Travel arrangements:Ron to Budapest: Tuesday 5 September 2000: Charlottesville to Washington Dulles airport via Greyhound Bus, leaving Charlottesville at 12:45 pm, arriving Dulles at 3:05 pm; Dulles to Amsterdam via Northwest/KLM 36, leaving Dulles at 6:05 pm, arriving Amsterdam Wednesday 6 September at 7:35 am; Amsterdam to Budapest via Northwest/KLM 8377, leaving Amsterdam at 1:05 pm, arriving Budapest at 3:10 pm.
Ron returning: Tuesday 19 December 2000: Budapest to Amsterdam via Northwest/KLM 8370, leaving Budapest at 6:45 am, arriving Amsterdam at 9:00 am; Amsterdam to Dulles via Northwest/KLM 35, leaving Amsterdam at 11:35 am, arriving Dulles at 2:30 pm; Greyhound bus from Dulles to Charlottesville, leaving Dulles at 7:05 pm, arriving Charlottesville at 9:30 pm.
Ellen to Budapest: Thursday 5 October 2000: Charlottesville to Washington Dulles airport via Greyhound Bus, leaving Charlottesville at 12:45 pm, arriving Dulles at 3:05; Dulles to Amsterdam via Northwest/KLM 36, leaving Dulles at 6:05 pm, arriving Amsterdam Friday 6 October at 7:35 am; Amsterdam to Budapest via Northwest/KLM 8377, leaving Amsterdam at 1:05 pm, arriving Budapest at 3:10 pm.
Ellen returning: Thursday 2 November 2000: Budapest to Amsterdam via Northwest/KLM 8370, leaving Budapest at 6:45 am, arriving Amsterdam at 9:00 am; Amsterdam to Washington Dulles via Northwest/KLM 35, leaving Amsterdam at 11:35 am, arriving Dulles at 2:30 pm; Van-on-the-Go shuttle from Dulles, arriving Charlottesville at approximately 5:30 pm.
During the several times when one or both of us are in Budapest, we'll be staying in an apartment in the very center of the city just next to the Danube, located at Molnar Ut. 12 in the 5th district. The apartment is rented from Thomas Dombrowski, Budapest Invest AG, phone 36 30 296 0921. [36=country code for Hungary; to dial from the US you must first dial 011, which is the international access code] Another phone number we have been given is a much better emergency contact: cell phone for Craig Keddie, the agent who met Ron on his arrival in Budapest to give him the apartment key is 36 20 931 9727.
The trip outline:
Ron leaves for Budapest on September 5, and returns on December 19. He will meet our good friend Ned Woodhouse in Budapest, and they will travel together for several weeks.
Ned's travel schedule: leave Albany at 3:05pm on Friday Sept 8 on USAirways 2135, arrive Philadelphia 4:10pm. Leave Philadelphia at 5:35pm on USAIRways 894, arrive Frankfurt 7 am Saturday the 9th. Depart Frankfurt 8:45am on Austrian Airlines 7202, arrive Vienna 10am. Ned says, "I should be able to collect my luggage, travel into town to the travel office and leave my extra luggage there, and catch a train by about 1pm. If it's a three-hour journey, and if there's no change of time zone, I should arrive in Budapest about 4pm" on Saturday 9 September.
Ron and Ned plan to plan to leave Budapest on 14 September for Pecs for a few days to experience the culture of a smaller Hungarian town. Then they hope to travel to Croatia by way of Sarajevo, then to Split on the coast, and, if they are lucky, catch a ferry north, up the Dalmatian coast to Rab, a small island south of Rijeka. They will need to get information and visas in Budapest for this part of the trip, and may end up going by land to Rab and then trying to arrange a ferry trip south and back to Rab.
After Croatia, Ron and Ned will go to Vienna, where Ned has a meeting beginning 27 September.
In Vienna, Ron and Ned will be staying at Hotel Quisisana, VI, Windmuhlgasse 6 (tel. 43 1 587 71 55; fax 43 1 587 71 56 33; 43=country code for Austria, 1=city code for Vienna). They arrive Tuesday 26 September and depart Sunday 1 October.
After the meeting, Ned will leave Vienna on Sunday, Oct 1, departing "at the uncivilized hour of 7:20am -- which means Ron has to get up with me about 4:30am" -- on Austrian Airlines 413, arriving Paris at 9:30am. After a leisurely petit dejeuner at De Gaulle airport, he departs Paris at 12 noon on USAirways 27, arriving Philadelphia at 2:10pm, departing Philadelphia at 3:45 on USAirways 764, arriving Albany 4:54.
Ron will go back to Budapest to meet Ellen.
When Ellen arrives on October 6, we will spend the weekend in Budapest, then take the train to Prague on Monday 9 October. We'll spend several days in Prague, staying in the hostel of the Charles University, Kolej 17. listopadu, Patkova 3, Prague 8, Troja, as arranged by astronomy librarian Marek Wolf (wolf@mbox.cesnet.cz), then set off to bicycle back to Budapest. For much of the section in the Czech Republic, we'll use the Czech Greenway, a network of 100-year-old hiking/biking trails between Prague and Vienna. However, instead of following the last part of the route south from Mikulov to Vienna, we plan to go across the western end of the Slovak Republic (map) and cross the Danube into Hungary, probably at the border towns of Komárno/Komárom, continuing along the Danube back to Budapest. We also want to make a side trip to the Tatra Mountains in the northern part of the Slovak Republic (no bikes, since there may already be snow there!).
Ron hasn't decided what he will do after Ellen returns in early November, but he will stay in eastern Europe, perhaps returning to the Croatian coast, perhaps exploring eastern Hungary and eastern Slovakia. He hopes to get a transit visa allowing him to spend 5 days in the Ukraine en route from Slovakia to Romania to visit some of places he didn't have time to see last year.
Modified: 2002-05-25
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