You arrive at Nyugati station in Budapest. Recent exterior renovations really came out well. This is a Eiffel & Co. design as are a number of the buildings in the neighborhood. From here you can take the metro to whereever you are staying or to a place to store your luggage.

Oh, storing your luggage! At the hotel until check-in time or if you are using an Airbnb, check out "The Lion's Locker" for bag storage and for breakfast (no food on the train).

Then head to the Széchenyi Bath House (book a ticket in advance and get a cabana). The advantage is you get to take a shower as part of the experience and after a night in a train I would think the shower would be nice (especially if you are traveling in warm weather).

Now its noon - thirty. Maybe get into that Airbnb now, but the hotel is still 90 minutes for checkin.....

And sure, LOT has a flight that arrives in Budapest about noon after about 3.5 hour one stop flight. But that will cost you $140 a ticket while the train will be close to $125 a ticket (dbl) and with the train you will save another $75 to $150 in accommodation cost.

The small inconvenience of traveling back and forth to your Krakow hotel to retreive your bags prior to the train departure and the small inconvinience of storing your bags at the other end and showers, etc, not to mention the "romance of the rail" (all blessed night long .. click. click. rattle, rattle ) .............. Train for me every time!.

No, actually for the extra cost of maybe $150 I would fly. But no wrong answer here. And everyone should ride a night train at least once in their life.

Posted by periscope

04/29/24 10:53 AM

2353 posts

Does it matter who operates it?

It can matter in the sense that OEBB Nightjets are becoming the Gold Standard.

@Badger's link above shows the Polish offering with photos and descriptions which appears to be more than adequate. Personally, I'm a big fan on having the full ensuite bathroom on the overnighters.

A EuroNight sleeper train leaves Krakow Glowny at 22:39 every night arriving Bratislava Hlavna at 06:02 & Budapest Nyugati at 08:29.

The Chopin has a modern air-conditioned Polish sleeping-car with 1, 2 & 3 bed compartments with washbasin plus two 1 or 2 bed deluxe compartments with en suite toilet & shower. It also has a couchette car with economical 4 & 6 bunk compartments. In the sleeping-car or couchettes this train is a comfortable, safe & time-effective option.