Railway Dog

This was one of the times when travelling with a dog too big to put in a case was a problem. There are lovely sleeping cars from Budapest to Prague, Berlin, Krakow and Warsaw. However a pet without a box can’t be booked into them.

So I had to book an ordinary seat and a dog ticket at the busy (take a number and wait 30 minutes) Budapest Kelati ticket office. The train itself goes from Budapest Nyugati station. 33€ for the dog ticket from Budapest to Krakow, 3€ for my reservation, in early May 2023.

On the platform it was labeled as a train to Vienna (Wien) because half the train went there and on to Berlin, half to Warsaw, via Krakow. So it’s important to be sure to get in your booked seat, or at least the same carriage. The carriages are labeled as to where they are individually going.

My booked seat was in a compartment by the door. By the window was an Arabic and English speaker in his 30’s. He looked a bit kindly concerned when I turned up. After about half an hour the sweety disappeared with all his luggage, I guess to give a lone woman her night time privacy. So I had the compartment to myself, moved to the window and set the climate control cooler. I eventually laid out across 3 seats with my sleeping bag. There was a toilet at the end of the carriage.

The train was due in at about 5:30 in the morning at Krakow. I was rather happy that it ran 80 minutes late, giving extra snoozing time. We waited an unscheduled amount of time in Chechia for an engine when the train split. The night was disturbed briefly several times for passport checks as we passed from Hungary into Slovakia, the Chech Republic, and on to Poland.

Arriving early meant I had a bag to deal with. So I left it with the Freedom Hostel I was staying at. It has en suite rooms you can book outright with a dog fairly inexpensively. The kitchen has a great view.