Train from Zagreb to Budapest

One more question, if you look at the stops after Vors (in DBahn) , and if you’ve been to any of the towns on the route, any more interesting to spend two hours than others?

Karen, I'm not finding that train on the DB website. What is your travel date?

June 28.
I believe this train only runs in summer months. Looks like there are a bunch of stops along the lake, but would be nice to have cafe or small town to kill a couple of hours.

Yes, that was the problem. The random date I chose wasn't late enough.

I haven't been to any of the stops that train makes, many of which are along the south shore of Lake Balaton. There might at least be nice views from some of the them. Maybe JamesE would have a suggestion. Or Google for photos?

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the ticketing rules on Croatian and Hungarian trains. That fare seems reasonable. Maybe online purchase will be available before you plan to travel. I'd keep bashing away at the Internet.

This past September we took the train from Zagreb to Ljubljana, and we could NOT purchase the tickets online. We could only purchase them from the Zagreb train station. So we purchased our tickets the day before we left for Ljubljana because I had read online that they are cheaper if you buy them the day before, instead of the day of.

Now, I don't know for a fact if this would be true for the train to Budapest, but I think it might be. I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that when you are traveling from Zagreb to an international destination, you cannot purchase the tickets online. Check to see if Seat 61 mentions that. I know Seat 61 is where I found out that we could not purchase our tickets online. And our tickets to Ljubljana were very inexpensive; I think 9 euros one-way. So 29 euros to Budapest could be right.

I think I also read on Someplace international tickets couldn’t be purchased online. But so much planning, so much info, my head is ready to explode. Good advice on buying day before. We are staying near the station in Zagreb.

Kwmwoo,
do you recall if the tickets were for a specific train and time? Reserved or open seating? And like Italy, do we validate tickets before getting on train. Thanks for info.

Hi Karen,
You can believe the Man in Seat61. He knows what he is talking about.

We bought our tickets for a specific train. It was the train that departs Zagreb at 12:35PM for Ljubljana. And we had reserved seats. I don't remember if anyone checked our tickets when we boarded; they might have, but I just don't remember. However, when we crossed into Slovenia, the train stopped and Croatian police came on board to check our tickets and passports. Then about 10 - 15 minutes later, Slovenian police came on board and checked our tickets and Passports. The stop was perhaps 20 minutes. Our train was an older train; we had a compartment. It is similar to the train we took in 2003 from Prague to Krakow. Very different from Spanish trains, if you have traveled on those. Our train was not crowded. The compartment holds 6 people, but there were only the 2 of us, which was good because we had room for our luggage and room to spread out. Of course, I have no idea how popular/crowded the route will be from Zagreb to Budapest. Definitely buy your tickets the day before if you will be in Zagreb then.

I hope this helps. I can't answer your question about whether or not you can get off at a different stop, and then re-board without buying another ticket.

I think we will buy the tickets for the whole journey. Then if we do get off at one of the stops before Budapest, we can just buy another set of tickets into Budapest, which shouldn’t be that much. If we control water intake enjoyer instead of unlimited Barley should be fine. But his bladder is way better than mine!