask?
We spent almost an hour on the internet and international phone cancelling credit and debit cards. THAT part all went very smoothly. Visa even said that our bank has a program to wire money to people who've lost their cards. Sounds good, eh? Except that our bank's business day was over by the time we needed to reach them, and their next business day didn't start until 6 pm of our first day as tourists. We did finally manage to reach them, and they DID finally wire the money, but we were scrimping our florints until about noon on our second day.
Our hotel manager volunteered to let us use his credit card if we needed to book anything before we got the cash. And the front desk guy offered to loan us money if we needed it. We were able to avoid going into debt, though, by being extremely careful with our florints (1 Hungarian florint = 0.004 USD). But I want to give the staff at the hotel a big BIG plug here!
The Burg Hotel in Budapest is on Castle Hill right across the street from Mathias Church. We scored a good internet rate for our 4-night stay, with breakfast included. There's a bus stop right outside the hotel, so you can shoot down into Pest in a jiffy (and back, which is probably more important as it's all uphill - the bus is great!). The breakfast was good with scrambled eggs, sausage (rather like American hot dogs), cereal, sliced meats and cheeses, yoghurt, fresh fruit, etc. The room was small but comfortable and had all the amenities you need in a hotel, like windows that open and summer quilts on the beds. The hot water was a little iffy sometimes, but it never went cooler than luke-warm. The main thing is the staff. Wonderful! helpful, answer any question you can come up with, speak at least English, Italian, French, German as well as Hungarian. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful and sympathetic they were about our missing wallet. Way beyond normal duty. I would therefore rate this hotel 9.5 out of 10 (the hot water.....).
They even gave me a beer to help me get over my shock. What more could you ask?