No repeats of the previous days delay – I knew the metro by now and I was in the centre in no time. I had a few other things to do before seeing more of Budapest, the first of which was to arrange to leave it. I went to the MAV office (Hungarian railways) to book a seat, and found yet another take-a-number system. I took a number and went to play with the touch screen information terminal while I waited.It was quite a long wait, but the system on the touch screen terminal was excellent. I looked up trains to Istanbul, Venice, Bucharest and Athens, so I had quite a lot of food for thought by the time my number was called. It was all getting very complicated. I could go to Istanbul, where I could then connect to Greece easily, but I’d be way ahead of John, Chris and Sunil so we’d probably never regroup. Bucharest would be a good place to stop on the way to Istanbul or Athens, but it seemed silly to go there simply because it was conveniently located. Going to Athens directly was a long trip, and it would probably result in passing the others in Italy somewhere but not managing a proper regroup. Venice was an interesting option, putting me in northern Italy to get to Greece from the other side, and almost certainly meet up with the others en-route, but it meant cutting short on Eastern Europe.

My number was called and I was relieved to find the MAV booking agent spoke very good English.

“I’d like to book an international sleeper service”
“Where you want to go?”
“Venice”, I said, with sudden but not uncharacteristic decisiveness

Ticket booked, I found my first stop of the day at about 1pm. These were the castle labyrinths I’d seen the previous day with Mariana and Dagmar, but we’d been too late to go in. Decending, the atmosphere was great – there was water dripping from the ceiling making a loud echoy plopping noise on the floor. The lighting had been designed to add to the effect rather than just let you see where you were going, and most of the light actually came from oil lamps that were hanging about the place.

I entered the first cavern and became aware of a thudding noise, like someone rhythmically beating a drum a long way away. I eventually worked out that it was coming from a sound system, and thought, why do they feel they need to enhance the atmosphere of the place by adding a soundtrack? There was an Australian student in the same cavern, and I asked what I would later realise to be a very stupid question.

“These cave paintings are reproductions, not originals, aren’t they?”
“Uh, yes” she answered, and chuckled.

Why was she laughing, I wondered? It did seem strange for there to be prehistoric artefacts in a cave system that was at most a few hundred years old. Gradually (and far too slowly, with hindsight) the penny began to drop. It was all fake, and a joke at that. Each cavern grew more ridiculous – the next contained a ‘natural’ fountain of red wine.

The next tunnel led to a series of ‘fossils’, the first being a set of prehistoric footprints, from the long extinct species homo-consumerus. The footprints were wearing Nikes. Televisions, microwaves, and computers followed, and when the Nokia 3210 fossil appeared I thought it had gone far enough. But no, there was more. The centrepiece of the collection, a large rock that had been split open to reveal a contoured interior space – the guidebook said that this huge ‘monolith’ had probably been of ‘huge cultural significance’, perhaps a ‘village meeting point’. Fabulous, except that “an eight foot tall coca-cola bottle” would actually have been a perfectly accurate description of what it was. Or rather, it was a fake fossil of an imaginary eight foot tall coca cola bottle.

The last cavern mercifully just contained paintings and prints. One was labelled “thought to be a map of a larger cave system, though the system was never uncovered.” It was a big thumbprint.

Although I’m making fun of this rather pointless but nevertheless amusing exhibition, the cave system was real enough, built just after the castle. I left the labyrinth somewhat bemused and walked into town with Katelin (the Australian student), where I had a late lunch. I walked back down the main street and bought a ticket for a folk performance in the evening.

I spent the rest of the late afternoon climbing Gellert Hill, where I got an impressive view of the city. Before returning to the city centr fort he show I stopped in at a ‘thermal bath’, one of the natural hot springs in the city. This particular one is supposed to be one of the most expensive and touristy, but it was close, and I was running short of time.

There were no tourists at this place at all. It was difficult even to find anyone who spoke English, though it was very expensive. I followed directions down into the basement of the building past the normal swimming pool, and the women’s thermal bath, a changing area, and a reception desk behind which sat a very stern looking woman who talked at me in Hungarian. I retreated. Eventually I found the place, and after some running around trying to get my stuff secured in a locker and provoking some dismayed head shaking from Hungarian staff, I found my way into the bathing area.

There were two pools, one at 37ºC and one at 40. Other men were sitting round the edge doing not very much, it seemed. I appeared to be the youngest person in the room by about 30 years. Water continuously poured into the pools from elaborately decorated but very worn ceramic ledges. After about ten minutes I got bored and moved from the 37º one into the 40º pool, taking a quick dash into the changing area to check on my stuff in between (I was being paranoid). While I still couldn’t feel the healing energies revitalising my body and mind, the hotter one was a nicer temperature to sit in if you’re not moving round very much (and the convention seemed to be to not move around much).

I wasn’t really convinced that this stuff did what it said on the tin. The other bathers, some of whom probably came here regularly, did not really look particularly radiant. After another ten minutes, I got out and went to sheepishly bother the man with the keys to open my locker.

On the way out I walked along the balcony above the main pool, which was very ornate with about eight columns down each side supporting the balcony on which I was standing. Above that there was a glass roof. The setting reminded me of two scenes from films – Cruel Intentions (which is awful), where the male lead is trying to seduce his date in his private pool, with similar columns, and Goldeneye (one of the best Bond films ever made) when Bond goes to meet Onatopp in the steam room at a posh hotel.

The show was very good and worth the money. It was performed in a very expensively decorated theatre, complete with chandeliers and an orchestra that played in the foyer during the interval. But for all of that it was hidden away in a very boring looking building that might easily have been a sixties or seventies office block. The dancing involved a lot of thigh slapping and leg jiggling, tailored waistcoats and colourful dresses.