The next day, the plan was this: in the morning everyone goes their separate ways, and in the evening, to the thermal baths. I love the railway. Therefore, when I saw some rusty steam trains in a photo, I didn't even think, but immediately wanted to go to them.
First, true, we went to grab breakfast at a hipster vegan cafe with a sky-high rating. Luckily, everything is close by. There are some pluses to living in the center, not just noise and din. The cafe is so hipster that a cake is called "too raw," and the subtitle says "100% raw, 100% vegan, 100% paleo, 100% gluten-free." Practically poison for a rational person. What can you do, I hoped I wouldn't die and gobbled it up. Together with a traditional latte, of course.
Zvarg A warned us that flip-flops are mandatory in the thermal baths. We did grab towels from home, but we messed up with the slippers. To avoid paying exorbitant prices for them in the bathhouse itself, on the way to the train station I popped into a Decathlon, it was right there anyway. I bought sets of slippers for everyone, and for myself also a lumberjack shirt. An interesting detail - the shirt turned out to have a reinforced shoulder part, apparently for carrying a backpack often.
Long story short, I finally made it to the railway station. I had installed the app in advance, so I hoped there would be no problems. Alas, this isn't Switzerland. I didn't manage to buy a ticket, try as I might. I couldn't figure out why. The ride was only two stops, to be fair. Nevertheless, closer to the second one I noticed a ticket inspector, and ran away from him to the back of the train. Luckily, I managed to jump out in time. I figured that for the way back I'd definitely buy a ticket in advance. As they say, if you want to make the Flying Spaghetti Monster laugh, tell him about your plans.
I got out on the platform amidst concrete pillars. There was no sign of a ticket office or even ticket machines nearby. There were, however, some semi-abandoned buildings, a super-long concrete fence, and behind it - a fine specimen of Soviet rolling stock in a half-rotted state. I figured out that the buildings were an auto repair shop and a billiards club. I trudged in the other direction, trying to find an entrance using all possible maps. No luck at all. The fact that every two hundred meters in the fence there were steel doors with combination locks didn't add to the optimism either.
"Something's wrong here," Stirlitz thought.
An unsuccessful attempt to climb into the steam train depot
Google tells me that the object is behind the fence. It's called the Red Star Train Graveyard. But how do I get there? What can you do - a fence is a fence. I walked along it, counting doors with combination and wireless locks, as well as paths to the fence, clearly trampled there for a reason.
After half an hour of sneaking around, I figured I should check the article on that wonderful site for off-the-beaten-path travel, Atlas Obscura, which I had been using as my guide. I usually only read a couple of paragraphs, because why would I need more, I'll see it anyway. (In reality, I'm just incapable of reading a text any longer than that). This time, this principle played a cruel joke on me. It turned out that this steam train depot isn't a museum at all, but an industrial zone. In it, besides the workshops, shards of the past in the form of Soviet steam trains, locomotives, and train cars are also stored. You can only get in there on business, and with documents.
Or, as the site advises, climb over the fence on a Saturday night. But how? It's daytime right now, my weight isn't fit for acrobatics, frankly speaking. My shape is better than a year ago, but still not great.
And still, coffee and the spirit of adventure are bubbling in my veins. Gotta find an option. I evaluated all the available approaches, and understood a few things. In one corner a camera hangs, you can't go there. In another - a workshop, looking operational, also a no-go. In many places there's barbed wire, and it's a total dead end.
On the other hand, the fence is corrugated on the outside, and climbing it is easy. But from the inside, it's smooth. But! Unknown comrades have laid down some bricks and tires on that side to get out of the trap. That makes me happy. But not enough for it to be completely easy. Besides, one of the slippers I bought fell out while I was wandering along the fence. Good thing I found it while I was dilly-dallying back and forth.
Having weighed the risks, pros, and cons, I realized that at this given moment I wouldn't be able to handle the quest, and I needed to retreat. Perhaps, if fate brings me here once more, I'll be better prepared and will be able to repeat the attempt. I settled on that. I went to the platform to wait for a train back, thankfully they are frequent. Unfortunately, I discovered that a ticket can only be bought up to an hour before the train, no later. I missed my window, and I'll have to ride fare-dodging again, damn it!
A little nervously, but I managed to make it back to the station. There I had to wait for the other zvargs so we could head out together to steam and soak.
"A shopping mall in Budapest, while the zvargs had lunch
When I returned to the station, I learned that the Zvargs were still having lunch. I went wherever my eyes led me. They led me, for some reason, to a huge shopping mall. There were a ton of people there, I even shot a video to show you. The mall is connected by skywalks to a multi-story parking garage, on the roof of which there's a little garden. Teenagers scarf down hamburgers, hang out, and make out there. And from the very top, a beautiful view of a mass of railway sorting tracks opens up.
I looked for something interesting to buy, but didn't find anything dear to my heart, except a bronze spoon from a Japanese store. I myself don't know why I need it, but that's how it is, I gave in to an impulse.
When I found out that the zvargs had taken a motor cab, I also went by tram to the Széchenyi baths. We are simple people, we don't ride in cabs. (Actually, over the last three years I've ridden in a taxi at least once a week, often more. I've become a bourgeois). The bathhouse has a whopping 18 pools with different water: cold, warm, hot, mineral, and so on. Hungarians call the bathhouse "Szecska," to avoid the hassle of pronouncing the whole thing. It was built way back in the early 20th century, and even then the bathhouse received almost a million visitors. At first, some of the water was heated artificially, and because of this they just couldn't get in the black. Then, during an expansion and the drilling of a new well, they found thermal water with a temperature of 77 degrees, the hottest in Europe. They switched the heating to thermal, and finally turned a profit.
In the Szecska, besides the pools, there's also a large number of different baths: Turkish, sauna, and all sorts of others that I don't even know the names of. I liked the sauna in the basement the most, where nearby in a dark closet there's a trough with ice for rubbing yourself down. A million-dollar experience! There's also a pool with genuinely cold water there, but I didn't risk climbing into it.
We spent several hours in the bathhouse, soaked properly. Because I bought slippers with massage nubs, by the end of the session I couldn't even walk anymore, it hurt so much. An extreme sports enthusiast, what can you do. Nevertheless, the bathhouse is quite cool in its own right, but there are just way too many people. They are divided, by the way, into the young and the not-so-young roughly equally. It even seems like there are more young ones. Or maybe the brain just looks at young asses and tits first, and avoids the old ones. I'm betting on that option.
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